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Overview Climatechangeandglobaljustice Darrell Moellendorf∗ 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 brieflysurveyingtheinternationaltreatycontext,Icriticallydiscussseveralissues, includingclimatechangeandhumanrights,responsibilityforhistoricalemissions 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. ©2012JohnWiley&Sons,Ltd. Howtocitethis article: WIREsClimChange2012,3:131–143.doi:10.1002/wcc.158 CLIMATECHANGEANDGLOBAL The section on Global Justice summarizes some JUSTICE of the recent work in global justice that is relevant here. The section on The UNFCCC Treaty discusses Anthropogenicclimatechangeiswidelyrecognized features of the international treaty context in which as a global problem affecting the lives and climate change negotiations are occurring. After that well being of millions of people, the stability of the section on Climate Change and Human Rights ecosystems, and the existence of many natural species. discusses the relationship between climate change and Myassumption in this article is that justice involves human rights. The section on Responsibility for His- moral considerations regarding relationships between toric Emissions discusses responsibility for historical peopleorbetweenpeoplemediatedbyinstitutionsand emissions and the polluter-pays-principle. The section policies, and that therefore this is the case with global on Ability to Pay discusses the ability-to-pay prin- justice as well. There are important moral questions ciple. The section on Grandfathering discusses the regarding the effects of climate change on ecosystems, idea of grandfathering, namely that a state’s entitle- biodiversity, and species.a But I shall not discuss these ment to emit CO should be based on its historic as matters of global justice. 2 levels of emissions. The section on Equal Emissions My goal here is to review the most important Entitlements discusses the claim that each person has b issues concerning climate change and global justice. an equal entitlement to emit greenhouse gases within Thisis by no means, however, an exhaustive survey of the limits established by the aims of mitigation in this growing and important literature. I cannot hope general. The section on The Right to Sustainable to provide that here. In summarizing and commenting Development summarizes an account of the right to on the various issues, my aim is twofold: the first is sustainable development. And, the section on Adap- to introduce the issues to readers who are unfamiliar tation is devoted to a discussion of global justice and with them; the second is to stimulate both readers adaptation policy. who are already familiar with some of these debates as well as those who are just becoming familiar with GLOBALJUSTICE them to further critical reflection. Efforts to develop and criticize theories of global jus- ∗Correspondence to: dmoellen@mail.sdsu.edu tice have recently developed into major research pro- c Department of Philosophy, San Diego State University, San Diego, gramsforseveralpoliticalphilosophersandtheorists. CA,USA It is impossible adequately to summarize all of the Volume3,March/April2012 ©2012JohnWiley&Sons,Ltd. 131 wires.wiley.com/climatechange Overview important details in the debates that have been occur- that they are either less strong12 or less demanding.10 ring, but I shall point to a few areas where those The content of the latter position is similar to one debates are important to the concerns of justice and offered by some cosmopolitans, who defend only climate change. duties to meet minimum needs.2 Many cosmopoli- The kind of justice in philosophical debates tan positions take duties of distributive justice to about global justice that is relevant to our theme is require significantly more than that. One family of best thought of as social justice. Several closely related such positions holds that natural resources are right- questions taken up in these debates seem directly fully commonly owned by all the Earth’s inhabitants, relevant to climate change policy. These include the notmerelysomeofthosewhowereluckyenoughtobe following: Do robust duties of justice exist between born near or on top of them; and that therefore some people that do not live in the same country? In virtue or all of the revenues collected from resource extrac- of what(if anything) are there such duties? And which 1,6,17 tion should be shared globally. Other positions principles best characterize those duties? include a version of equality of opportunity applied Cosmopolitansarguethatrobustdutiesofjustice 3,5 globally. Still others maintain that the difference exist between noncompatriots.1–9 Noncosmopolitans principle, which John Rawls famously defends for of various stripes either deny the existence of such domestic justice, and which requires that inequalities dutiesofjusticeorassertthattheyaresubstantiallyless in wealth and income maximize benefits to the least robust than those between compatriots.10–16,d There 1,4,6 advantage people, applies globally. are a variety of reasons for the noncosmopolitan posi- Millions of people are already at risk of extreme tion but four have attracted the most attention. One weather and flooding. Currently around 344 million is the claim that duties of egalitarian distributive jus- people are exposed to tropical cyclones, 521 million tice exist between people only if they are subject to a to floods, 130 million to droughts, and 2.3 million to commoncoercivelegal structure,10,14,16 and currently 18 landslides. Climate change is expected to increase states are the only structures of this sort. Another is these numbers very significantly. About 10% of the that the content of duties of egalitarian distributive world’s population lives at an elevation of 10 m or justice can be provided only by a cultural understand- less above sea-level.19 Hundreds of millions of people ing of goods, which understanding only nations are are at risk of inundation from tropical storms and 11 capable of providing. A third is that egalitarian rising sea levels. But the poor living in the mega deltas distributive justice would conflict with national self- of North Africa and Asia are particularly vulnerable. 