Analysis of distributional justice in the global climate regime typically focuses on how historical responsibility, present-day capacity, vulnerability and rights to development should shape the international allocation of duties and entitlements associated with climate change (see Chapters Two and Four). This chapter argues that state cooperation in seeking an effective global response to climate change is an overlooked factor that should have a larger place in this ethical calculus, and it examines how an emphasis on cooperation might influence our assessment of China's climate policies. The proposed emphasis on cooperation follows from recognition that addressing climate change is a global collective action problem. Although states have the financial and technical capacity to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, effective action has been delayed for want of international agreement over what contribution each party should make. The scale of the cooperation challenge is all the greater because an international collective action problem, wherein states have differing commitment to addressing climate change, is layered on top of a series of national collective action problems, whereby the interests of polluting industries tend to dominate within national political processes (Olson, 1971; Harris, 2007).

In the context of this intractable two-level collective action problem, contribution to international cooperation might be considered as important as emissions levels in an assessment of a state's responsibility for climate change. A state with low GHG emissions that works to undermine international agreement might potentially be as ethically blameworthy as a high emitter that sincerely seeks to achieve a cooperative outcome. The significance of cooperative effort is widely recognised in non-academic debates, as is demonstrated when a change of government alters popular assessments of national responsibility. When Barack Obama entered the White House and Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia, their states’ emissions profiles did not suddenly change. However, popular assessments of each state’s culpability for climatic harm shifted because the new administrations signalled their support for international cooperation. This intuitive understanding of the link between cooperative behaviour and national responsibility is not reflected in normative theoretical accounts of climate justice. This chapter argues that contribution to cooperation is a key measure of state responsibility for climate-related harm that should inform a just international distribution of climate change-related costs.