The Dilemma of Dual Vulnerability in the Pursuit of Climate Justice

Climate change represents a profound theoretical challenge for IR and adjacent disciplines. It consists simultaneously of a series of disasters, in need of repair and redress, and a creeping unjust structural condition—a new normal with growing pernicious effects that transcend borders, recur over time, and disproportionately burden marginalized communities. Though scholars have developed frameworks for assessing both the episodic and structural aspects of climate change, they have failed to grasp their entangled, compounding effects. To address this gap, we theorize dual vulnerability to climate change as a unique position in debates over climate justice. We do so by drawing on Iris Marion Young’s dichotomy between interactional and structural injustice, but integrating her models to highlight how distinct forms of injustice reinforce and compound each other. The dually vulnerable, we argue, are not merely victims of catastrophic climate events, but also the most disadvantaged by the uneven global playing field climate change creates. The concept of dual vulnerability contributes to IR by highlighting the complex entanglement of discrete environmental damages and structural climate injustice, as well as how the dually vulnerable face a temporal challenge of simultaneously pursuing backward-facing compensation and forward-facing collective reparation action. To highlight our concept’s utility, we apply it to analysis of the UNFCCC’s recently created Loss and Damage Fund.