The ‘national turn’ in climate change loss and damage governance research: constructing the L&D policy landscape in Tuvalu

Loss and damage (L&D) is now a key area of climate policy. Yet studies of L&D governance have focused disproportionately on the international level while the national scale of analysis has been overlooked. Recent developments in the UNFCCC negotiations and a growing call for a ‘science of loss’ that can support policy-makers to address L&D suggest the need for a greater understanding of L&D governance at the national level. How do national policy-makers understand the concept of L&D? What types of policies have been developed, implemented and funded to address L&D? We study the paradigmatic case of Tuvalu to illustrate the value of turning to the national level of analysis, while recognizing that other countries might frame L&D and its relevance for the national context differently, and thus devise a diverse set of policy responses. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with national stakeholders and a systematic policy review using methods of interpretive policy analysis, we show that the concept of L&D was introduced in official documentation in 2012 and is not explicitly distinguished from adaptation. We find that managing L&D constitutes a complex governance system with competencies and responsibilities diffused across different national actors and multiple governance scales. As conceptualized by policy-makers and within policy documents, L&D is closely tied to issues related to national sovereignty, human mobility, infrastructure investment and protection of the Exclusive Economic Zone. We conclude by suggesting that there is a need for a ‘national turn’ in research on L&D governance to produce knowledge that will support policy-makers, but also argue that national level analyses will always need to be situated within a multi-scalar context

Governing people on the move in a warming world: Framing climate change migration and the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement

Different ways of framing the nexus between climate change and migration have been advanced in academic, advocacy and policy circles. Some understand it as a state-security issue, some take a protection (or human security) approach and yet others portray migration as an adaptation or climate risk management strategy. Yet we have little insight into how these different understandings of the ‘problem’ of climate change-related migration are beginning to shape the emergence of global governance in the climate regime. Through a focus on the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement we argue that these different framings of climate change migration shape how actors understand the appropriate role of the TFD, including the substantive scope of its mandate; its operational priorities; the nature of its outputs and where it should be situated in the institutional architecture. We show that understanding the different framings of the nexus between climate change and migration – and how these framings are contested within the UNFCCC – can help to account for institutional development in this area of climate governance

Understanding the Politics and Governance of Climate Change Loss and Damage

This introduction to the 2023 special issue of Global Environment Politics brings questions related to politics and political processes to the forefront in the study of climate change loss and damage. The aim of avoiding the detrimental impacts of climate change has been at the heart of the international response to global climate change for more than thirty years. Yet the development of global governance responses to climate change loss and damage—those impacts that we cannot, do not or choose not to prevent or adapt to—has only over the last decade become a central theme within the discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Loss and damage has also become a research topic of growing importance within an array of disciplines, from international law to the interdisciplinary environmental social sciences. However, the engagement of scholars working in the fields of political science and international relations has been more limited so far. This is surprising because questions about how to best respond to loss and damage are fundamentally political, as they derive from deliberative processes, invoke value judgments, imply contestation, demand the development of policies, and result in distributional outcomes. In this introduction we describe the context and contributions of the research articles in the special issue. By drawing on a wide range of perspectives from across the social sciences, the articles render visible the multifaceted politics of climate change loss and damage and help to account for the trajectory of governance processes

The Politics of (and Behind) the UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage Mechanism

Despite being one of the most controversial issues to be recently treated within climate negotiations, Loss and Damage (L&D) has attracted little attention among scholars of International Relations (IR). In this chapter we take the “structuralist paradox” in L&D negotiations as our starting point, considering how IR theories can help to explain the somewhat surprising capacity of weak parties to achieve results while negotiating with stronger parties. We adopt a multi-faceted notion of power, drawing from the neorealist, liberal and constructivist schools of thought, in order to explain how L&D milestones were reached. Our analysis shows that the IR discipline can greatly contribute to the debate, not only by enhancing understanding of the negotiation process and related outcomes but also by offering insights on how the issue could be fruitfully moved forward. In particular, we note the key importance that discursive power had in the attainment of L&D milestones: Framing L&D in ethical and legal terms appealed to standards relevant beyond the UNFCCC context, including basic moral norms linked to island states’ narratives of survival and the reference to international customary law. These broader standards are in principle recognised by both contending parties and this broader framing of L&D has helped to prove the need for action on L&D. However, we find that a change of narrative may be needed to avoid turning the issue into a win-lose negotiation game. Instead, a stronger emphasis on mutual gains through adaptation and action on L&D for both developed and developing countries is needed as well as clarity on the limits of these strategies. Examples of such mutual gains are more resilient global supply chains, reduction of climate-induced migration and enhanced security. As a result, acting on L&D would not feel as a unilateral concession developed countries make to vulnerable ones: it would rather be about elaborating patterns of collective action on an issue of common concern

Loss and damage: a critical discourse analysis of Parties' positions in climate change negotiations

