Context

Climate impacts are already causing irreversible losses and damages, fundamentally reshaping land, livelihoods, ecosystems, and the ability of people to remain safely in their homes. For many communities—especially in small island states, coastal regions, and dryland areas—displacement due to climate impacts is no longer a future risk, but a present reality.

Being uprooted from one’s home, land, or community is itself a profound form of loss and damage. Beyond the physical destruction of assets and livelihoods, displacement entails the erosion of social networks, cultural identity, place-based knowledge, and a sense of belonging — forms of loss that are difficult to quantify yet deeply felt. Moreover, climate displacement is often accompanied by new risks and challenges.

This session will explore how losses and damages leading to displacement, displacement itself, and further losses resulting from it can be tracked and documented so that they can be addressed, averted, and minimized in the future. It brings together government officials, affected communities, local researchers, and financing mechanisms to share experiences and strategies to address loss and damage linked to climate displacement.

The discussion will also explore mechanisms to avert and minimize displacement through anticipatory action, risk mitigation (insurance, social protection), and support for adaptation and mobility with dignity. By connecting community evidence with institutional and financial support systems, this event aims to promote better alignment between local needs and global responses.

Objectives

• 1. Highlight the links between climate mobility and loss and damage, and discuss how L&D in this context can be assessed, documented, and measured.
• 2. Showcase tools and mechanisms for averting and minimizing displacement as a form of loss and damage, and address losses occurring during climate mobility.
• 3. Discuss how global financial and technical assistance mechanisms can support community perspectives on non-economic loss, cultural continuity, and mobility with dignity.

Guiding Questions

• • How are loss and damage being experienced in the context of climate mobility, including non-economic dimensions?
• • What concrete tools and mechanisms can help avert and minimize displacement as a form of loss and damage?
• • How can policies and initiatives ensure that mobility upholds rights, dignity, and cultural continuity?
• • How can mechanisms such as the Loss and Damage Fund support people-centered responses reflecting community priorities, heritage, and social cohesion?

Suggested Speakers

• • GCCM partner country, e.g. Vanuatu
• • IIED government partner (Bangladesh, Somalia, Mali or India)
• • Representative of the Santiago Network Secretariat
• • IIED local research partner (from Bangladesh, Somalia, Mali, India)
• • Rae Baintieti (Banaban Human Rights Defenders Network) / Salote Soqo (UUSC) / Robert Karoro (KiriCAN)
• • ARC representative

Any inquiries for further information may be directed to contact@climatemobility.org.