INTRODUCTION

Having developed a climate justice account in Part I, the book now turns to assessing the global response to climate change in Part II. This assessment will focus on both multilateral (state) and transnational (non-state) responses, and in doing so make sense of the ‘big picture’ of climate change (mis)management and the injustices that come along with it. Although some climate governance scholars are beginning to turn their attention to climate justice (Bulkeley, Edwards and Fuller 2014; Hale 2016; McKendry 2016), and some climate justice scholars have begun to explore and assess the role of non-state actors (Heyward and Roser 2016; Moss 2015; Maltais and McKinnon 2015), there is a lack of systematic research that normatively evaluates transnational climate change responses, or explores how these compare to multilateral efforts. In other words, there remains a significant gap between theory and practice. The book aims to bridge this gap, by illustrating that climate justice theory can be used to assess climate change governance, both multilateral and transnational. In order to begin bridging the gap, the current chapter explains exactly how this assessment will be conducted. The chapter is organised as follows.

First, the chapter provides an overview of global climate change governance, clarifying what aspects of the global response the book focuses on. Next, the chapter explains why actors who operate within climate change governance processes have a responsibility to act on the demands of justice defined in Part I of the book. The chapter grounds the responsibility of these actors in their capability to enable the three demands of climate justice by restructuring the social and political context to make this possible. Following this, the chapter will consider which actors are to be held most responsible if both multilateral and transnational climate change governance actors have the capability to restructure the context. Finally, the chapter develops a methodological framework for assessment. This framework is based on a four-point hierarchy that can be used to investigate to what extent global governance actors enable each demand of justice. In this sense, the current chapter sets out a plan for cosmopolitan assessment of climate governance, and thereby begins to bridge the gap between those who focus on climate justice and those who research the global response to the climate change problem.

This book set out to make sense of the lack of proper response to climate change – focusing on what has gone wrong, what has gone right and what might change now that the Paris Agreement has been ratified. In order to achieve these aims, the book conducted a cosmopolitan assessment of the multilateral and transnational climate change response and in doing so endeavoured to make sense of the ‘big picture’ of climate change (mis)management and the injustices that come along with it. This endeavour has allowed the book to demonstrate that the theory of climate justice can be applied to evaluate the practice of climate change governance. In other words, the book has demonstrated that the gap between theory and practice can be bridged. Although there is more work to be done, the bridging of climate justice and climate governance has allowed for a comprehensive normative understanding of the climate change response and provided new insights into the governance of climate change. These insights can underwrite future research and ultimately help to bring about a more just global response to climate change, because they have provided a common denominator from which to begin suggesting reform. The Conclusion of this book therefore focuses on the lessons that can be learned from the bridging of theory and practice.

More specifically, the Conclusion will focus on how transnational and multilateral responses compare, and what policy recommendations can be made on the basis of this comparison. As was briefly explained in the previous chapter, multilateral and transnational actors face very similar problems, including the ongoing struggle to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the rate required, the entrenched favouring of mitigation over adaptation, the pervasive exclusion of less developed countries from decision-making processes and the incessant failure to change the behaviour of responsible actors. These shared problems imply that including transnational climate change actors in multilateral processes, which the post-Paris Agreement regime is moving towards, may not be a simple or straightforward improvement of the climate change response. The Conclusion will therefore consider whether the direction the post-Paris regime is heading in might be a hindrance to a just response to the climate change problem, rather than a help. First, the Conclusion will provide a brief summary of what the cosmopolitan assessment of multilateral and transnational climate change governance has revealed about the lack of proper response to climate change.

INTRODUCTION

The second half of this book focuses on the cosmopolitan assessment of the global response to climate change, both multilateral and transnational. The previous chapter argued that global climate change governance actors must be held responsible for enabling a condition of justice in the case of climate change and set out a methodological framework to assess to what extent these actors meet their responsibilities. It was explained that both multilateral actors under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and non-state actors involved in transnational climate change governance processes have a moral responsibility to enable a condition of justice, due to their capability of restructuring the social and political context so that the three demands defended in this book can be met. However, it was also argued that multilateral actors have formal authority to act and are therefore most responsible for enabling a condition of justice in the case of climate change.

The purpose of the current chapter is therefore to assess to what extent multilateral actors enable the three demands of justice developed in Part I of the book. Further to this, the chapter aims to provide a broad-brush overview of multilateral climate change governance. This will allow readers to develop an understanding of the multilateral climate change response, which has been under way since 1995. Taking each demand of justice in turn, the chapter will focus on the normative commitments made in the Convention as well as assessing the policies set out in the Kyoto Protocol and examining what has been achieved so far by multilateral actors. Following on from this discussion, the chapter will consider to what extent the Paris Agreement presents a change from existing policies. In this way, the chapter provides a historical overview of multilateral climate change action, as well as looking to the future. The final part of the chapter summarises the findings made, discussing what to look out for in the run-up to the Paris Agreement being implemented. This will be expanded on in the conclusion of the book.

