Abstract Loss and Damage (L&D) due to climate change from human activity is now an accepted scientific fact. After years of collecting data, analysing samples and changes overtime, writing reports, applying various models and developing theories, the agreement to take action and provide funding for L&D to vulnerable countries was finally agreed to at the United Nations Conference of Parties 27 (COP) on 20 November 2022. The question needs to be asked why did this take so long? And was it absolutely necessary to wait for the conclusive proof about L&D? Echoes of the ignored precautionary principle from International Law come to mind as sadly, vulnerable countries, already experiencing the most serious impacts of climate change, are left to adapt and mitigate the harsh effects hitting their shores. Audrey Brown-Pereira’s poem “They Taking pictures of us in the water” paints the real-life experiences faced by vulnerable countries, who, are ‘leading the charge of their own self rescue.” This paper seeks to provide a complete background of the topic of climate change loss and damage (CCLD), tracing its conceptual development overtime from 1824–2025 and into the future. It analyses what happened over these four epochs and explores how justice has developed in these epochs. To understand CCLD there is a need to analyse its historical evolution as that can provide the platform for improved impact. The originality of this research centres on being the first to explore with a justice lens the full emergence of CCLD overtime.
Alicia Phillips (Wed,) studied this question.