Book contents
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
- 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
- 3 Historical Emissions
- 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
- 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
- 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
- 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
- 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
- 9 In the Name of Political Possibility
- 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions
- Index
- References
8 - In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2017
Book contents
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
- 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
- 3 Historical Emissions
- 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
- 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
- 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
- 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
- 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
- 9 In the Name of Political Possibility
- 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions
- Index
- References
Summary
While the view that every person is entitled to the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions is supported by many, it has been fiercely criticised by Bell and Caney. They criticise Emissions Egalitarianism (EE) for being “Atomist” and “Isolationist”, i.e. for ignoring climate-induced costs not related to mitigation on the one and considerations regarding global justice on the other hand. The paper aims at investigating whether EE can be defended against their critique. Based on a reconstruction by Seidel, Section 2 and 3 discuss key aspects of the global commons argument for EE. Since the argument rests on an atomist and isolationist approach, sections 4 and 5 discuss arguments in defence of Atomism and Isolationism respectively. We argue that both approaches are unconvincing. Section 6 then sketches how EE could be defended as a second best option instead. We compare EE with Caney’s most recent emission allocation proposal and argue that EE has a higher institutional and political feasibility. We conclude that EE would make the world more just and lead to a global redistribution of resources that can function as capacity building for more complex allocation procedures in future.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions , pp. 165 - 197Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017
References
Agarwal, A., and Narain, S. (1991). Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism. New Delhi.Google Scholar
Baatz, C. (2014). Climate Change and Individual Duties to Reduce GHG emissions. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 17(1), 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baatz, C. (2013). Responsibility for the Past? Some Thoughts on Compensating Those Vulnerable to Climate Change in Developing Countries. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 16(1), 94–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baer, P., Athanasiou, T., and Kartha, S. (2007). The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World: The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework. Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation.Google Scholar
Barnes, P., Costanza, R., Hawken, P., Orr, D., Ostrom, E., Umana, A., and Young, O. (2009). Creating an Earth Atmospheric Trust Fund. Science, 319(5864), 724.Google Scholar
Bell, D. R. (2008). Carbon Justice? The Case against a Universal Right to Equal Carbon Emissions. In Seeking Environmental Justice. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 239–57.Google Scholar
Bovens, L. (2011). A Lockean Defense of Grandfathering Emission Rights. In: The Ethics of Global Climate Change, ed. Arnold, D.. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 124–44.Google Scholar
Caney, S. (2005). Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility and Global Climate Change. Leiden Journal of International Law, 18, 747–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S. (2006). Environmental Degradation, Reparations, and the Moral Significance of History. Journal of Social Philosophy, 37(3), 464–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S. (2009). Justice and the Distribution of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Journal of Global Ethics, 5(2), 125–46.Google Scholar
Caney, S. (2010a). Climate Change and the Duties of the Advantaged. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 13(1), 203–28.Google Scholar
Caney, S. (2010b). Justice, Equality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions? In Unpublished manuscript presented at the conference ‘Responsibility in International Political Philosophy’ at the University of Graz, Graz, 20 September 2010. [This is an extended version of the article published in 2012 in Philosophy & Public Affairs.]Google Scholar
Caney, S. (2012). Just Emissions. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 40(4), 255–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cripps, E. (2011). Acknowledging the Elephant: Population, Justice and Urgency. In Unpublished manuscript presented at the conference “Time Dimensions in the Climate Justice Debate” at the University of Graz, 13–15 September 2010.Google Scholar
Duus-Otterström, G., and Jagers, S. C. (2012). Identifying Burdens of Coping with Climate Change: A Typology of the Duties of Climate Justice. Global Environmental Change, 22, 746–53.Google Scholar
Eyckmans, J., and Schokkaert, E. (2004). An “Ideal” Normative Theory for Greenhouse Negotiations? Ethical Perspectives, 11(1), 5–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, S. M. (2011). A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosseries, A. (2007). Cosmopolitan Luck Egalitarianism and the Greenhouse Effect. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 31, 279–309.Google Scholar
Hartzell-Nichols, L. (2011). Responsibility for Meeting the Costs of Adaptation. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(5), 687–700.Google Scholar
Hayward, T. (2009). International Political Theory and the Global Environment: Some Critical Questions for Liberal Cosmopolitans. Journal of Social Philosophy, 40(2), 276–95. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467–9833.2009.01451.xGoogle Scholar
