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Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

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Project • CAF2015-RR02-CMY-Singh, CAF2014-RR02-NMY-Singh

Developing and Promoting a People-centred Approach to Assess and Address Impacts of Climate Change Induced Loss and Damage

Loss and Damage (L&D) from climate change has emerged as a new challenge for scientists, policymakers, development professionals and the climate community. In some parts of the world, the impacts of climate change will be too extreme for effective adaption. Stakeholders therefore need to be able to predict scenarios and measure its impacts. An effective methodology to assess climate-induced loss and damage is required, based on context-specific analysis. This can best be achieved through the merging of scientific and community knowledge. ActionAid, along with the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN) and Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) will pilot this research and capacity-building project in five countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam). Merging scientific data and community knowledge, the first stage of the project will draw on scientific data to identify regional weather patterns and predictions. Scientists and community members will be brought together to share their perspectives and jointly develop context-specific scenarios. The project will then trial a people-centered approach at community-level to assess and address the impacts of climate change-induced loss and damage. The project will be implemented in 7 hazard-prone villages across 5 countries, covering various geo-climatic zones and hazard risks. This assessment methodology will assist policymakers, communities, development practitioners and other stakeholders to assess and address climate change-induced loss and damage, and to strengthen their resilience to climate change. The involvement of ADRRN and CANSA will bring key disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation practitioners into this project, to help build the capacity of additional relevant stakeholders, and to to integrate the loss and damage perspective into existing resilience thinking, practice and policies. The project will produce a publication on the methodology of assessing loss and damage, and will host two capacity building workshops in South and South East Asia.