What is lost from climate change? Phenomenology at the “limits to adaptation”

Abstract

Abstract. Defining experiences of climate change loss and damage (L&D) is the topic of contentious debate across the social sciences and humanities. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by making loss(es) from climate change better legible. After detailing the complexity of the L&D debate from both a political and scientific perspective, we turn to phenomenological theory (Martin Heidegger, Tetsuro Watsuji, Bernhard Waldenfels) in order to make sense of climate's presence and the absences generated from changing climates. The phenomenology of loss we develop promises to help account for experiences of climate change that escape more traditional (social) scientific approaches to both economic and non-economic losses. More broadly, we present an alternative approach to applying phenomenology to research in social science (on climate change).