Pacific and Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) sit on opposite sides of the planet but share a common climate reality: both regions face escalating, climate-driven loss of culture, land, health, identity and community cohesion that existing economic loss and damage instruments were never designed to capture. Non-economic loss and damage (NELD), which includes the loss of ancestral land, traditional knowledge, cultural heritage, mental health and social cohesion and others, remains the least understood and least resourced category of loss and damage, even as both regions push for the operationalised Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) to not only recognise but also to finance it. The Pacific Loss and Damage Capacity and Capability Project (LDCC) and the Building Our Loss and Damage Response Project (BOLD) are working across Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Niue, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, the territory of Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, to build the evidence base, tools and national capacity to identify, document and respond to NELD. Similar initiatives are also seen in the Caribbean following experiences with major successive hurricanes. The event aims to facilitate a direct exchange between Pacific and Caribbean practitioners, negotiators and communities on how each region defines, documents and advocates for NELD, what has worked in community-level documentation, and what a genuinely South-South approach to non-economic loss could look like, including how it can shape the design and delivery of support from the FRLD and other climate finance mechanisms.

Venue

Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion

Speakers

Keynote: Honourable Hu 'akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni (Pacific Political Champion-Loss and Damage) (tbc), Mr. Mike Waiwai, Director Vanuatu - Department of Climate Change, Dr. Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Climate Envoy, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Dr. Mark Bynoe, Director, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), Caribbean representative (tbc), Moderator: Mr. Patrick Pringle - Climate Analytics