Presentation short abstract

Based on ethnographic research at international climate negotiations and interviews with negotiators, this presentation will explore Small Islands Developing States' diverging narratives and negotiation performances on sources of climate finance and carbon crediting schemes.

Presentation long abstract

The sobering outcome of the New Collective Quantifiable Goal (NCQG) on climate finance is increasingly creating a competitive and rivalrous market for 'developing countries' to attract climate finance. Meanwhile, negotiations over carbon markets are further establishing carbon credit schemes as transition finance providers. In this context, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), known for its successes in gathering microstates into influential players and for consensus often being the order of the day, has not been immune to this divisive negotiation stage. Indeed, AOSIS members with large amounts of biodiversity such as Papua New Guinea, Belize and Fiji, with for i.e. vast forest covers and mangroves, have "much to gain" from carbon crediting initiatives, as opposed to low-lying atolls such as Tuvalu. Further, perceptions over the commodification of nature, environmental safeguards, and integrity in Article 6 negotiations are a 'grey zone' for AOSIS, while some of its members are also joining the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CfRN). In this contentious context, the present paper seeks to investigate how AOSIS member states have framed varying narratives around sources of climate finance and to uncover the negotiation strategies used to compensate for their lack of unity. To explore these power performances, the paper uses ethnographic participant observations at COP30 and SB64, combined with a set of negotiators’ interviews. These sources prove relevant to investigate not only the ‘what’ in terms of discourses deployed, but also the ‘how’, as to the forms of influential resources enacted across and beyond negotiations.