Twenty-five years of adaptation finance through a climate justice lens
Open accessAbstract
How much finance should be provided to support climate change adaptation and by whom? How should it be allocated, and on what basis? Over the years, various actors have expressed different normative expectations on climate finance. Which of these expectations are being met and which are not; why, and with what consequences? Have new norms and rules emerged, which remain contested? This article takes stock of the first 25+ years of adaptation finance under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and seeks to understand whether adaptation finance has become more justly governed and delivered over the past quarter century. We distinguish among three “eras” of adaptation finance: (1) the early years under the UNFCCC (1992–2008); (2) the Copenhagen shift (2009–2015); and (3) the post-Paris era (2016–2018). For each era, we systematically review the justice issues raised by evolving expectations and rules over the provision, distribution, and governance of adaptation finance. We conclude by outlining future perspectives for adaptation finance and their implications for climate justice.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A study of the first 25 years of adaptation finance through a climate justice lens found that adaptation finance has moved away from climate justice towards neoliberal principles, with a growing emphasis on private finance and market-based strategies and increasingly inadequate and unfair distribution of funds.
“A study of the first 25 years of adaptation finance (from the signing of the UNFCCC in 1992 to 2018) through a climate justice lens found that adaptation finance has moved away from climate justice towards neoliberal principles, with a growing emphasis on private finance and market-based strategies and increasingly inadequate and unfair distribution of funds (Khan et al., 2019).”
From Intersectional climate justice: A conceptual pathway for bridging adaptation planning, transformative action, and social equity (2022) · cites this paper as Khan et al., 2019
Split into 2 atoms — 0 confirmed, 2 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Polluter-Pays-Principle: The Cardinal Instrument for Addressing Climate Change
Khan, M. (2015) · Laws · doi:10.3390/laws4030638 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 39
- Betzold C, Weiler F (2017) Allocation of aid for adaptation to climate change: do vulnerable countries receive more support? Int Environ Agreements: Polit, Law Econ 17:17-36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-016- 9343-8 · DOI
- Caney S (2005) Cosmopolitan justice, responsibility, and global climate change. Leiden J Int Law 18:747-775. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0922156505002992 CAN International (2007) Climate negotiations: NGO Newsletter. ECO, 7th edn. Climate Action Network, Bali, p 4 · DOI
- Ciplet D, Roberts JT (2017) Climate change and the transition to neoliberal environmental governance. Glob Environ Chang 46:148-156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.09.003 · DOI
- Ciplet D, Roberts JT, Khan M (2013) The politics of international climate adaptation funding: justice and divisions in the greenhouse. Global Environ Politics 13:49-68. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00153 · DOI
- Ciplet D, Roberts JT, Khan MR (2015) Power in a warming world: the new global politics of climate change and the remaking of environmental inequality. MIT Press, Cambridge
- Ciplet D, Adams KM, Weikmans R et al (2018) The transformative capability of transparency in global environmental governance. Global Environ Politics 18:130-150. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00472 · DOI
- Dellink R, den Elzen M, Aiking H et al (2009) Sharing the burden of financing adaptation to climate change. Glob Environ Chang 19:411-421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.07.009 · DOI
- Füssel H-M (2010) Review and quantitative analysis of indices of climate change exposure, adaptive capacity, sensitivity, and impacts. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9193. Cited June 22, 2019.
- Gewirtzman J, Natson S, Richards J-A et al (2018) Financing loss and damage: reviewing options under the Warsaw International Mechanism. Clim Pol 18:1076-1086. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2018.1450724 · DOI
- Goodin RE (1989) Theories of compensation. Oxf J Leg Stud 9:56-75 http://www.jstor.org/stable/764337 Government of Bolivia (2009a) Bolivia proposal 13 Dec 2009: integration into paragraph 23. https://unfccc.int/ files/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/bolivia141209.pdf. Cited June 14, 2019.
- Grasso M (2010) Justice in funding adaptation under the international climate change regime. Springer, Dordrecht
- Hobson B (ed) (2003) Recognition struggles and social movements: contested identities, agency and power. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
- Ikeme J (2003) Climate change daaptational deficiencies in developing countries: the case of Sub-Saharan Africa. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 8:29-52. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025838610473 · DOI
- Inuit Circumpolar Council (2009) Report of the indigenous peoples' global summit on climate changeinuit circumpolar council. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Jyq51wjRNiQJ:www.un.org/ ga/president/63/letters/globalsummitoncc.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us. Cited June 20, 2019.
