The longer it takes to transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, the more costs accrue as climate change accelerates.

Climate change caused at least US$2.8 trillion (£2.1 trillion) in global costs known as loss and damage between 2000 and 2019, according to the UN Environment Programme. Loss and damage refers to the social, economic, cultural and environmental harms experienced by people or communities as a consequence of disruptive events or processes, such as mining.

In climate change governance, loss and damage impacts are more specifically those that can’t be avoided or mitigated, and should ideally be compensated. Projected loss and damage costs for developing countries alone could reach US$290-580 billion per year by 2030.

Our ongoing research focuses on how the opening of new coal mines prevents the ending of a fossil fuel-reliant global economy. A key part of this involves investigating how loss and damage is calculated in communities affected by coal mining and who pays, or doesn’t pay, for it.

Read more: We can finally measure the damage each new coal, gas or oil project will do to people and nature

Mostly calculations of loss and damage in the mining context use a market replacement price model. At best, this pays the owner – of the field, cow, sheep etc – the local market price for the thing that will be lost at the time it is lost. Economists also sometimes use income and production approaches, which add changes to future income streams or production functions to show more aggregated economic effects. Our new method is more holistic than these.

Each fossil fuel asset has a lifecycle:........

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