Conceptualizations of justice in climate policy (original) (raw)

Varieties of distributive justice in climate change

Climatic Change, 2001

Is this really just?'-We would be deluding ourselves in thinking that the concept of being just could be analysed in any simple unified manner. The nature of 'justice', 'fairness' or 'equity' 1 is complex and relative to the type of issue at stake. As it happens, the key equity issues in the climate change context are of a particular type: they are questions of distributing some homogeneous divisible quantity or other. This is fortunate, because we have a long standing general characterisation of a just solution for these distributive issues, summarised in Aristotle's dictum 'What is just is what is proportional, and what is unjust is what violates the proportion.' 2 The fairness of a distribution, in other words, is to be assessed in terms of a proportionality with some morally relevant quantifiable attribute ('differentiation parameter'). Obviously, Aristotle's answer is too general to provide practical solutions for actual distributive problems. And even if a particular differentiation parameter is agreed upon-such as the 'degree of responsibility' of the well-known Polluter Pays Principle-the question of how to 'operationalise' (measure) it is all but trivial, as is witnessed by Rosa and Ribeiro's interesting contribution in this issue. 3 Nonetheless, Aristotle's general characterisation of distributive justice ('justice = proportionality') is of crucial importance in providing a general conceptual framework for the equity issues arising in the context of climate change and the international regime emerging under the UN Framework Convention. 4 And while finding acceptable operationalisations of differentiation parameters will remain a critical task as concerns the practical implementation of equitable solutions, it is equally important not to lose sight of this 'bigger picture'. Measurements are indispensable in finding equitable solutions, yet they are at best meaningless and at worst counter-productive in the absence of a proper understanding of the larger issues at stake. This is why I propose to take this opportunity to complement Rosa and Ribeiro's contribution with a brief sketch of this general conceptual framework.

Distributive Justice and Climate Change

This paper discusses two distinct questions of distributive justice raised by climate change. Stated very roughly, one question concerns how much protection is owed to the potential victims of climate change (the Just Target Question), and the second concerns how the burdens (and benefits) involved in preventing dangerous climate change should be distributed (the Just Burden Question). In Section II, I focus on the first of these questions, the Just Target Question. The rest of the paper examines the second question, the Just Burden Question. To answer this question, I argue, it is necessary to address two important methodological questions (one concerning the choice between what I term Integrationism and Isolationism and the other concerning the choice between what I term Holism and Atomism). Sections III-V, thus, set out and explore these two methodological issues. Having done so, the paper then turns from methodological issues to substantive analysis, and in Section VI it examines three principles of distributive justice that, it has been suggested, should determine how the burden of addressing dangerous climatic changes should be distributed (the Polluter Pays Principle, the Ability to Pay Principle and the Beneficiary Pays Principle).

Distributive justice and climate change. The allocation of emission rights

Analyse & kritik, 2006

The emission of greenhouse gases causes climate change. Therefore, many support a global cap on emissions. How then should the emissions allowed under this cap be distributed? We first show that above average past emissions cannot be used to justify a right to above average current emissions. We then sketch three basic principles of distributive justice (egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism) and argue, first, that prioritarian standards are the most plausible and, second, that they speak in favour of giving people of developing countries higher emission rights than people of industrialised countries. In order to support this point it has to be shown, inter alia, in what ways the higher past emissions of industrialised countries are relevant for today's distribution of emission rights.

How Fairness Principles in the Climate Debate Relate to Theories of Distributive Justice

Sustainability

A central question in international climate policy making is how to distribute the burdens of keeping global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. In particular, there are four distributional issues: how to allocate the total amount of greenhouse gases that can still be emitted, who should bear the costs of mitigation, who should bear the costs of adaptation to unavoidable climate change, and who should bear the costs of residual climate damage. Regarding these distributional issues the academic literature offers a plethora of fairness principles, such as ‘polluter pays’, ‘beneficiary pays’, ‘equal per capita rights’, ‘grandfathering’, ‘ability to pay’, ‘historical responsibility’ and ‘cost effectiveness’. Remarkably, there is a theoretical gap between these principles and the central theories of distributive justice in moral and political philosophy. As a consequence, it is unclear how these principles are related, whether they can be combined...