IPCC. (2007). Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Parry, M. L., Canziani, O. F., Palutikof, J. P., van der Linden, P. J., and Hanson, C. E.. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Kumar, R. (2003). Who Can Be Wronged? Philosophy & Public Affairs, 31(2), 99–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. (1993). Two Treatise of Government. In Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Laslett, P.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, A. (2000). Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change. Schumacher briefing no. 5. Totnes Devon: Green Books for the Schumacher Society.Google Scholar
Meyer, L. H. (2004). Compensating Wrongless Historical Emissions of Greenhouse Gases. Ethical Perspectives, 11(1), 20–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, L. H., and Roser, D. (2006). Distributive Justice and Climate Change: the Allocation of Emission Rights. Analyse & Kritik. Zeitschrift für Sozialtheorie, 28(2), 223–49.Google Scholar
Miller, D. (2008). Global Justice and Climate Change: How Should Responsibilities Be Distributed? URL: http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/Miller_08.pdf. Accessed March 3, 2011.Google Scholar
Moellendorf, D. (2011). Common Atmospheric Ownership and Equal Emissions Entitlements. In: The Ethics of Global Climate Change. ed. Arnold, D. G.. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 104–23.Google Scholar
Moellendorf, D. (2014). The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values, Poverty, and Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C. (2007). Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ott, K., and Baatz, C. (2012). Domains of Climate Ethics. In: Human Health and Ecological Integrity: Ethics, Law and Human Rights, ed. Westra, L., Soskolne, C. L., and Spady, W.. New York: Routledge, pp. 188–200.Google Scholar
Ott, K. et al. (2004). Reasoning Goals of Climate Change Protection: Specifiation of art. 2 UNFCCC. Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler: Deutsches Umweltbundesamt (UBA).Google Scholar
Page, E. A. (2008). Distributing the Burdens of Climate Change. Environmental Politics, 17(4), 556–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, E. A. (2012). Give It Up for Climate Change: A Defence of the Beneficiary Pays Principle. International Theory, 4(2), 300–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelling, M. (2011). Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rickels, W., Klepper, G., Dovern, J., Betz, G., Brachatzek, N., Cacean, S., Güssow, K., Heintzenberg, J., Hiller, S., Hoose, C., Leisner, T., Oschlies, A., Platt, U., Proelß, A., Renn, O., Schäfer, S., and Zürn, M. (2011). Large-Scale Intentional Interventions into the Climate System? Assessing the Climate Engineering Debate. Scoping report conducted on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Kiel Earth Institute, Kiel.Google Scholar
Risse, M. (2008). Who Should Shoulder the Burden? Global Climate Change and Common Ownership of the Earth. HKS Faculty Research Working Paper series RWP08-075. URL: https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/workingpapers/citation.aspx?PubId=6074&type=FN&PersonId=170.Google Scholar
Schuessler, R. (2011). Climate Justice: A Question of Historic Responsibility? Journal of Global Ethics 7: 261–78.Google Scholar
Schuessler, R. (2014). Equal Per Capita Emissions Defended: A Second-Order Approach. Discussion Paper. URL: https://www.academia.edu/16496860/Equal_Per_Capita_Emissions_Defended_A_Second-Order_Approach.Google Scholar
Seidel, C. (2012). Klimawandel, globale Gerechtigkeit und die Ethik globaler öffentlicher Güter: Einige grundlegende begriffliche Fragen. In Globale öffentliche Güter in interdisziplinären Perspektiven, ed. Maring, M.. Karlsruhe: Schriftenreihe des Zentrums für Technik- und Wirtschaftsethik am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie 5. Karlsruhe: KIT Scientific, pp. 179–95.Google Scholar
Seidel, C. (2013). Complex Emission Egalitarianism and the Argument from Global Commons. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Seidel, C. (2014). On ‘Imperfect’ Imperfect Duties and the Epistemic Demands of Integrationist Approaches to Justice. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 17(1), 39–42.Google Scholar
Singer, P. (2002). One World: The Ethics of Globalization. The Terry lectures. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shue, H. (2014). Climate Justice: Vulnerability and Protection. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar
Tickell, O. (2008). Kyoto2: How to Manage the Global Greenhouse. London: Zed Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Nations (UN) (1992). United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. New York.Google Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2011). Human Development Report 2011. Sustainability and equity: a better future for all. New York and Basingstoke: United Nations and Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Vanderheiden, S. (2004). Justice in the Greenhouse: Climate Change and the Idea of Fairness. Social Philosophy Today, 19, 89–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderheiden, S. (2008). Atmospheric Justice: A Political Theory of Climate Change. Oxford: University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanderheiden, S. (2011). Globalizing Responsibility for Climate Change. Ethics & International Affairs, 25(1), 65–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voget-Kleschin, L. (2013). Sustainable Food Consumption? Claims for Sustainable Lifestyles in between Normative and Eudaimonistic Issues. The Example of Food Production and Consumption. Dissertation thesis. University of Greifswald, Germany.Google Scholar
Voget-Kleschin, L. (2013). Employing the Capability Approach in Conceptualizing Sustainable Development. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14(4), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voget-Kleschin, L. (2015). Reasoning Claims for More Sustainable Food Consumption: A Capabilities Perspective. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 28(3), 455–77.Google Scholar
Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. Oxford: Robertson.Google Scholar
WBGU (2009). Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach. Special Report. URL: www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/sondergutachten/sn2009/wbgu_sn2009_en.pdf.Google Scholar
- 9
- Cited by