Climate and disaster risk financing: Towards climate justice?

Abstract

Climate and disaster risk financing and insurance (CDRFI) refers to a set of instruments to fund climate and disaster risks. CDRFI began in sovereign disaster financing but has since grown into a more expansive policy landscape across development, humanitarian and climate financing, including Loss and Damage. In a time of significant contraction in development finance, CDRFI has retained donor support and emerged as a dominant policy approach characterised by a technical discourse termed here as ‘instrument talk’. Yet this sits in tension with the premise of the social justice and restitutive aims of the policy contexts in which it is being applied. This article draws from climate finance justice literature to reframe CDRFI, arguing that we cannot address climate and disaster costs without engaging with the normative politics of climate change. The article proposes a climate finance justice framework for CDRFI to open dialogue about a just climate and disaster financing system.