This article advances the third generation of expertise scholarship by exploring how expertise is produced through socio-material practices within global climate governance. The Paris Agreement commits international climate policy to be grounded in the ‘best available science,’ yet the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) lacks a formal mechanism for scientific uptake. Focusing on the expert groups established under the UNFCCC’s Warsaw International Mechanism for Climate Change Loss and Damage, the study shows that expertise is the outcome of intertwined material arrangements and social relations. Through interviews and ethnographic observations, the analysis shows how terms of reference and expert rosters formally structure who may participate, while informal relational practices enable the loss and damage Committee to selectively recruit and socialise experts. These dynamics stabilise and legitimise a contested policy area, shaping what becomes recognised as ‘global loss and damage expertise’. However, these practices also create exclusions, privileging actors aligned with UN working cultures, those perceived as politically acceptable and those able to self-fund participation. Such practices risk limiting representational diversity and constrain expert’s autonomy in shaping their work. The findings highlight the need for greater transparency and resourcing of expert groups to broaden participation and address knowledge gaps.

Agrifood systems are intrinsically linked to climate change and are particularly vulnerable to its impacts. Each year hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of crops and livestock production is lost due to disaster events, undermining hard-won development gains and livelihoods for farmers. At the same time, agrifood systems are substantial contributors of emissions. As such, agrifood systems must play a central role in providing solutions for climate change – both adaptation and mitigation – while meeting the food security needs of present and future generations. The communities that support and depend on agrifood systems are on the front line of loss and damage associated with climate change. Loss and damage can generally be described as the negative impact of climate change that occurs despite mitigation and adaptation efforts. Addressing loss and damage in the agrifood system is crucial, given its importance for livelihoods and sustainable development. Taking collective action is essential to tackle loss and damage in agrifood systems to ensure that the livelihoods of the most vulnerable communities are adequately protected and food security needs are met. The purpose of this report is to stimulate discussions on the central role of agrifood systems in the loss and damage debate and identify the gaps in data, knowledge and finance that need to be addressed. The report provides an overview of the loss and damage concept, the status of analytical methodologies and tools, a summary of the reporting on loss and damage in nationally determined contributions (NDCs), an outline of the policy needs and some preliminary analysis of the financing needs. Overall, support to countries needs to be targeted and strengthened so that loss and damage in agrifood systems can be dealt with as early as possible. This support needs to ensure that no one is left behind while striving for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life.

What can an ‘ethnographic sensibility’ contribute to research on climate change governance? With its emphasis on meaning-making and understanding what may lie beneath more obvious interactions and processes, ethnographic methodologies, particularly collaborative event ethnography, are increasingly deployed to address complex questions and achieve conceptual leverage on issues related to climate governance. Drawing on literature in climate anthropology, material geography and political ethnography and with examples from our own fieldwork experiences, we devise a heuristic typology underpinned by an ethnographic sensibility to help guide the fieldwork phase of a research project. Building on the wellestablished practice of hanging out, we introduce hanging around which attends to spatiality and matter, hanging in which addresses issues of access and trust and hanging back to guide the practice of reflexivity. We articulate what fieldwork with an ethnographic sensibility entails and discuss its potential and implications for climate governance research.

The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts (WIM) was established in 2013, and its Executive Committee (ExCom) is developing a new five-year workplan. Seizing this opportune moment to assess institutional progress on the issue of loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) we address two research questions: (1) Has the ExCom delivered on its workplans to date, and (2) how has the ExCom’s progress varied across thematic areas? Drawing on public documentary sources, we assess the effectiveness and timeliness of the delivery of activities across five thematic areas: slow onset events; non-economic losses; comprehensive risk management approaches; human mobility; and finance, action and support. We find that there has been progress across the thematic areas, but that it has varied in pace. Delays are associated with activities from the two-year workplan being moved into the first five-year workplan or being devolved to the more recently established expert groups. Our results also show that decisions from the Conference of the Parties (COP) or the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) have played a critical role in accelerating specific aspects of the ExCom’s work. Finally, we note that the ExCom is increasingly relying on its expert groups and their members to deliver many activities. This research advances our understanding of the nature and pace of progress on this issue, and raises new questions about the politics of global climate policy implementation.

KEY POLICY INSIGHTS

• The WIM ExCom’s workplans are characterized by broad goals and are ambiguous about start dates and deadlines. To enhance accountability, future workplans would benefit from clearly defined objectives, outcomes, and timelines.
• The workplans do not seem to constitute strong commitments: Parties make use of COP/CMA decisions to strengthen the workplans by mandating specific activities or deadlines, adding new activities and prioritizing among existing ones.
• The politics of implementation merits greater attention: wider political dynamics around loss and damage shape the pace of the ExCom’s supposedly technical work. One example is the delayed establishment of the expert group on action and support.  

What happened on the issue of loss and damage atthe 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) held inGlasgow in November 2021 and why does it matter?In many ways COP26 was the moment when lossand damage was transformed from being an issueof importance to certain states and communities –for example the small island states – to one that hasbecome centre stage for much of the world. Thedeveloping countries grouping, known as the G77plus China, were united in unprecedented ways onthe issue of loss and damage in Glasgow. We alsowitnessed a host of different non-state and substate stakeholders taking up the mantle of loss anddamage from those marching in the streets, to theFirst Minister of Scotland to the Trade Unionconstituency of the UNFCCC.Given the growing frequency and intensity of theadverse impacts of climate change globally and thelaunch of the most recent assessment of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), the Working Group I contribution to the 6thAssessment Report, this is an issue that is now onthe political agenda. This set of short reflectionsfrom our inter-disciplinary team of expertsadvances our understanding of the globalgovernance of climate change loss and damage.Coming from different disciplinary perspectives,from anthropology and law to geography andpolitical science, we explore the topic of climatechange loss and damage governance focusing onissues of finance, science and expertise, policy, lawand litigation.