- Jagers SC, Duus-Otterström G (2008) Dual climate change responsibility: on moral divergences between mitigation and adaptation. Environmental Politics 17:576-591. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644010802193443 · DOI
- Khan MR (2014) Toward a binding climate change adaptation regime. Routledge, London
- Khan MR, Roberts JT (2013) Towards a binding adaptation regime: three levers and two instruments. In: Moser SC, Boykoff MT (eds) Successful adaptation to climate change: linking science and policy in a rapidly changing world. Routledge, Oxon, pp 132-148
- Khan MA, Shamsuddoha M, Helal AA et al (2013) Climate change mitigation approaches in Bangladesh. J Sustain Dev 6:59. https://doi.org/10.5539/jsd.v6n7p59 · DOI
- Klinsky S, Dowlatabadi H (2009) Conceptualizations of justice in climate policy. Clim Pol 9:88-108. https://doi. org/10.3763/cpol.2008.0583b · DOI
- Kono DY, Montinola GR (2019) Foreign aid and climate change policy: what can('t) the data tell us? Polit Govern 7:68-92. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v7i2.1840 · DOI
- Narain U, Margulis S, Essam T (2011) Estimating costs of adaptation to climate change. Clim Pol 11:1001-1019. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2011.582387 · DOI
- Okereke C (2008) Global justice and neoliberal environmental governance: ethics, sustainable development and international cooperation. Routledge, Oxon
- Ourbak T, Magnan AK (2017) The Paris agreement and climate change negotiations: small islands, big players. Reg Environ Chang:1-7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1247-9 · DOI
- Paavola J, Adger WN (2006) Fair adaptation to climate change. Ecol Econ 56:594-609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ecolecon.2005.03.015 · DOI
- Page EA (2008) Distributing the burdens of climate change. Environmental Politics 17:556-575. https://doi. org/10.1080/09644010802193419 · DOI
- Rawls J (1971) A theory of justice. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Massachusetts, Cambridge
- Roberts JT, Parks B (2006) A climate of injustice: global inequality, North-South politics, and climate policy. MIT Press, Boston
- Roberts JT, Parks BC (2009) Ecologically unequal exchange, ecological debt, and climate justice: the history and implications of three related ideas for a new social movement. Int J Comp Sociol 50:385-409. https://doi. org/10.1177/0020715209105147 · DOI
- Roberts JT, Weikmans R (2017) Postface: fragmentation, failing trust and enduring tensions over what counts as climate finance. Int Environ Agreements: Polit, Law Econ 17:129-137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-016- 9347-4 · DOI
- Robinson S-a (2018a) Adapting to climate change at the national level in Caribbean small island developing states. Isl Stud J 13:79-100. https://doi.org/10.24043/isj. · DOI
- Robinson S-a (2018b) Climate change adaptation in small island developing states: insights and lessons from a meta-paradigmatic study. Environ Sci Pol 85:172-181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.03.030 · DOI
- Robinson S-a, Dornan M (2017) International financing for climate change adaptation in small island developing states. Reg Environ Chang 17:1103-1115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-1085-1 · DOI
- Robinson, S-a, Gilfillan, D (2017) Regional organisations and climate change adaptation in small island developing states. Reg Environ Chang 17(4):989-1004. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0991-6 · DOI
- Shue H (1992) The unavoidability of justice. In: Hurrell A, Kingsbury B (eds) The international politics of the environment: actors, interests, and institutions. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 373-397
- Vanderheiden S (2011) Globalizing responsibility for climate change. Ethics Int Aff 25:65-84. https://doi. org/10.1017/S089267941000002X · DOI
- Vanhala L, Hestbaek C (2016) Framing climate change loss and damage in UNFCCC negotiations. Global Environ Politics 16. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00379 · DOI
- Weikmans R, Roberts JT (2019) The international climate finance accounting muddle: is there hope on the horizon? Clim Dev 11:97-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2017.1410087 · DOI
- Weikmans R, Roberts JT, Baum J et al (2017) Assessing the credibility of how climate adaptation aid projects are categorised. Dev Pract 27:458-471. https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2017.1307325 · DOI
- Young IM (1990) Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Amorim-Maia, A. T., Anguelovski, I., Chu, E., & Connolly, J. (2022) · Urban Climate · doi:10.1016/j.uclim.2021.101053 · Cited by 328 · see citing works
Equity and Justice in Loss and Damage Finance: A Narrative Review of Catalysts and Obstacles
Uri, I., Robinson, S.-A., Roberts, J. T., Ciplet, D., Weikmans, R., & Khan, M. (2024) · Current Climate Change Reports · doi:10.1007/s40641-024-00196-6 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Khan, M., Robinson, S.-A., Weikmans, R., Ciplet, D., & Roberts, J. T.
- Affiliations
- International Centre for Climate Change and Development (BD)
- Colby College (US)
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (BE)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Brown University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Robinson, Stacy-ann
- Venue
- Climatic Change
- Published
- 2019-10-29
- Volume
- 161
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 251-269
- ISSN
- 0165-0009 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-1480
- OpenAlex
- W2982563871
- Cited by
- 242
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 12.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2020-01-08)
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Climatic Change (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Dépôt institutionnel de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Greater South Information System
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Sustainable Finance and Green Bonds
- Keywords
- climate change adaptation finance, climate justice, UNFCCC, Copenhagen Accord, Paris Agreement, climate finance governance, normative expectations
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
