The Production of Climate Justice: Towards Critical Actuarial Science in Loss and Damage Negotiations

Climate justice is one the prevailing challenges of the global climate governance regime not least because of the attribution of debt and responsibility. At the international and institutional levels discussions have largely taken place through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its loss and damage negotiations. Yet reaching consensus on principal questions such as organisational and institutional logics, beneficiaries and contributors remains politically charged.

This research project aims to address a gap in the current analysis of loss and damage negotiations by examining the assumptions behind the fund’s formation and development, including how its framers understand the relationship between calculating debts for climate damage and achieving climate justice. Based on interviews with policymakers, climate justice advocates and climate scientists as well as narrative analysis this project will build a bridge between normative international political theory and real-world policymaking, informed by critical actuarial climate science.

Principal Investigator: Dr Pauline Heinrichs, King's College London