Negotiating the future of the Adaptation Fund: on the politics of defining and defending justice in the post-Paris Agreement period

The Paris Agreement's rapid entry into force, less than one year after it was adopted, reaffirmed that the international community would continue its efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. Yet structures created under the Kyoto Protocol, like the Adaptation Fund, were left in a state of unprecedented ambiguity because parties had to actively approve their continuation under the Paris Agreement, or risk seeing them fade into history. Drawing on narrative political analysis of negotiating texts and observations at meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP), we argue that the Adaptation Fund negotiations became a particularly intense site for the contestation of justice-based norms in international climate policy. Developing countries’ ardent and almost unanimous support for the continuation of the Adaptation Fund, despite the Fund's relatively small share of international climate finance, provides important insights into processes of norm contestation in international climate negotiations since the Paris Agreement, which marked a significant transition toward liberal norm structures. We explore how this unwavering support for the Adaptation Fund—and the claims to distributive and procedural justice it represents—could impact not only Fund governance and structure in the post-Paris Agreement period, but also the success of future adaptation efforts and the Paris Agreement itself.Key policy insights As global environmental governance moves towards a more liberal conception of justice, developing countries are holding on to specific issues, such as adaptation finance, to preserve distributive justice-based norms, deeply rooted in the history of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).A critical tension in international adaptation finance is contrasting conceptualizations of justice and responsibility. While developed countries increasingly see their climate financing decisions as optional and in the same vein as development aid, developing countries argue that financing is an obligation for countries with historic responsibility for climate change.In order to resolve some of the stickiest issues on climate finance, pressing concerns about procedural and distributive justice must be addressed. Developing countries will focus on defending their position and power in the negotiations, rather than discussing technical decisions, until justice is acknowledged and preserved.