The years-long negotiations on loss and damage (L&D) associated with climate change impacts reached a milestone with the adoption of the Paris Agreement, sanctioning the permanence of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) created in 2013. The WIM aims at advancing knowledge gathering, coordination and support to address L&D associated with extreme and slow onset events in vulnerable developing countries (Decision 2/CP.19). Despite being among the most controversial issues to be recently treated in climate change negotiation, L&D has attracted little attention in the field of international relations. This paper aims at addressing this gap by reconstructing the emergence and evolution of the negotiating positions on L&D of developing and developed countries. It employs a critical discourse analytical approach and builds on Fairclough's three-dimensional framework for critical discourse analysis, taking decision 2/CP.19 as the core communicative event. Consistently, the decision is analysed at three different levels: as a text (micro-scale); as a discursive practice (meso-scale); and as a social practice (macro-scale). The analysis makes use of a wide range of materials including previous decisions, High Level Segment statements and Parties submissions. It reconstructs Parties' conflicting views on the positioning of L&D vis-a-vis the adaptation space (L&D as a part of, or as beyond adaptation) and the scientific, ethical and legal arguments employed to support these standpoints. It highlights, in particular, the strategic importance which the compensation argument' had in determining developing countries' capacity to influence the UNFCCC process up to the inclusion of a specific article on L&D in the Paris Agreement. While calls for compensation might have lost momentum as a result of the Warsaw and Paris talks, the paper argues that their potential is far from exhausted. They in fact imply a more general request for climate justice which the UNFCCC has not yet addressed

Loss & Damage: a Critical Discourse Analysis

The years-long negotiations on an international mechanism for loss and damage (L&D) associated with climate change impacts got to a milestone during the nineteenth session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP-19), held in Warsaw in November 2013. The COP established the Warsaw international mechanism, aiming to address L&D associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme events and slow onset events, in vulnerable developing countries (Decision 2/CP.19). The paper performs a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of COP decision 2/CP.19 in order to reconstruct developing and developed countries’ positions on L&D and reflect on how the Warsaw mechanism could be implemented. The analysis builds on Fairclough’s (1992) three-dimensional model for CDA, and makes use of a wide range of materials including previous COP decisions, High Level Segment statements and Parties submissions to COP 19, press releases and other relevant documents. The analysis highlights the lack of a common understanding and representation of L&D by developed and developing countries, with this fact ultimately hampering the possibility to define specific tools to address the issue within the mechanism. The difficulty to come to a shared meaning on L&D is due to its connection to other controversial discourses under the UNFCCC, including that of compensation for climate change impacts. As the concept of compensation pertains to the field of international law, the paper explores the appropriateness of the notions of State Responsibility for wrongful acts and State liability for acts not prohibited by international law to effectively deal with L&D. The paper concludes by discussing some strategic options for developing countries to advance the L&D discourse within international talks

Unpacking the Paris Agreement

The recently adopted global climate deal is expected to enter into force in 2020, at the end of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. It has been hailed as a turning point in climate negotiations, after the failed attempt at Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 and four years of groundwork started in 2011 with the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, whose mandate was to involve all countries, both developed and developing, in adopting “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force” applicable to all Parties to the UNFCCC. The paper examines the main features of the new global climate agreement, paying particular attention on mitigation, cooperative approaches, adaptation and loss & damage, climate finance, compliance and review mechanisms

Robust Institutions for Sustainable Water Markets: A Survey of the Literature and the Way Forward

This paper discusses a framework for analyzing robust institutions for water markets drawn on the new institutional economics school of thoughts which is based on Williamson, North, Coase and Ostrom theories on transaction cost economics, property rights and collective actions. Based on these theories, we review the evolution and development of water reforms and markets in countries such as Australia, USA (California and Colorado), Chile and in Spain. Based on the lessons learned from the Spanish and international experience on water markets, a list of robust recommendations for the improvement of water markets in Spain is proposed. These include among others, not only the definition of secure water rights, through the registration of rights or recognition of environment as a legitimate user, but also the monitoring of water trading activities, including the collection of information for prices and quantities or cost-benefit analysis for quantifying benefits and externalities. Finally, based on Sharma’s approach (2012) a new robust water governance model for Spain is proposed in which the highest priority is given to the role of legal and political institutions and second priority to environmental, economic and social needs. We hope that the framework presented in this paper will function as a tool for researchers and policy makers in Spain and other European countries to understand how water markets can be further developed to be economically and environmentally efficient, and socially accepted

Energy and environmental observatory: Climate policy after Paris: Assessment and perspectives

The Paris Agreement, adopted at the end of 2015 has been welcomed as a turning point in climate negotiations, after the failed attempt at Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 and four years of groundwork started in 2011 in Durban. Its mandate was indeed to adopt "a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force" applicable to all the States Parties to the UNFCCC. The Paris Conference (COP21) accomplished this task by delivering a global agreement that asks the international community to keep the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, but also include adaptation and low-carbon finance objectives. To achieve these goals the Agreement formalizes a new approach, applicable to all countries, and that will rely on "Nationally Determined Contributions". Yet, beyond the text, challenges remain for turning commitments into action. Key technical and political elements are still to be detailed in policy areas such as mitigation, adaptation, carbon pricing, climate finance and transparency. This paper aims at examining the main features of the new global climate agreement, paying particular attention to these key issues and discussing the implications they will have in the near and long term future

Paris Agreement: Strengths and Weaknesses behind a Diplomatic Success

The record-breaking participation to the signing ceremony of the Paris Agreement (PA), held in New York on International Mother Earth Day (22 April, 2016), marks a first important step towards its entry into force. Yet, challenges remain for turning commitments into action. Key technical and political elements are still to be detailed in policy areas such as mitigation (including cooperative approaches), adaptation, loss & damage and climate finance. This article looks into the work Parties will need to do in the upcoming years to address such gaps and, more in general, to overcome the major operational limitations currently characterizing the P