MULTILATERAL CLIMATE CHANGE GOVERNANCE: A JUSTICE-BASED EVALUATION

Before the assessment of multilateral climate change governance can commence, the chapter must briefly explain how this assessment will be conducted. The assessment will proceed in three parts, focusing on one demand of justice at a time.

Climate change is one of the most significant challenges our global community has ever faced. As scientific evidence continues to accumulate, it is becoming obvious that climate change requires an urgent global response. Without such a response, rising sea levels, severe weather patterns and the spread of deadly diseases threaten the lives of both present and future generations. Although states continue to work together to act on climate change, most recently by ratifying the Paris Agreement, the global response has so far been woefully inadequate. Some world leaders, most notably United States president Donald Trump, seem outright determined to halt the climate change response altogether. With temperatures rising and climatic changes taking hold across the world, it is increasingly apparent that not enough is being done.

This book aims to make sense of the lack of proper response to climate change – focusing on what has gone wrong, what has gone right, and what might change now that the Paris Agreement has been ratified. Of course, one cannot assess what is going right and wrong without knowing what a right, or just, response to the climate change problem would look like in the first place. The book contends that cosmopolitan thinking on global justice is ideally placed for developing an understanding of what such a response requires. Cosmopolitans put individuals at the centre of moral concern and emphasise the importance of fair treatment of humans across the globe. Engaging in cosmopolitan global justice debates means exploring ethical aspects of the climate change problem: identifying victims of injustice, defining a fair distribution of climate responsibilities and assigning duties of justice to those who are responsible. In exploring these ethical aspects of the climate change problem, the book is able to determine what a just response to the climate change problem entails. Once this has been established, the book can then assess whether the current response to the climate change problem is, in fact, just.

Although this is not the first book on the subject of cosmopolitan global justice and climate change (or climate justice for short), it is the first to normatively evaluate multilateral (state) and transnational (non-state) climate change responses, and in doing so make sense of the ‘big picture’ of climate change (mis)management and the injustices that come along with it.

INTRODUCTION

This book aims to evaluate the global response to climate change. An important part of this evaluation is the development of a climate justice account. One cannot assess what is going right and wrong if one does not define what the right, or rather just, response to climate change would look like in the first place. Who will be most affected, what exactly is at stake, what action must be taken in the face of climate change, and who should be responsible for this action are all important questions that must be answered. The previous chapter focused on the first question – who will be most affected – and argued that the scope of justice should be relational and non-relational in order to include the primary victims of climate change in the realm of moral concern. This current chapter now turns to the second question – what exactly is at stake – by setting out the grounds of climate justice. Defining the grounds of justice is a key task for any climate justice account because it allows readers to understand what must be normatively prioritised. The grounds of justice in this sense represent the moral underpinnings of the climate justice account, a normative subfloor that must not be crossed. The final two questions – what action must be taken in the face of climate change, and who should be responsible for this action – will be the subject of Chapter 3, which sets out three demands of climate justice in order to clarify what exactly is expected from the global response to climate change.

The previous chapter defended a mixed scope of justice that has both relational and non-relational elements. It was explained that the nonrelational side of the account serves to set a minimum moral threshold that applies to all individuals, no matter the time or place of birth. The book must therefore now define this minimal moral threshold, which will constitute the grounds of climate justice: the human right to health. Health experts are confident that climate change will contribute to the global burden of disease and premature death, and have deleterious consequences for human health (Hansen et al. 2013: 8).

INTRODUCTION

The first part of this book focuses on developing a climate justice account that can be used for the evaluation of the global response to climate change. There has so far been no attempt to normatively assess and compare multilateral and transnational climate change responses. The book must therefore provide an account of climate justice to make this assessment possible in the first place. It is not feasible to simply apply or update an existing account, because there is no account that has attempted the kind of analysis conducted here. In order to develop a climate justice account, the book will focus on answering four key questions raised by the climate change problem: who will be most affected, what exactly is at stake, what action must be taken in the face of climate change and who should be responsible for this action? Chapter 1 concerns the first question – who will be most affected – by setting out a scope of justice, which clarifies who must be included in considerations of justice, or in other words how wide the net of justice should be cast. In the case of this book, the net is both wide and deep, because the scope of climate justice is both non-relational and relational. This allows the book to prioritise those most affected by climate change: future generations and those living in less developed countries.

