Loss and damage fund loses its biggest backer

Leading climate expert Saleemul Huq passes away, leaves behind a legacy of climate justice

Saleemul Huq, a leading voice on international climate discourses, climate crisis adaptation and climate justice from the Global South, passed away at his home in Dhaka, Bangladesh on October 28. An expert on the links between the climate crisis adaptation, environment and development, loss and damages, Huq was among the authors of the third, fourth, and fifth assessment reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2022, Nature magazine listed him among the top 10 global scientists. He was director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Dhaka and a professor at the Independent University, Bangladesh. He co-founded the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), an independent think tank focused on environmental policy after finishing his PhD from Imperial College London, UK. He was a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) based in the UK and a senior adviser on locally led adaptation with the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). He was part of multiple teams that advised the UN and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since the formation of the UNFCCC.

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At a time when climate negotiations were dominated by leaders and bureaucrats from the developed world, this British-Bangladeshi professor educated the global climate community about the crisis faced by the most climate-vulnerable countries. He advocated for locally led adaptation from the experience of Bangladesh. A framework that emphasises the role of local communities, community-based organisations, small businesses, community members, citizen groups, local governments, and private sector entities at the lowest administrative levels in decision-making around climate adaptation interventions. Locally led adaptation helped rural communities to find their research-based solutions to problems, such as improving flood embankments and adjusting different cropping patterns in response to the climate crisis. This was when adaptation was pushed as a top-down idea through the UNFCCC processes to most climate-vulnerable countries in the Global South. Huq took farmers from Bangladesh to UNFCCC negotiations and got them to talk about their experiences of living with the climate crisis and adapting to the changes. He brought together the Least Developed Countries (LDC) including Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Nepal from South Asia, and advised them to create a global movement that helped these countries to navigate challenging global negotiations and secure support from the international community.

Huq pioneered the concept of loss and damage, the phrase increasingly now used to refer to the environmental and social deterioration that can be scientifically attributed to the increase in global temperatures of at least one degree Celsius due to greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution. He advocated for a loss and damage programme and a fund for the countries in the Global South that are disproportionately hit by loss and damages by the climate crisis. At COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, countries reached a historic decision to establish and operationalise a loss and damage fund. This was possible because of the longstanding advocacy by Huq and his colleagues.

For Indian researchers, Huq’s work on locally led adaptation and loss and damages offers many insights. In particular, his ideas could help to bridge the gap between national and state climate policies and various ways in which frontline communities across the country are adapting to climate change or shifting from vulnerable locations.

In his last article co-written with Farhana Sultana, Huq called wealthy nations to start putting real funding towards loss and damage while ramping up their mitigation and adaptation efforts, and reining in the influence of the fossil fuel industry on climate policies. We can do justice to his memory and legacy by continuing the climate adaptation and justice initiatives started by him, especially supporting the establishment of the loss and damage fund and mechanism.

Ajmal Khan AT researches climate crisis adaptation in India, is a visiting faculty at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and a fellow at the South Asia Institute, Harvard University. The views expressed are personal