Climate Change and Global Justice: Old Paradigm and New Actors Involved (original) (raw)

Climate Change and Global Justice

2014

It is widely recognized that Climate Change (CC) is a multidimensional, spatiotemporal and multi scale problem. These features raise an issue of framing: this means that it is difficult to conceptualize such a problem. Hence we shall discuss whether to approach it as a global or an international issue and whether or not it encompasses features of global justice. In order to do so we shall define a typical issue of Global Justice to see if CC falls into such a definition. The argument of this paper is that even though these two issues share some characteristics, the latter is a wicked problem that entails issues related to collective action and future generations. If the old paradigms have failed in recognizing such an aspect, then CC must be addressed through a new perspective into the larger framework of Sustainable Development (SD). Still a constructive debate on which actors should be involved is needed. The thesis of this paper is that if Global Governance has failed a new agent must be selected and this agent must be the community of people who is more efficient when pushing governments in acting against CC. At the end the problems related to our theory will be set forth.

Climate Change and Global Justice: New Problem, Old Paradigm?

Global Policy, 5, (1), 2014: 105-111

We are stuck with climate change. Without intending to do so, we have committed ourselves and our descendents to a world that is qualitatively different from the one that gave rise to humanity and all of its creations. The dusk has started to fall, and so the owl of Minerva can spread her wings and fly: we can now begin to seriously reflect on why the global effort to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change failed.

Climate change and global justice CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL JUSTICE

In this article, I examine matters concerning justice and climate change in light of current work in global justice. I briefly discuss some of the most important contemporary work by political philosophers and theorist on global justice and relate it to various considerations regarding justice and climate change. After briefly surveying the international treaty context, I critically discuss several issues, including climate change and human rights, responsibility for historical emissions and the polluter-pays principle, the ability to pay principle, grandfathering entitlements to emit greenhouse gasses, equal per capita emissions entitlements, the right to sustainable development, and responsibility for financing adaptation to climate change. This set of issues does not exhaust the list of considerations of global justice and climate change, but it includes some of the most important of those considerations.

Climate Justice: Case Studies in Global and Regional Governance Challenges

2016

Climate change is a serious global issue, as it affects all components of the Earth, including humanity. This book deals with the obvious difficulties at the time of guaranteeing the existence of climate justice, given the heterogeneity of the availability of resources, and the prioritisation of the interests of certain countries regarding those of others.

The Struggle for Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

2016

Many agents have failed to comply with their responsibilities to take the action needed to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change. This pervasive noncompliance raises two questions of nonideal political theory. First, it raises the question of what agents should do when others do not discharge their climate responsibilities. (the Responsibility Question) In this paper I put forward four principles that we need to employ to answer the Responsibility Question (Sections II-V). I then illustrate my account, by outlining four kinds of action that should be undertaken (Section VI). Pervasive noncompliance also raises a second question: Given the lack of progress in combating climate change, should existing governance structures be maintained or changed (and if they should be changed, in what ways)? (the Governance Question). The paper briefly outlines a methodology for addressing this question and outlines what a nonideal response to the existing institutional structures would be (Section VII). It does so with reference to the Paris Agreement, and in particular the creation of a "global stocktake" (Article 14, Paris Agreement) and the "facilitative dialogue" (paragraph 20 of the ‘Adoption of the Paris Agreement’). The aim, then, is to set out an account of a nonideal theory of climate justice.

The impossible necessity of climate justice

Melbourne Journal of International Law, 2009

It will be difficult to find an agreed solution to climate change that does not engage with climate justice. It is generally regarded as naïve, when considering international relations, to focus on justice, or to emphasise right over might. In the case of climate change -perhaps uniquelyeven the powerful need a genuinely global solution, which cannot be achieved without an engagement with justice. In this instance, might needs right. This think piece focuses on the North-South aspect of climate justice. It starts by unpacking the reasons why climate justice is important. It then argues that to assess whether a climate agreement or proposal is just, we need to examine four factors. Two are positive: that it should involve dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas concentrations; and that it should be fair and take into account both the varied current and historical responsibilities and the differing existing capacities of all involved. Two are negative: that it should not increase inequality; and that it should not increase the potential for international conflict. After outlining each of these components and why they are critical, I assess four broad proposals for dealing with climate change to see how they measure up. These are: equally-shared cuts in emissions; the 'contract and converge' model; the greenhouse development rights framework; and geo-engineering.

Towards a climate change justice theory?

Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2016

Approaches to justice are an infrequent phenomenon in the analysis of global change policies pursued by states and international organizations but are writ large in global civil society protests and advocacy. I hope to initiate, through this paper, a different conversation concerning theories of climate justice (TCJ) in the offing and ask questions about how different TCJs may be from theories about global justice (TGJ) and environmental justice (TEJ). These approaches are all related of coursebut the questions that interest me pertain to the distinctions and differences between them. Although TEJs remain tethered to domestic and regional social orderings, they generally come closer to TCJs than TGJs do. I argue here that another important difference between TEJs and TCJs concerns the notion of 'generations' in TCJs. This goes beyond the three generations (past, present and future) in most accounts of TGJ to encompass infinite generations. In addition, I examine the notion that there is a human right to do harm and the ways in which TCJ may address harm prevention as the cornerstone of a new planetary approach to justice.

Climate Justice: Balancing the Right to Develop and the Norm of Sustainability

Climate change presents a global problem that requires collective action. Distributing obligations in relation to this has proven problematic, especially in light of the divide between wealthy and developed states compared to poor and developing states. The norm of sustainability requires states to continue to protect and promote sustainable actions. This comes into direct conflict with the right to develop when considering how to mitigate climate change. The right to develop requires the use of limited resources now, whereas the norm of sustainability argues that these resources must be protected for both environmental protection and intergenerational justice. Intragenerational justice requires us to consider whether actions that protect the future may be causing greater injustice within the present generation. In this thesis, I discuss the important potential distribution principles, with considerations of historic responsibility, uncertainty, and the ability to pay principles. I ...

Promoting Justice in Global Climate Policies

Routledge Handbook on the Political Economy of the Environment, 2021

Global inequalities raised by climate change lead to multiple injustices. This chapter adopts a climate justice perspective to assess the degree of (un)fairness of current mitigation and adaptation policies and to propose institutional reforms that would make them fairer. The first section explains in what sense political economists and normative political theorists could join efforts to promote climate justice, despite the historic tensions between their two fields. The second section deals with mitigation policies and explains why current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are unfair. It also proposes a roadmap for a just energy transition that would implement a price-signal approach complementing the pledge-and-review approach that dominates climate negotiations. The third section moves to adaptation policies and highlights that adaptation finance transfers to vulnerable countries are currently insufficient. It also supports the promotion of democratization processes in vulnerable societies to avoid a trade-off between two influential criteria guiding the allocation of adaptation finance: vulnerability and good governance. The conclusion sketches a research agenda for future interdisciplinary research on climate justice.

Climate justice and the international regime

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2010

Contestations over justice and equity in the climate regime provide the most striking evidence of the quest by relevant actors to ensure that institutions for global environmental governance are based on widely shared ethical standards of responsibility and fairness. This review article examines recent policy debates and literature on distributive justice and the climate regime and highlights some areas of key research. The review indicates that while discussions on climate justice have gained ascendency within the international regime circle with noticeable impacts, a lot remains to be clarified about the status of justice concepts and how to best design polices that reconcile moral ideals and power politics. Hence, although the current regime performs well in terms of recognizing the need for and incorporating concepts of distributive justice between the rich and poor countries; it has not provided a basis to sufficiently upset the underlying forces and abiding structures of global inequality. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website