Chapter 2 turns to the second question – what exactly is at stake – by setting out the grounds of climate justice, which allows readers to understand what must be normatively prioritised. In the case of this book, it is the human right to health, which forms a normative subfloor that must not be crossed. The final two questions – what action must be taken in the face of climate change, and who should be responsible for this action – will be the subject of Chapter 3, which sets out three demands of climate justice. It is important to define what climate justice demands because this clarifies what exactly is normatively expected from the global response to climate change. In the case of this book, the demands centre around who should be responsible for climate change and what action must be taken.

INTRODUCTION

Part I of this book develops a climate justice account that clarifies what exactly is normatively expected of climate change actors. Once this is clear, the book can turn to assessing to what extent policymakers have met these normative expectations in Part II. So far, Chapter 1 has set out a scope of justice that is both relational and non-relational in order to include the primary victims of climate change in the realm of moral concern. Chapter 2 has set out a minimum threshold that must be protected by policymakers: the human right to health, defined as ‘the right to a standard of living adequate for health, including the right to be adequately nourished and have adequate shelter’. The current chapter completes Part I by focusing on what action must be taken in the face of climate change and who should be responsible this action. In answering these two questions, the chapter will set out three demands of climate justice that must underwrite a more just global response to climate change. Setting out these demands enables the book to move on to assessing to what extent the global response to climate change has met these demands in Part II.

The chapter is organised into three main parts, each one developing a demand of justice. The first part focuses on what action must be taken on climate change. Here, the chapter puts forward that the human right to health must be protected: temperatures must be kept below the 2°C threshold, and adaptation must be prioritised alongside mitigation. The second and third parts of the chapter then turn to the question of who should be responsible for climate change action. Part two considers the relationship between developed and less developed countries, focusing on what this relationship means for the fair allocation of responsibilities. In doing so, the chapter develops the ‘Polluter's Ability to Pay’ or PATP model, which holds states accountable for climate action in line with their emissions and wealth levels. The third part of the chapter then explores whether there are any other actors who should be held to account for climate change action.

INTRODUCTION

The second half of this book focuses on the cosmopolitan assessment of the global response to climate change, both multilateral and transnational. Now that the book has assessed the multilateral climate change response, it turns to assessing transnational responses. Chapter 4 explained that both multilateral actors under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and actors involved in transnational climate change governance processes have a moral responsibility to enable a condition of climate justice, due to their capability of restructuring the social and political context so that the three demands defended in this book can be met. Furthermore, it was explained that although multilateral actors are most responsible for enabling a condition of justice in the case of climate change, transnational actors must act on their responsibilities if multilateral actors fail to enable a condition of climate change justice. The previous chapter assessed the multilateral climate change response and argued that it has unequivocally failed to fully enable any of the three demands of justice set out in this book. This failure implies that transnational climate change governance actors have a responsibility to enable these demands and thereby facilitate a just response to the climate change problem.

The purpose of the current chapter is therefore to assess to what extent transnational actors enable a condition of justice in the case of climate change. Further to this, the chapter aims to provide a broad-brush overview of transnational climate change governance. This will allow readers to develop an understanding of the vast and rapidly changing non-state climate change response. To provide this overview, the chapter makes use of both existing climate change governance research and ten examples of transnational climate change governance initiatives. This allows the chapter to explain how climate change governance has developed and where it stands today. Mirroring the previous chapter, the current chapter will focus on one demand of climate justice at a time, assessing both what has been promised by transnational actors and what has been achieved so far. The final part of the chapter summarises the findings made, compares them to those made in the previous chapter and considers what role multilateral and transnational actors might play in the post-Paris Agreement climate change regime. This will be expanded on in the conclusion of the book.

This book completes a trio of planned works at different spatial scales: that of the country (Britain), an internal landscape type (moorlands) and now the whole globe. The timescale has been the same in all of them: the last 10,000 years. When people ask, ‘what are you writing?’, and you tell them, then the usual reaction is one of amusement, qualified by a nod in the direction of the poor old fellow's age. They may well be right but, inspired by some other attempts at ‘big’ history, I wanted to try. As Chapter 1 shows, I want to move the writing of environmental history further in the direction of inclusiveness. I believe that the natural sciences are very important but they are not the whole story because they sit in the type of social framework analysed by the social sciences and the humanities. Hence there is reference to a wide variety of work in this volume. Beyond that, I have no methodological ambitions: I do not think that there is a ‘right’ way to write environmental histories.

Any book has to be selective: it would be impossible to mention even every outstanding example of the processes that have been chronicled, and so those included comprise both the obvious and the eccentric. Some cannot be ignored, while others result from trawls through the literature or, increasingly, a period of surfing the net.