11 determination. And the fourth is that state policy ‘People living in the Ganges Delta and lower Man- remainsthemostimportantfactorinthewell-beingof hattan share flood risks associated with rising seas 15 persons. Thesearenotmutuallyexclusivepositions. levels. They do not share the same vulnerabilities. The And noncosmopolitans sometimes affirm more than reason: the Ganges Delta is marked by high levels of one of these. 19 povertyandlowlevelsofinfrastructuralprotection’. There are also a variety of cosmopolitan posi- Thedevastationcausedbydroughtandfloodingcould tions, providing different resources for responding to result in long term setbacks to human development in the noncosmopolitan positions. Some cosmopolitans manypoorsocieties.18 hold that duties of social justice are owed by each Climate change related threats are not simply person to all other persons, in which case the limits of acts of God, but the result of energy use and mul- state coercion and commonnationalculturesestablish tiple uncoordinated energy policies in countries and noprincipled limit to duties, although the latter might provinces throughout the world. Historically, how- 3,8,9 affect their content somewhat. A variant of this ever, greenhouse gas emissions have been highest in viewfocusesprimarilyonhumanrights,whichpropo- theindustrializedworld.‘WhenpeopleinanAmerican nents take to be universal and to include rights to sub- city turn on the airconditioning or people in Europe sistence, which are violated by international practices drive their cars, their actions have consequences. 7 thatrecognizethelegitimacyofcorruptgovernments. Thoseconsequenceslinkthemtoruralcommunitiesin Other cosmopolitans accept that duties of social jus- Bangladesh, farmers in Ethiopia, and slum dwellers in tice are not owed to everyone, but that the set of Haiti’.18 Energy use brings tremendous benefits, but people bound by duties of justice is larger than merely whenfossil fuels are used it also brings significant cli- those who are subject to the same framework of legal matechangerelatedcosts.Theprivilegeofusingfossil coercion; it includes also those who are members of a fuels has mostly fallen to the relatively rich of the commoneconomicassociation,whichexistsglobally.5 world, while the burdens of climate change are falling Some noncosmopolitans believe that duties of more heavily on the poor. The question of who is distributive justice exist between noncompatriots but responsible for the costs of climate change, including 132 ©2012JohnWiley&Sons,Ltd. Volume3,March/April2012 WIREsClimate Change Climate change and global justice the costs of adapting to it, would appear then to be a the adverse effects of climate change’.21 Paragraph 4 significant concern of global justice. opens by invoking ‘a right to...sustainable develop- Any effective international treaty for climate ment’ and closes by requiring international policy to changemitigationwillhavetolowerglobalCO emis- take‘intoaccountthateconomicdevelopmentisessen- 2 sions very dramatically. Emissions must be 50–85% tial for adopting measures to address climate change’. below2000levelsby2050inordertosecureareason- These principles guide the course of subsequent able chance of keeping planetary warming to 2 ◦C.20 deliberation with the net effect that acceptable (Whether this warming limit is a morally appropriate additional treaties under the auspices of the one is a question of how much climate change we UNFCCC must lay heavier burdens on developed should avoid and ultimately a question of intergener- country parities and be especially solicitous of the e ational justice and beyond the scope of this article. ) development needs of developing parties. This is fully To do this the cost of fossil fuels relative to renew- consistent with accounts of global just that require ables will have to increase. But human development either eradicating severe poverty or reducing global is very energy intensive. Electrification makes possible inequalities. A group of developed country parties is hospitals and schools with modern equipment. Man- compiled in Annex I of the Convention. This group ufacturing uses energy but also provides better paying includes 40 states and the European Union, including jobs than can usually be had in rural areas. Transport the western Europeanstates, the USA, Canada, Japan, of manufactured goods consumes massive amounts Australia, and New Zealand. This same set of states of energy. A second important concern of global jus- is listed in Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol. Only tice then is how an international treaty will assign the states in Annex B are assigned binding emission mitigation costs, and in particular whether costs will reductions under the Protocol. be assigned in a way that constrains poverty eradi- Cosmopolitans are likely to favor distinguishing cating economic growth in the developing and least the burdens of responding to climate change in a developed countries. waythatprovidesallowancestodevelopingcountries. The Convention applies to a world characterized THEUNITEDNATIONSFRAMEWORK by extreme poverty and global inequality. Economic CONVENTIONONCLIMATECHANGE development can eradicate poverty but it is energy TREATY intensive. Given current technology and energy markets, the cheapest sources of energy are usually The United Nations Framework Convention on fossil fuels, coal in particular. A climate change Climate Change (UNFCCC), formed by international treaty that raises energy prices in the developing treaty in 1992, is the international institution in world threatens to slow, or prevent, the process by which, to date, all significant attempts to come to an which billions of people may be raised out of extreme international agreement dealing with climate change poverty. Fundamentally, the Convention’s principles haveoccurred. Both the treaty and the institution that distinguishing burdens of the developed and the developed as a result of the treaty are called ‘The developing states is not about resource redistribution, 22 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate then, although it has been maligned as such. Rather Change’. To distinguish these, I refer to the former as such principles serve to ensure that neither climate ‘the Convention’ and the latter as ‘the UNFCCC’. change nor a climate change treaty worsen the The UNFCCC provides the institutional setting prospects for development for poor countries. forinternationalnegotiationsandtheConventionpro- The