A historical step towards transformative climate justice or repeating history? The role of power and politics in shaping the UNFCCC Loss and Damage fund and funding arrangements

Abstract

People and places least responsible for causing climate change are already experiencing devastating losses and damages. The establishment of the new fund and funding arrangements to address Loss and Damage at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) offered a historic opportunity to contribute to transformative climate justice by placing justice and disproportionate impacts from climate change on the agenda. But does and can the establishment of the fund and funding arrangements for Loss and Damage confront the underlying and historical power dynamics and root causes of vulnerability that have contributed to climate injustices in the first place? This thesis examines this question by exploring how discursive power and politics are articulated through struggles over legitimate knowledges, subjectivities and authorities in the negotiation processes leading up to the endorsement of the L&D fund at COP28. Drawing on participatory observation and analysis of contributions from different parties to selected negotiations, meetings and decisions in the years preceding COP28, the thesis argues that the development of the fund and funding arrangements risks sustaining and re-producing historical and continuing global inequalities and vulnerabilities to climate risks, albeit not without resistance. By reproducing historical North-South subjectivities and privileging technical, neoliberal rationalities and scientific knowledge, I argue that important losses and damages remain obscured. At the same time, the analysis demonstrates the resistive power of different actors and coalitions in advocating for a climate justice fund that recognises the historical responsibilities of Global North.