By Cushla Loomb
For many Pacific Island nations, climate change isn’t a distant threat or an abstract statistic – it’s an everyday reality reshaping homes, traditions, and futures.
Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, increasing temperatures and severe weather events – from cyclones to drought to unpredictable deluges – all combine to threaten traditional ways of life, and longstanding cultural practices.
The Pacific region is among the world’s most exposed to climate impacts, putting immense strain on communities, infrastructure, and natural environments. Recognising this disproportionate impact, the international community has begun to address not only adaptation and mitigation but also the concept of ‘loss and damage’ – the irreversible consequences of climate change, which can’t be avoided even with robust mitigation or adaptation efforts.
The establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at the United Nations Climate Change ‘Conference of Parties’ marks a pivotal moment. This fund is designed to support countries most affected by climate change impacts, providing resources to address both economic losses (like infrastructure destruction) and non-economic losses (such as loss of traditional knowledge).
For Pacific Island countries, where the options for adaptation are often limited by geography and resources, the fund offers new avenues for resilience building. However, it also raises complex questions about how needs are assessed and prioritised. Central to this process are vulnerability assessments – which offer critical insights into sensitivities, adaptive capacities, and exposure to risk.
This article explores the background to the Loss and Damage Fund, its significance for Pacific Island nations, and how comprehensive vulnerability assessments can inform loss and damage considerations.
The loss and damage fund: a new chapter
The concept of ‘loss and damage’ has evolved over decades within international climate negotiations. While early frameworks focused primarily on mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (adjusting systems to cope with anticipated impacts), it became increasingly clear that some consequences – such as land loss due to sea level rise or cultural heritage destruction – are unavoidable. These irreversible impacts drove calls for dedicated support mechanisms.
At COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in 2022, parties reached a historic agreement to establish a Loss and Damage Fund specifically targeted at assisting developing countries vulnerable to adverse climate impacts. The fund was further operationalised at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, setting out governance structures, financing arrangements, eligibility criteria, and modalities for disbursement. Unlike previous funding streams that emphasised adaptation or disaster response, this mechanism recognises that certain losses require unique consideration.
Pacific Island countries have long advocated for loss and damage finance. Their experiences – ranging from communities displaced by rising tides to lost agricultural productivity due to saltwater intrusion – highlighted gaps in global support systems. The fund represents both an achievement in international advocacy and a new opportunity for targeted assistance.
What does the fund mean for Pacific Island countries?
For nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and others – the Loss and Damage Fund signals a shift towards recognition of their existential vulnerabilities. Unlike larger economies with diversified assets or adaptive capacity through technological innovation, these islands face unique constraints:
*Geographic exposure: Many islands are low lying or have limited land area above projected sea level rise scenarios.
Economic sensitivity: Economies often rely on sectors highly sensitive to climate change (e.g., agriculture or fisheries).
*Social vulnerability: Communities can be remote and isolated, with limited food security, or access to essential health or social services.
*Cultural heritage: Identity is closely tied to place; loss of land can mean loss of culture and identity.
The fund provides financial resources not just for immediate disaster relief but also to address longer-term consequences such as relocation planning when entire villages become uninhabitable or restoring livelihoods disrupted by environmental changes.
However, access to the fund requires robust demonstration of need, a process still being worked through by many countries. Developing fair and equitable frameworks for accessing loss and damage funds is challenging, given differing resources and capabilities across nations. Vulnerability assessments play a key role here, serving as information gathering and evidence bases, that governments can use to seek support under the framework.
Climate vulnerability assessments: Why they matter
A climate vulnerability assessment systematically evaluates how susceptible a system – be it a community, sector or ecosystem – is to harm from climate hazards. It covers:
*Sensitivity: How severely those exposed will be affected; factors include dependency on climate-sensitive livelihoods or fragile infrastructure.
*Adaptive capacity: The ability of people or institutions to anticipate risks, respond effectively or recover afterwards; shaped by ability to pay, governance quality or access to technology.
*Exposure: The degree to which people or assets are subject to climatic threats – in the present day, and into the future (e.g., proximity to coastlines exposed to storm surges)
Recent work by Beca with Climate Change Cook Islands assessed vulnerabilities across all 12 inhabited islands, providing a comprehensive baseline developed through participatory engagement. Comprehensive vulnerability assessments like these are important as small, remote islands can be under-represented in terms of national level advocacy for funding support.
As part of the Enhancing National Adaptation Programme, Climate Change Cook Islands wanted a comprehensive, fair representation and consistent assessment across all islands, to make sure that there are no introduced biases when considering where the greatest vulnerabilities and therefore priorities for adaptation exist. A key component of this work was therefore to develop a transparent and repeatable framework for vulnerability assessment.
The resulting assessment provided over 3000 data points, providing an excellent baseline for understanding vulnerability.
Informing loss and damage assessments
Integrating vulnerability assessment findings into loss and damage frameworks is essential – especially given the difficulty of quantifying non-economic losses. Vulnerability assessments can highlight less tangible damages such as disruption of customary land tenure systems or psychological stress associated with lost social cohesion.
In the Cook Islands, it’s also the social realities behind these trends that demand our attention. Storms can cut off ferry services, and strand families for days without access to medical care – potentially a crisis for elderly residents or those with health concerns. The decline of coral reefs not only affects ecosystems, but also impacts livelihoods tied to them. Yet, despite these challenges, Cook Island communities demonstrate remarkable resilience through strong social bonds, a blend of tradition with technology, and deep care for future generations.
For example, a village facing chronic flooding might use assessment findings to justify investment in raised housing platforms, funded through the loss and damage mechanism – or advocate for relocation support if risks are deemed insurmountable.
Towards integrated responses
Operationalising the Loss and Damage Fund marks an important step forward in global solidarity with frontline states like those in the Pacific – but its effectiveness hinges on robust processes for identifying needs and allocating resources fairly and equitably.
Comprehensive climate vulnerability assessments provide essential foundations for these processes, as they:
*enable nuanced understanding of who or what is most at risk – and why;
*inform strategic choices about how best to deploy finite funds;
*elevate voices often marginalised in technical debates; and
*foster accountability between donors, funders and recipients alike.
As climate change intensifies, the integration of vulnerability assessment methodologies into loss and damage frameworks will remain central – not only for securing financial support but also ensuring interventions genuinely build resilience over time.
For Pacific Island countries, with their unique exposures yet remarkable adaptive capacity, the path forward depends on harnessing both scientific rigour and community wisdom, so responses honour local values while meeting urgent needs.
Cushla Loomb, Beca’s Climate Risk and Resilience Business director, has over 23 years’ experience in climate risk assessment and adaptation planning across many sectors in the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.
