New tool to value economic and non-economic climate impact

The toolkit is being launched in conjunction with the announcement of the 25 inaugural Saleemul Huq Memorial Scholarship winners, who will use the toolkit to value the impact of climate change in their communities as they develop local solutions.

The development of C-CIQ has been led by IIED principal researcher Ritu Bharadwaj. In launching the toolkit, she said: “Climate change is having a profound impact on communities around the world in vastly different ways. The challenge has always been how best to fully calculate the value of this impact.

“Communities in developing countries are often asset-poor, so the cost of climate change appears relatively small. However, the non-economic impacts can be immense.

“For the Loss and Damage Fund to fairly compensate developing countries, there needs to be proper accounting of the true cost of climate change. This means putting a value on economic losses, but also on non-economic impacts such as mental health and biodiversity loss.

“The C-CIQ tool has been developed to help communities calculate the true cost of climate change, while also helping leaders to develop practical solutions to adapt to the new reality.”

The toolkit is designed to be accessible to communities that have traditionally been excluded from complex climate assessment processes.  

The information gathered through the use of this toolkit has the potential to inform how the Loss and Damage Fund supports developing countries.

The 25 Saleemul Huq Memorial Scholarship winners will be given training to use the toolkit. Their projects span multiple continents and dozens of countries, including India, Kenya, Ecuador, South Africa, Colombia, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The scholarship was set up in memory of environmental and climate change giant Professor Saleemul Huq, who established and led IIED’s climate change research group. He went on to lead the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh.