As the impacts of climate change are increasingly realised, effective and urgent upscaling of adaptation is critical. Finance to enable such an upscaling is a key justice concern under the climate negotiations, with those least responsible for climate impacts often also most vulnerable. In this context the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established in 2011 to support climate action in developing countries.
This paper explores the GCF’s approach to adaptation finance. It aims to reveal whether the historical patterns of international climate finance – in which mitigation finance prevails over that for adaptation and just a handful of multilateral partners dominate the funding mode – have been effectively built into the GCF or whether realising the more just ambitions for the GCF is genuinely possible. In so doing, this paper explores the justice implications of the Fund’s allocation practices.
This paper applies the trivalent justice model used by Fraser (2008), Schlosberg (2004), and others to the GCF’s adaptation processes and outcomes to date. This justice model includes three interconnected elements: distributive justice, relating to the (just) distribution of goods and resources; procedural justice, relating to the (fair) processes and representation of groups and individuals; and recognition justice, the (equal) social and cultural standing of participants in justice discussions. Through this study, the GCF’s understanding of vulnerability – an underlying consideration to enable more just allocation practices – is revealed.
This paper argues that neither procedural nor distributive justice is likely via the GCF’s adaptation finance processes as long as the GCF prioritises fiduciary management over local participation and conceptualises vulnerability from an ‘end point’ perspective (as described by Kelly and Adger, 2000). These findings are timely as work is underway to design new funding arrangements for climate Loss and Damage; different approaches will be needed to avoid replicating unjust patterns.