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Paper short abstract

Who defines “loss” in Loss & Damage? The Fund’s rules privilege measurable harms and expert models, sidelining cultural, relational, and Indigenous losses. This technocratic filter reproduces epistemic inequality; justice requires communities defining loss on their own terms.

Paper long abstract

As Loss and Damage (L&D) becomes part of formal climate policy, the key question is simple: who gets to decide what counts as loss? This paper demonstrates how the current design of the L&D Fund transforms a demand for justice and repair into a technical process governed by forms, metrics, and financial rules. Economic models, risk assessments, and attribution thresholds ultimately determine whose suffering is considered “valid.” Losses that are not easily measured—such as the destruction of culture, displacement from ancestral land, or harm to relationships with nature—are pushed aside because they do not fit institutional templates or funding tools.

Using fund documents, negotiation records, and early access rules, the paper shows how decision-making power concentrates in development banks, consultants, and scientific institutions. Their expertise often overrides how affected communities and Indigenous peoples understand loss: not just as economic damage, but as historical, collective, and tied to identity and land.

The paper warns that this approach risks repeating colonial patterns of knowledge and recognition. It ends by suggesting concrete alternatives: methods of valuing loss rooted in local realities, shared decision-making over evidence, and governance models that support community autonomy rather than donor-driven conditions.