Climate Finance Through a Justice Lens: Assessing Nepal’s NDC Needs against Received Support under the Paris Agreement Mechanisms

This thesis examines climate finance under the Paris Agreement through a climate justice lens, using Nepal as a case study. While the Paris Agreement embeds principles of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), persistent concerns remain regarding whether climate finance is delivered in line with distributive justice principles. Drawing on Rawls’ theory of justice and broader climate justice scholarship, the study operationalises justice through three analytical dimensions: responsibility, capacity, and vulnerability. The research adopts a qualitative case study approach, combining document analysis of international agreements, national policy frameworks, and climate finance data with semi-structured interviews conducted with policymakers and climate finance experts in Nepal. The empirical analysis focuses on the post-Paris period (2015–2025) and compares Nepal’s conditional mitigation and adaptation needs, as articulated in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), with the scale and composition of climate finance received. The findings reveal a significant gap between Nepal’s identified climate finance needs and the support delivered. Beyond the volume gap, structural features of the international climate finance regime, including definitional ambiguities, mitigation-heavy allocation patterns, reliance on loan-based instruments, and procedural access barriers, limit alignment with justice principles. Although Nepal demonstrates strong policy alignment and institutional preparation, climate finance remains insufficient, unpredictable, and often delivered in forms that may increase fiscal vulnerability. Overall, the study concludes that while the Paris Agreement incorporates distributive commitments in principle, institutional design features constrain their implementation in practice. By grounding normative justice theory in empirical analysis, the thesis offers a framework that can inform future research and policy discussions in other developing and climate-vulnerable countries.