Funding Loss and Damage to Reduce Immigration?

Many expect international climate transfer to remedy the injustice between the climate-responsible Global North and the climate-vulnerable Global South, but its public opinion foundations in contributing countries remain uncertain. We tested whether framing the Loss and Damage Fund (L&D Fund) as a mechanism to reduce immigration would cause more favorable opinions toward this newly operational scheme. We found null results from a well-powered vignette experiment conducted with about 4,500 respondents in the UK, Germany, and the US. Respondents exposed to the promise of reducing the number of potential climate migrants did not indicate higher levels of support for the L&D Fund compared to those exposed to the promise of reducing internal displacement within developing countries or those in the control condition. Beyond adding to the nexus between climate migration and public opinion on climate policy, we also contribute to the international political economy literature by scrutinizing the context dependence of the microfoundations for using foreign policy as migration policy.