Talk:Loss and damage (climate change)

Not a dictionary definition

Judging by the BBC report of the 2012 UN climate talks, "Loss and damage" seems to be an accepted term to describe an agreement about compensation for the effects climate change. Or something like that! Sionk (talk) 21:15, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed move/deletion

I'm not too experienced at this, but it seems to me that this page should definitely be moved, if not deleted. "Loss and damage" does not always refer to loss and damage due to climate change. If this article is about loss and damage due to climate change, let's move it to a new section on Climate change. TeragR | talk 05:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

This is odd. I'd expect that "loss and damage" would, if worthy of an article at all, be a legal term or something, and having to do with insurance claims and such. But, four of the five first Google results for "loss and damage" do indeed point to climate change stuff, including a UN page (the other one does indeed point to this which seems to be legal-type discussion of the difference in law between "loss" and "damage" and so forth). Anyway, I'm not 100% this page title isn't legit. If and when an article Loss and damage (law) is created, this one could be renamed to Loss and damage (climate change) and the page Loss and damage could be a disambiguation page listing both. But, according to Wikipedia tradition, if and until Loss and damage (law) is created, it's possible that this page should get to keep its current name. Unless its confusing. Herostratus (talk) 06:50, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I think this name is probably confusing to at least some readers. I suspect the best way forward is to create Loss and damage (law). DES ^(talk) 16:39, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, I was going to do this (as a short stub), but there's already an extensive article, Damages which may cover this. Although "damage" is not the same as "damages". Most of the use of the term "loss and damage" seems to be specific to loss and damage during shipping, I guess because the 1916 Cummins amendment the Interstate Commerce Act uses the term. The 1919 book The law of loss and damage claims; including the Cummins amendment, Bill of lading act, Twenty-eight hour law, and Federal control act which you can read here seems to come up a lot. Although the article Loss and Damage Are Not Interchangeable Under CFAA–District Court Blows Right Past CFAA’s 'Loss' Requirement in Sysco Corp. v. Katz which I tagged earlier is about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and goes into detail about "loss" vs "damage". Interesting, but just one guy's opinion. The template {{Tort law}} has a bunch of articles. Bottom line, I don't think that Loss and damage (law) should be created. Herostratus (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Maybe add a disambiguation hatnote to this article, pointing to Damages. Is 'Loss and damages' a legal term, or simply two words which mean what they say? Sionk (talk) 21:48, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

More or less the latter, I think. Of course with the law things can always get technical. Just from looking at it real quick, it looks like under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act "damage" means "impairment to the integrity and/or functioning of a thing" and "loss" means "financial cost". I suppose that under the Cummins Amendment regarding goods shipped, "damage" is similar but "loss" may just mean "we can't find it", although I'm not sure. Here we see where a person bought a single-user license and let 100 people use it, but the plaintiff was unable to show "damage" because this didn't impair the integrity of any system, or "loss" because this didn't cause the plaintiff to spend any extra money (I guess loss of revenue can't be assumed or doesn't count as a "loss", or something). IANAL so I'm kind of over my pay grade here though. Herostratus (talk) 00:20, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Hatnote looks fine! I've asked the original author to come back here and contribute. Sionk (talk) 10:26, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello, coming to this 10 years later and wondering how you all feel about the title now? I wonder if the article should be refocused to be called Loss and Damage Fund? The actual impacts/losses and their quantification are probably better covered in the articles economic analysis of climate change, climate finance, effects of climate change? Pinging User:TeragR, User:Herostratus, User:DESiegel, User:Sionk. EMsmile (talk) 16:07, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

User:Sionk, I think the title is not optimal. It certainly puts me in the mind of the legal concept of loss and damage. I will say that this WikiNav chart looks fairly typical for an article of this type, going by my very limited experience, and if I'm reading it correctly (its quite possible I'm not) people aren't coming here by mistake. If they were, I would think there would be at least some going to Damage (the legal concept) from the hatnote here, and there isn't.