list drawn up in 1992 at the time of writ- vides a deliberative framework in a set of guiding ing of the Convention, however, does not include all norms.Article3setsoutseveralprinciplestoguidethe of the states that are now among the group of most achievement of the Convention’s objective. Paragraph highly developed. But any commitment to human 1stipulates that efforts should be distributed differen- development needs in developing and least developed tially. It affirms assigning burdens to parties ‘on the countries will necessarily place very heavy burdens basis of equity and in accordance with their common on developed states. Energy supply, industry, and but differentiated responsibilities and respective capa- transport comprise over 50% of all greenhouse gas bilities’. Paragraph 1 also states that, ‘the developed emissions. While forestry practices, including defor- 20 country Parties should take the lead in combating estation, and agriculture comprise over 30%. Emis- climate change and the adverse effects thereof’.21 sionsinallofthesecategoriesareaffectedbyeconomic Paragraph 2 requires full attention to ‘The specific development and rising populations in the developing needs and special circumstances of developing Parties, world. In the absence of adopting additional miti- especially those that are particularly vulnerable to gation strategies, emissions are projected to increase Volume3,March/April2012 ©2012JohnWiley&Sons,Ltd. 133 wires.wiley.com/climatechange Overview 23 living for himself and his family, including adequate byanadditional40–110%between2000and2030. Twothirdstothreequartersoftheincreaseisexpected food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous 25 to come from developing countries, where both eco- improvement of living conditions. nomic and population growth are highest.23 Even if global justice requires laying heavier burdens on Simon Caney argues that a central and developed countries, an international treaty that ade- fundamental wrong of climate change is that it 26 g quately mitigates climate change will eventually have will cause significant human rights violations. , to constrain the emissions of non-Annex I countries. Caney make this argument in relation to three key rights: The right not to be arbitrarily deprived of one’s life, the right not to have others cause serious CLIMATECHANGEANDHUMAN threats to one’s health, and the right not to have RIGHTS others deprive one of the means of subsistence. These are broadly accepted rights, less demanding In the absence of mitigation, climate change is pro- and less controversial than the rights enumerated jected to have profound, often devastating effects, in the paragraphs of the human rights documents on hundred of millions of people by the end of this cited above. Hence, Caney’s point is on the face of it century. Human health is expected to suffer signifi- plausible. cantly. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Human rights have figured prominently in the Climate Change (IPCC), ‘The health status of mil- recent literature on global justice. Many cosmopoli- lions of people is projected to be affected through, for tans have defended the importance of human rights example, increases in malnutrition; increased deaths, in contrast to claims of states to sovereign control diseases and injury due to extreme weather events; over the affairs within their borders.4 Others, as increased burden of diarrheal disease; increased fre- noted above, have argued that human rights form quencyofcardio-respiratorydiseases...andthealtered the basis of duties to reform the international state 20 spatial distribution of some infectious diseases’. For system to eradicate desperate poverty. So an account hundreds of millions of people access to water and of the moral problems of climate change in terms of food will become more difficult. By 2020 from 75 to the threats that it poses to human rights is consis- 250 million Africans are expected to suffer increased tent with a broadly cosmopolitan approach to global water stress; and yields on rain fed farms may be justice. 20 reducedbyupto50% (p.50).AccordingtoaUnited There are, however, features of the employ- Nations Human Development Programme (UNDP) ment of human rights in the context of climate review of climate change projections, ‘Overall, cli- change that bear special scrutiny. As invoked by mate change will lower the incomes and reduce the Caney, and several others, human rights are meant opportunities of vulnerable populations. By 2080, to account as much for our duties to future genera- the number of people at risk of hunger could reach tions as to people currently living in other countries. 600million—twice the number of people living in That is to say, human rights are said to account for 18 poverty in sub-Saharan Africa today’. our duties of intergenerational justice. There several The calamities caused by climate change are important questions about whether human rights are pertinent to protections offered by international the best way to account for our duties of intergen- human rights documents. For example, Article 25, erational justice, but they elude the scope of this paragraph 1, of the Universal Declaration of Human article.h Rights states that, Everyonehastherighttoastandardoflivingadequate RESPONSIBILITYFORHISTORIC for the health and well-being of himself and of his EMISSIONS family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to Both considerations of global justice and the security in the event of unemployment, sickness, Convention’s language of ‘common but differentiated disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of responsibilities’ have led some people to conclude livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.24 that a morally acceptable international treaty should Article 11 of International Covenant on distribute various responsibilities of states according Economic, Social and Cultural Rights holds that, to their historic contribution of greenhouse gasses, especially CO2 (because of its long atmospheric The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize residence time), to the atmosphere.i This view invokes the right of everyone to an adequate standard of aprinciple from other aspects of environmental policy 134 ©2012JohnWiley&Sons,Ltd. 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