The influence of justice theories on international climate policies and measures

Macquarie Journal of International and Comparative Environmental Law, 2012

While the justice implications of climate change are well understood by the international climate regime, solutions to meaningfully address climate injustice are still emerging. This article explores how a number of different theories of justice have influenced the development of international climate regime policies and measures. Such analysis is undertaken by examining the theories of remedial justice, environmental justice, energy justice, social justice and international justice. This article demonstrates how each of these theories has influenced the development of international climate policies or measures. No one theory of justice has the ability to respond to the multifaceted justice implications that arise as a result of climate change. It is argued that a variety of lenses of justice are useful when examining issues of injustice in the climate context. It is believed that articulating the justice implications of climate change by reference to theories of justice assists in clarifying the key issues giving rise to injustice. This article finds that while there has been some progress by the regime in recognising the injustices associated with climate change, such recognition is piecemeal and the implementation of many of the policies and measures discussed within this article needs to be either scaled up, or extended into more far-reaching policies and measures to overcome climate justice concerns. Overall it is suggested that climate justice concerns need to be clearly enunciated within key adaptation instruments so as to provide a legal and legitimate basis upon which to leverage action.

Distributive Justice in the Age of Climate Change

Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 2020

Legal and political thinkers have always battled with the question of justice and, especially within a society, about the fair and just distribution of rights and responsibilities. This question is, however, not only relevant for the organization of municipal or domestic society; it has become increasingly relevant within the international legal system. An area where this has been most rife in the last three decades is the international law on climate change.

Distributive Justice and Climate Change: The What, How, and Who of Climate Change Policy

2016

The goal of this paper is to examine climate change through the lens of distributive justice. In doing so, it will attempt to answer how three important questions of distributive justice apply to climate change policy. These questions, what is the object of distribution, how should this object be distributed, and among whom should this distribution take place, will be the topics of the topics of the first, second, and third sections respectively. Through this examination, it is the hope of this paper that certain policy recommendations and climate change strategies can be developed which adequately take into account both the goods that contribute to the well-being or capabilities of people, as well as the negative impacts climate change has on them. It will be argued that when we view climate change in this way, it can be seen as a capability depriving force that limits development, and that climate change policies that focus on technology transfer and energy innovation are most equipped to deal with these problems.

Review of Posner and Weisbach's Climate Change Justice (2010)

Many discussions of how to justly distribute the costs of mitigating climate change arrive at a conclusion that is, if not pleasing, at least pleasingly uncomplicated. The three most compelling principles that we might use to settle the issue -'ability to pay', 'polluter pays' and equal rights to the global atmosphere -seemingly all point in the same direction. The U.S. and E.U. should bear almost all of the burden. Chief among the many novel contributions of this provocative book is an upsetting of that neat consensus. In fact, Posner and Weisbach argue, it turns out that these three principles imply quite different distributions of the burden. Moreover, still more controversially, the principles themselves are morally suspect when used in this context. This conclusion, and the thorough and original arguments that lead to it, should shake up the existing literature on this vital and still underexplored topic in productive ways.

Climate Change Mitigation Justice and the No-Harm Principle

Humanistyka i Przyrodoznawstwo

When translated into concrete policy, any allocation of emissions leads to the attribution of emissions rights based on distributive justice (even if the policy was previously examined in terms of utilitarianism at the philosophical level). Consequently, the distributive justice approach legitimizes the corresponding amount of emissions. If a certain level of emissions can receive emissions rights, provided they are compatible with a certain emissions budget, to allocate emissions rights when the dangerous concentration level has been overshot could understate the need to preserve the functioning of a “balanced” climate system. From the perspective of Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, and with the purpose of assessing the epistemology of climate justice, it will be possible to question the possible importation of the mode of production of norms of social law into climate mitigation justice. Additionally, it will be questioned whether the amount of anthropogenic emissions rights c...