This week we’re looking at the international politics of climate change. One of the three pillars of climate policy is called ‘loss and damage’. What is this? How does it work in practice? And how do power dynamics play out through conversations and negotiations at international meetings like COP?
Climate change is exerting increasingly profound effects on societies across the globe.
Policy responses are often described as resting on three pillars. The first involves addressing the causes of climate change by reducing carbon emissions and improving carbon capture. Experts tend to refer to this as mitigation. The second concerns adapting to the climate impacts that are already unavoidable in order to reduce the harm they cause, for example by raising sea walls or improving the heat resilience of homes. This is known as adaptation. The third pillar deals with the harms that nevertheless arise, asking who should bear the associated costs and whether these harms can ever truly be compensated. This has come to be known as loss and damage.
This episode focuses on that third pillar. Although the definition above is one way to understand loss and damage, it is far from the only one. The concept is contested, and the way it is framed varies between different actors in international climate negotiations. Competing definitions are used strategically in order to influence outcomes.
These contests over meaning are only one example of the processes that shape international climate talks. Such processes can construct or, at times, manipulate the negotiation environment, and those with the greatest power often exert the greatest influence over how these processes unfold.
A new book explores how these shaping forces operate within the loss and damage arena and argues that they are having a significant effect on the effectiveness of the global response to climate change, and not always for the better.
Prof Alan Renwick's guest this episode is the author of that book, Professor Lisa Vanhala of the UCL Department of Political Science, UCL Pro-Vice Provost for the Grand Challenge Theme of the Climate Crisis, and a longstanding friend of the podcast.
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