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The role of justice in the North–South conflict in climate change: the case of negotiations on the Adaptation Fund

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Abstract

Justice, by and large, implies greater legitimacy and can persuade parties with conflicting interests to cooperate more closely on collective actions. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate the role that ethical arguments have played in restoring mutual trust between the developed and the developing countries in negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund and in transforming the patent failure of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation Bonn May 2006 meetings on its management into the encouraging success of the Nairobi December 2006 round. These meetings are analysed from the perspectives of procedural and distributive justice in order to interpret the negotiating dynamics and their outcomes. More specifically, procedural and distributive justice are, respectively, sought in the Bonn and Nairobi formal meetings through reference to, and the emergence of, principles and criteria of participation, recognition and distribution of power among Parties, and of Parties’ responsibility for, and vulnerability to, climate impacts.

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Notes

  1. The article and, in particular, the author’s interpretation of the negotiations dynamics have greatly benefited from the insights and suggestions of observers informally questioned both at SBI 24, Bonn, and afterwards through email correspondence. Some of their opinions have been quoted throughout the article. However, they have been anonymized, given the sensitivity of much of the material covered.

  2. FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add.1.

  3. The other instruments governing adaptation funding under the UNFCCC regime are the GEF Trust Fund, the GEF Strategy and Priority on Adaptation, the Special Climate Change Fund and the Least Developed Countries Fund.

  4. FCCC/KP/CMP/2005/8/Add.4.

  5. At its ninth meeting (Bonn, March 23–25, 2010), the AF Board issued a call for project proposals and also decided to accredit the first three agencies to manage grants from the AF, the so-called National Implementing Entities (NIE). Projects reviewed, under review and open for comments are available on the AF website: Internet: http://www.adaptation-fund.org/ (accessed November 22, 2010).

  6. For a complete analysis of the different options for managing the AF, see the Background Paper ‘Overview of possible institutional options for the management of the Adaptation Fund’, prepared for the ‘Workshop on Adaptation Fund’, held in Edmonton, 3–5 May 2006. Internet: http://unfccc.int/meetings/workshops/other_meetings/items/3672.php (accessed November 22, 2010).

  7. FCCC/KP/CMP/2006/10/Add.1.

  8. FCCC/KP/CMP/2007/9/Add.1.

  9. I personally attended, and recorded, the Bonn SBI 24 meetings, whereas I followed the Nairobi SBI 25 meetings by means of the Web coverage provided by the UNFCCC. I am aware of the limitations due to exclusion from the empirical analysis of the informal level of negotiations and of conduct that has indeed a certain weight (Gupta 2000). Unfortunately, this source is precluded for obvious reasons. Nonetheless, as specified in Note 1, I have tried to include some relevant materials on this level drawn from correspondence with observers.

  10. It should be pointed out that there are diverse causes of the North–South contrast in the broader context of climate change. Gupta (1999, 2000), for instance, argues that the developing countries usually approach (or, at least, used to approach) negotiations by rejecting, with very few concessions, arguments from the North and failing to offer alternative proposals: a defensive and reactive strategy that produces negotiating deadlock and ultimately reciprocal distrust. Roberts and Parks (2007) instead observe that the global inequality that has produced the non-cooperative behaviour between the North and the South is primarily determined by the worldview and causal beliefs of the civil society of the South: these beliefs have generated in the developing world a widespread mistrust, divergent and unstable expectations on climatic issues, and, ultimately, negotiating strategies that have reduced the chances of achieving mutually acceptable agreements. The constructivist perspective, instead, generally maintains that the creation and development of theoretical constructs depend heavily on social dynamics, and, more specifically, that “discourses and practices of accountability/responsibility are socially constituted and contested” (Mason 2008, p. 15). Using this approach, Okereke (2008) shows that the uptake and impacts of North–South norms of equity and responsibility in international environmental regimes depend on a number of factors, the most important being the prevailing economic order (Okereke 2008, p. 45).

  11. ‘Linking Adaptation to Development’, speech of Monique Barbut, CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environmental Facility, at the UNFCCC Twelfth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties, Nairobi, Kenya, November 15, 2006. Internet: http://207.190.239.143/participants/secretariat/CEO/documents/UNFCCC_MB_speech.pdf (accessed November 22, 2010).

  12. For instance, the Fellowship Programme of the European Capacity Building Initiative (ECBI: www.Eurocapacity.org) made this exchange of views possible and ultimately produced an influential IIED/ECBI Opinion Paper on the management of the AF (Sopoaga et al. 2007).

  13. In Sects. 3.1 and 3.2, the quoted sentences are the relevant negotiators’ interventions during SBI 24 and 25 meetings, unless otherwise specified, as in the case of the contributions informally obtained from observers as made clear in Note 1, or of relevant points taken from other material. The use of these two latter sources will be clearly indicated.

  14. In these negotiations, the Philippines had been the representative (and, practically, the leading and most proactive actor—as acknowledged at the fourth SBI 25 meeting by Finland’s delegate, who thanked “Ambassador Bernaditas Muller [the Philippines’ delegate] who has been able to guide us with all her knowledge of articles and principles”)—of the G77 and China group.

  15. This architecture is based on two principles: (i) the AF’s decision-making process should be flexible, transparent, straightforward and balanced in order to reflect the specific needs of the developing countries; (ii) funding should be reliable and adequate and cover the full cost of adaptation (Muller 2007a).

  16. A few days later, the tenth meeting of COP/MOP 2 officially adopted this draft decision (decision 5/CMP.2, whose main features are summarized in the Introduction).

  17. Interestingly Gupta (2010, p. 646), points out that in the period in which these negotiations were carried out, despite the serious internal differences, the G77 and China group “continued to behave as one actor”.

Abbreviations

AF:

Adaptation Fund

CDM:

Clean development mechanism

CEO:

Chief executive officer

CERs:

Certified emission reductions

COP:

Conference of the Parties

COP/MOP:

Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol

ECBI:

European Capacity Building Initiative

EU:

European Union

G77:

Group of 77

GEF:

Global Environmental Facility

IPCC:

International Panel on Climate Change

LDCs:

Least Developed Countries

NIE:

National Implementing Entity

SBI:

Subsidiary Body for Implementation

SIDS:

Small Island Developing States

UNFCCC:

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Aziendali, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Via Bicocca degli Arcimboldi, 8, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Marco Grasso

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Grasso, M. The role of justice in the North–South conflict in climate change: the case of negotiations on the Adaptation Fund. Int Environ Agreements 11, 361–377 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-010-9145-3

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