Establishing a Loss and Damage Fund : How Small Island Developing States Negotiated a 'Historic Deal for Climate Justice'

Abstract: After years of proposals for a Loss and Damage fund meant to deliver climate justice for developing states being blocked, such a fund was established at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 20, 2022. Based on constructivist theories of norm diffusion and persuasion, complemented by theories on strategic negotiating and normative discussions of justice, this thesis conducts a directed content analysis to examine the discourses used by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the EU in negotiations for the Loss and Damage fund. The results show that AOSIS has shifted from using multiple discourses to mainly justice-based arguments sometimes used strategically and was aided by a process favorable to discussing Loss and Damage at COP27. The EU, which represents itself as a leader in COPs, opposed creating new mechanisms to address loss and damage until COP27. Afterward, it positioned itself as an important contributor to the outcome. To evaluate the outcome, while the fund is aimed at distributive justice and climate justice is recognized in the COP27 text, justice discourse is absent from the Loss and Damage section. It remains to be seen whether the fund will advance climate justice.