The Governance of Global Climate Finance – The Management of Contradictions, Ambiguities and Conflicts in the Green Climate Fund

Sammanfattning: Global climate governance struggles with many contentious issues, often made visible in the annual climate meetings arranged by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). When these issues are delegated to climate organizations within the UNFCCC system and operationalized into climate practices they are often translated. Climate organizations often take on a technical role, making the contentiousness of climate issues invisible. The thesis investigates one of the major organizations within the UNFCCC, the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The aim of the thesis is to make the contradictions, ambiguities and conflicts around the operationalization of different issues in the GCF visible with the help of immanent critique, and to analyse how the GCF management of these contradictions, ambiguities and conflicts influence the aspects of global climate finance governance issues that become emphasized or subordinated. The thesis consists of four studies examining the operationalization of different issues in the GCF. Study 1 focuses on what factors influence the design of the GCF stakeholder arrangement and how it affects the possibility of different stakeholders to engage actively in the GCF. The GCF makes a clear commitment to support the active engagement of diverse stakeholders. It is argued that the arrangement actually privileges private sector stakeholders. Study 2 examines conflicts around the interpretation of the GCF governing principle transformational change. Some actors in the GCF try to connect transformational change to a financialization of the GCF, while others oppose such development. It is argued that financialization might contradict country ownership, another important principle in the GCF. Study 3 investigates the GCF understanding of climate vulnerability. The analysis shows how the GCF emphasis on dominant logics such as science and market logics reduce the aspects of climate vulnerability that become visible in the GCF, and how the principle of transformational change is implicated in this. The aspects of vulnerability that become visible in the GCF are those that can be managed through calculative logics, while moral and political dimensions become invisible. Study 4 explores the inclusion of indigenous peoples in GCF through an analysis of the development of the GCF Indigenous Peoples Policy. GCF embraces the ‘traditional knowledge’ of indigenous peoples but indigenous peoples find it difficult to introduce a more holistic view of nature, while western science dominates knowledge production. The analysis also shows that the use of this policy in the GCF is limited, despite protests from indigenous peoples’ representatives. Altogether, the studies show that the dominant logics discussed in previous research such as science and market logics play a big role in the GCF. What these dominant logics bring forward are aspects of climate finance issues that are manageable through calculative logics, while perspectives and interests that are not easily compatible with these logics become subordinated – often the political dimensions of climate finance governance. This goes against the GCF portrayal of itself as an inclusive organization that is responsive to a variety of perspectives and interests.