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Abstract
This introduction to the 2023 special issue of Global Environment Politics brings questions related to politics and political processes to the forefront in the study of climate change loss and damage. The aim of avoiding the detrimental impacts of climate change has been at the heart of the international response to global climate change for more than thirty years. Yet the development of global governance responses to climate change loss and damage—those impacts that we cannot, do not or choose not to prevent or adapt to—has only over the last decade become a central theme within the discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Loss and damage has also become a research topic of growing importance within an array of disciplines, from international law to the interdisciplinary environmental social sciences. However, the engagement of scholars working in the fields of political science and international relations has been more limited so far. This is surprising because questions about how to best respond to loss and damage are fundamentally political, as they derive from deliberative processes, invoke value judgments, imply contestation, demand the development of policies, and result in distributional outcomes. In this introduction we describe the context and contributions of the research articles in the special issue. By drawing on a wide range of perspectives from across the social sciences, the articles render visible the multifaceted politics of climate change loss and damage and help to account for the trajectory of governance processes.

This paper discusses a framework for analyzing robust institutions for water markets drawn on the new institutional economics school of thoughts which is based on Williamson, North, Coase and Ostrom theories on transaction cost economics, property rights and collective actions. Based on these theories, we review the evolution and development of water reforms and markets in countries such as Australia, USA (California and Colorado), Chile and in Spain. Based on the lessons learned from the Spanish and international experience on water markets, a list of robust recommendations for the improvement of water markets in Spain is proposed. These include among others, not only the definition of secure water rights, through the registration of rights or recognition of environment as a legitimate user, but also the monitoring of water trading activities, including the collection of information for prices and quantities or cost-benefit analysis for quantifying benefits and externalities. Finally, based on Sharma's approach (2012) a new robust water governance model for Spain is proposed in which the highest priority is given to the role of legal and political institutions and second priority to environmental, economic and social needs. We hope that the framework presented in this paper will function as a tool for researchers and policy makers in Spain and other European countries to understand how water markets can be further developed to be economically and environmentally efficient, and socially accepted.

This paper discusses the role played by decentralized, voluntary multi-stakeholder partnerships between public authorities and agencies and/or public authorities and civil society for disaster risk reduction. We pay attention to Public – Public Partnerships (PuP), a term coined for public alliances in the early 2000s although arguably building upon community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and disaster risk reduction (CBDRR), as well as other cooperative initiatives. In many respects PuPs became known as a counterpart of PPPs and quickly spread in public water and health service provision. While the concept of PuPs match to some extent the European Union's efforts to expand horizontal cooperation and collaboration, it appears too narrow to capture the sense of European initiatives. In particular, the strict exclusion of business and commercial undertakings in the essence of PuPs by early scholars is not compatible with the call for truly cooperative multi-governance arrangements. The paper examines the concept of PuP, its objectives and defining characteristics, partners involved and relationship tying them. It then moves to understand to what extent partnerships meant to improve cooperation and coordination have permeated the EU legislation and policies, focusing especially on the role of inclusive governance and territorial cooperation. The analysis is complemented by examples of PuPs addressed in the ENHANCE case studies in which disaster risk reduction plays a role.