Page - 171 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

6 ThePoliticsof (andBehind) theUNFCCC’sLoss… 171 capabilities (CBDR-RC)andreferences toprecautionarymeasures.Onthecontrary, asexplainedabove,developedcountrieshavemostlyavoidedanyreferencestocom- pensation, andhave tried instead to shift the attention tonon-economicL&D.This is interesting ifwe consider that, up to the establishment of theWIM, developing countries tendedtoassociateL&Dto(inprinciple) thequantifiableandmonetisable effects of climate change, like physical impacts—e.g. loss of land because of sea level rise—and economic impacts, such as the loss of development opportunities advancedbyBolivia (UNFCCC2012a).Asawhole,developedcountrieshave tried toshiftL&DtothelesscontestedDRRandhumanitarianframeworks;usedscientific knowledge(issuesofattribution) toneutralise thedevelopingParties’compensation claims;andemployedethicalclaimstoavoid the‘monetisation’of thediscourse,by hinting at the inappropriateness of placing price tags on the lives, livelihoods and assetsof themostvulnerable societies (Calliari 2016a). If power, in a simplified constructivist view, is about “convince[ing] others to adopt [ones] ideas” (Snyder 2004), canAOSISbe deemed successful on theL&D issue?Can theWIMandArticle8be seenas a result ofAOSIS’discursivepower? Undoubtedly, thedevelopingcountriesmanaged to institutionalise the ideaofL&D as something beyond adaptation both in the text ofDecision 2/CP.19 establishing theWIMandwithastand-alonearticle forL&DintheParisAgreement.Thus, they wereableto“convince”developedcountriesonthispoint.Theresultwasobtainedby framing theL&Ddebate in suchaway thatParties’ resources and interestsbecame irrelevant as the playgroundwasmoved into the legal andmoral fields.While nar- ratives of survival (and thusmoral issues) have also been employed byAOSIS in otherUNFCCCnegotiationstreams(for instance, inaskingforambitiousmitigation actions), themassive recourse to stateResponsibility-compensation claimswas the mainfactorindeterminingAOSIS’outcomes.Itcanbearguedthat,ratherthanbeing anobjectiveperse,callsforcompensationwereusedstrategicallytogetconcessions fromAnnex1Parties.This idea is somehowreinforcedwhen lookingat the timing ofcompensationclaims (Table6.1). Most of them concentrated before 2013, at the time of the discussion for an institutional mechanism to address L&D (what was going to be theWIM). After that, referencewasmadeepisodicallybyAOSISandtheG77+Chinaintheproposal for a Climate ChangeDisplacement Coordination Facility. Among the performed functions, the facilitywas toprovide“compensationmeasures forpeopledisplaced byclimatechange”—aprovisionthatwasdroppedwithoutexcessiveclamouronthe road toParis.Andwhile atCOP21 requests for compensationwere “traded” for a dedicatedL&Darticle, theyreappeared inanumberof interpretativedeclarations to the instruments of ratificationof theParisAgreement (seeBolivia, thePhilippines, Nauru,Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu). This is not to imply that suchcalls for retributive justicewerenot genuine: they are consistent with theunfairness thatdevelopingcountriesascribe to theclimatechangeproblem. However, some tactical considerations are discernible behind their use in climate talks. In termsof the “status” thatL&Dhas in theUNFCCCarchitecture,AOSISand other developing countrieswere less successful in “convincing” their counterparts