The knowledge politics of climate change loss and damage across scales of governance

Abstract

Whilst the international politics of climate change-related loss and damage has received growing scholarly attention, there has been less focus on national level policy responses. This is puzzling because climate change impacts are inherently local and political. What knowledge and ideas do policy actors at the national level use to conceptualise the problem of climate change loss and damage? What are the injustices that result from the multi-scalar construction of governance problems? Drawing on insights from Science and Technology Studies about the politics of knowledge production, we analyse how governance problems are constructed and explore resultant injustices. To do so, we focus on the paradigmatic case study of Antigua and Barbuda, illustrating the complex interactions between knowledge and politics in governing loss and damage. We conclude by calling for greater scholarly attention to the production of epistemological injustices, as specific forms of knowledge are translated across scales of action.