To:
Dr Ibrahim Cheikh Diong
Executive Director
UNFCCC Loss and Damage Fund
Mr Simon Stiell
Executive Secretary
UNFCCC Secretariat
Chief Secretary|
Govt of Kerala
Dear Dr Ibrahim Diong,
The outset please accept my congratulations on your appointment as the ED of the Fund.
I am an ecologist and occasional UN environmental negotiator (we have crossed paths in the UN CBD negotiations and in the UNEP GEO 7 process), writing this as a concerned Keralite to seek a place holder for our state in the southern part of India in the compensation allocation of the Fund for the massive damages caused by the calamitous landslide and floods of Wayanad in July 2024 which was a glaring result of the climate crisis. I have explained in this article why the Wayanad calamity was a function of the unrelenting climate crisis (the figures of casualties and damages used in the article are from early counts). The scientists at the World Weather Attribution have also established the climate crisis link of the Wayanad disaster, please see their report here (although their information on forest loss in Wayanad is inaccurate).
The people of Wayanad- a carbon negative landscape/society- ought to be compensated for the massive losses they have suffered due to the impact of the climate crisis in the making of which they have no role at all, indeed its role is negative. The Kerala govt has estimated Rs 22190 million (1 USD = Rs 86) for recovery and reconstruction. This figure does not include the compensation for the loss of lives (359 persons), permanent disabilities (95) or severe injuries (378), nor does it include the loss of crops and other resources. The total loss would be way above Rs 50000 million. The resources of the Kerala govt and society to bear this are too limited. The Federal govt’s priorities do not exactly match the concerns of Wayanad and hence its support has been too little and too late.
It is all the more important that the Fund provides the people of Wayanad the compensation for this massive loss.
I know you would need formal submission from the Kerala govt and the Govt of India has to endorse the same but at the moment the Kerala govt’s institutions dealing with environment and science issues do not seem to have the capacity or inclination to make such a request to the Fund, as in many other developing countries. Therefore I am writing this as a concerned citizen to be considered as a placeholder, until such a request for compensation would come from the formal channels.
In considering the Wayanad disaster the Fund may also be informed by the deluge a large part of Kerala had to suffer in 2018, another devastating case of the climate crisis that played out in a state where we nurture forests over half of our terrestrial area and we had no role, historical or current, in the creation of the climate crisis. I am sharing an essay I wrote in 2018 explaining the deluge as a function of the climate crisis.
I shall be available to provide any further supporting material available in open sources as and when needed.
I also take this opportunity to wish that the Fund be able to secure enough funds from the industrial economies by way of reparations for the climate crisis that they have created and assure the support of my network in doing so.
Assuring you of my highest consideration,
S Faizi PhD
Ecologist, UN Environmental Negotiator
Trivandrum, India
