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Characterizing loss and damage from climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 938–939 (2014)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 28 January 2015

This article has been updated

Policymakers are creating mechanisms to help developing countries cope with loss and damage from climate change, but the negotiations are largely neglecting scientific questions about what the impacts of climate change actually are.

Mitigation efforts have failed to prevent the continued increase of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions. Adaptation is now unlikely to be sufficient to prevent negative impacts from current and future climate change1. In this context, vulnerable nations argue that existing frameworks to promote mitigation and adaptation are inadequate, and have called for an international mechanism to deal with residual climate change impacts, or 'loss and damage'2.

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Change history

  • 07 January 2015

    In the Commentary 'Characterizing loss and damage from climate change' (Nature Clim. Change 4, 938–939; 2014) it is incorrectly implied that the UNFCCC has an official definition for loss and damage. Whilst the definition is correctly quoted from a UNFCCC literature review, this was a working definition for the purpose of that review. There has been no formal discussion under the UNFCCC on what the term 'loss and damage' signifies. This correction notice has been published after print 7 January 2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK

    Rachel James, Friederike Otto, Daniel Mitchell & Myles Allen

  2. Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6BB, Earley Gate, UK

    Hannah Parker & Rosalind Cornforth

  3. Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AB, Whiteknights, UK

    Emily Boyd

  4. Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK

    Myles Allen

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  1. Rachel James
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Correspondence to Rachel James.

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James, R., Otto, F., Parker, H. et al. Characterizing loss and damage from climate change. Nature Clim Change 4, 938–939 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2411

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