Still... I don't like it. Even if the problem isn't big, I think that a change is called for. I don't know why I (or someone) didn't do the change proposed above, but ten years down the line, your solution seems the best: refocus the article and rename to "Climate Change Fund". However, this would require significant edits to the article, correct? I'm don't have the qualifications or interest to do do that. Are you, or do you know anyone who might be? That would have to come first or simultaneous with the name change. If nobody can/will make the edits, maybe we should go with the solution proposed above (make a redirect "Loss and damages (law)" etc. Herostratus (talk) 17:50, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this tool: this WikiNav chart. - We could also post at the talk page of WikiProject Climate Change to perhaps draw the attention of someone who knows more about this topic? EMsmile (talk) 20:57, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a loooong time since this was last discussed. I'd be happier if the article was renamed to something like Loss and damage (climate change), on the basis there are suggestions the term is used more widely in other contexts. Considering there has been a COP gathering over the last few weeks, it would be interesting to know the page view stats. If "Loss and damage" is a rarely visited page, it might not be worth too much of our time tweaking. Sionk (talk) 14:01, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah Loss and damage (climate change) is the best name I think. Loss and damage from climate change might be even better but its two characters longer and the title mavens won't like that. Here is a take on of what searching on the term "loss and damage" would give you: User:Herostratus/loss and damage.

Then we don't have to rewrite and narrow the article. Altho maybe we should, given the existence of those other articles, but when and if that is done we can revisit the title question again. Herostratus (talk) 05:19, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I am broadly in agreement with this although when I look at the proposed short description of the article then I am a bit concerned. It says there: "Harm caused by climate change" or "harm due to anthropogenic climate change". I looked up what it says about loss and damage in the glossary of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group 2 and there it says on page 2914:

"Loss and Damage, and losses and damages: Research has taken Loss and Damage (capitalised letters) to refer to political debate under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) following the establishment of the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage in 2013, which is to ‘address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.’ Lowercase letters (losses and damages) have been taken to refer broadly to harm from (observed) impacts and (projected) risks and can be economic or non-economic (Mechler et al., 2018)." I'll copy that also to the article. So I think Loss and damage (climate change) as a new article title would work but we have to rethink the short description of the article. EMsmile (talk) 11:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I've made some quick changes. How about this for a new short description: "Concept to address adverse effects of climate change"? Either way, we could go ahead with the move to the new name of Loss and damage (climate change), right? And we would set up loss and damage (disambiguation)? Where should a search for "loss and damage" take people? To the term in law or the term in climate change? EMsmile (talk) 12:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I've moved the page to Loss and damage (climate change) ...it opens the way to creat a disambiguation page at Loss and damage (currently a redirect) if anyone feels the need. Sionk (talk) 18:42, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Super, thanks! I think a disambiguation page is useful, it could look like this, right?: User:Herostratus/loss and damage. EMsmile (talk) 21:55, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I did this. Herostratus (talk) 10:16, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the new disambiguation article should have this title: loss and damage (disambiguation), and the primary topic should probably be Loss and damage (climate change). EMsmile (talk) 22:01, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Recent edits that discuss compensation

Edits in August by Chidiofo06 claim that the L&D agreement is about 'compensation'. However this does not seem to be the term that Annex 1 countries are using or how most sources are reporting the developments on L&D. I suggest rewriting both the lead and the understanding L&D sections to avoid confusing the reader. The meaning of L&D is still very contested, and it is important to explain this. Richarit (talk) 14:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, please go ahead. (no reply from User:Chidiofo06 to date; pinging them again just in case) EMsmile (talk) 13:05, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, have made those edits. Have left in some text about compensation/reparations but it is no longer getting undue weight relative to other literature. Have also: added more information to the lead; created and moved content into a section on 'strengthened agreement on funding' linked to climate finance article; moved the content about IPCC research to a separate section from other sections on negotiations; added a few other sources. Richarit (talk) 11:47, 20 February 2024 (UTC)