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Principles of Justice in the Context of
Global Climate Change
Matthew Paterson
Concerns for equity, or distributive justice, are widely recognized by observers and participants in international climate negotiations as central
to effective responses to climate change. There is, however, no widespread agreement on what this crucial principle means. This and the following chapter outline the main positions with regard to this question
and how they have translated into concrete proposals in the climate negotiations. This chapter outlines principles of international justice in
general in relation to climate change, while the following chapter looks at
more concrete proposals concerning the application of equity in climate
negotiations.
Political theorists and philosophers have developed a rich and varied
set of arguments concerning justice. Their concerns are to find the most
persuasive foundation for normative claims concerning particular policy projects or outcomes. Analysis of justice by political philosophers
is based not in a description of how different individuals or groups conceive of justice, nor in descriptions of their personal preferences, but in
specifically normative arguments concerning the contents of justice.
Rather than conceive justice as cultural discourse, it is considered here
as deriving from rational argument. Thus, justice does not arise from
individual preferences, it evolves from a considered, rational debate in
which those preferences themselves become part of what needs to be negotiated.
This chapter draws mostly on this perspective of justice. After outlining
the various types of justice, it will provide an overview of the challenge
of intergenerational justice before turning to the implications of justice
in the case of global climate change.
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1 Content of Justice
In a series of works on this question, Shue poses four questions that provide the most useful framework for discussing the subject (Shue 1992;
1993, 51; 1994, 344; 1996):
1. What is a fair allocation of the costs of preventing the global warming that
is still avoidable?
2. What is a fair allocation of the costs of coping with the social consequences
of the global warming that will not, in fact, be avoided?
3. What background allocation of wealth would allow international bargaining
(about issues, like 1 and 2) to be a fair process?
4. What is a fair allocation of emissions of greenhouse gases (over the long-term
and during the transition to the long-term allocation)? (Shue 1994, 344).
Various perspectives can be brought to bear on these questions. Within
the literature on international agreements on climate change, Grubb et
al. give the most comprehensive list. These perspectives include:
1. “Polluter pays” rationales, based either on current emissions or historically
accumulated contributions to global warming.
2. Equal entitlements approach (all individuals have an equal right to use the
atmospheric commons).
3. “Willingness-to-pay” justification (derived from welfare economics).
4. Each participant should shoulder a “comparable” burden.
5. Recognition of distributional implications of any agreement (a position drawing explicitly on Rawls (1973).
6. Preservation of the status quo (present emitters have established some common law right to use the atmosphere as they presently do).
7. “Reasonable” emissions compatible with (a fairly generous interpretation of)
basic needs (paraphrased from Grubb et al. 1992, 312–314).
Within the more general literature on justice in international relations,
six approaches to justice are often identified.
1. A rights-based approach, which suggests we have rights to a stable climate.
2. An approach based on responsibility: those causing a problem have a responsibility to resolve it (Brown 1992, 159–162).
3. A utilitarian position: we should act to maximize overall human welfare,
which most commonly will involve transferring resources from rich to poor (e.g.,
Singer 1972).
4. The Kantian categorical imperative, and developed with regard to international justice by Onora O’Neill (1986, 1991): justice requires that we act on principles that can be universally applicable, such as not endangering the global
climate system.
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5. A Rawlsian position (related to the previous one), which specifically suggests
that the distributional effects of social institutions should benefit the worst off.
6. The approach of Brian Barry (1989b): agreements should be negotiated not
under a Rawlsian veil of ignorance, but in order to reach agreements that none
could reasonably reject. This integrates notions of power and of intersubjectivity
into the question of justice.1
Within these various approaches, two different conceptions of justice
should be distinguished. On the one hand, retributive justice entails that
those who cause a problem have the responsibility to make amends for
it; this is the principle of justice underlying the criminal justice systems.
This is largely undisputed as an ethical principle, but in the climate change
context it becomes complicated by the empirical debates concerning responsibility for causing climate change. It does underlie, however, various
proposals that have emerged in climate negotiations—including those for
“differentiation” of commitments (see below) or at its most basic, the
recognition that developing countries do not have any obligation to reduce CO 2 emissions under the FCCC at this time.
On the other hand, principles of distributive justice underlie any
scheme that involves distributing costs (or benefits) among interdependent parties. Most of the principles of justice outlined above concern this
point of view. Within the philosophical debates, the last three approaches
in the preceding list are commonly regarded as the most persuasive (the
second, of course, refers to retributive justice). Rights-based approaches
are often regarded as difficult to apply, especially concerning complex
phenomena such as international justice, since it is often impossible to
derive obligations on or prescriptions for specific institutions from particular rights (e.g., O’Neill 1991). In the case of climate change, the right
to a stable climate does not translate easily into specific obligations for
individuals, states, or other institutions. Utilitarianism is also regarded
as ethically problematic. In particular, it undervalues the specificity of
individual (and collective) identities by ignoring questions of basic rights,
and by treating individual preferences as inviolable.
2 Intergenerational Justice
The discussion so far has focused on justice within generations. However,
intergenerational justice is also normatively important, since many of the
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likely impacts of climate change will be felt by people in future generations to a larger degree than by current generations. As a consequence,
most writers on this subject suggest that present generations also have
major obligations to future generations (see, e.g., Barry 1989a; Brown
Weiss 1989). The argument used is a Rawlsian one, since we should consider, for example, under the Rawlsian “veil of ignorance” the future
effects of actions by present generations. Given this, we would create
institutions and rules that would involve conservation of options (conserving the diversity of the natural and cultural resource base), conservation of quality (leaving the planet no worse off than received), and
conservation of access (equitable access to the use and benefits of the
legacy) (Brown Weiss 1989, 320).
Little attention was paid to intergenerational justice as compared to
intragenerational justice within the negotiations. This is largely because
questions of justice within existing generations clearly affect the bargains
states can make and the power relations between them, as emphasized by
Paterson (1992) and Young (1994b, 48–50). However, intergenerational
equity can primarily operate as a normative argument that, if taken seriously, would make arguments for aggressive global action to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions much more forceful (Grubb 1995, 464) and
might possibly lead to the creation of an insurance fund to compensate
victims of global climate change impacts (see below, and for a general
discussion, see Page 1999).
3 Implications of Justice
The implications of retributive justice are fairly clear, and represent an
important strand in policy debates on climate change. The implications
are twofold. First, it is reflected in the “polluter pays” principle. In climate
negotiations, this has come through in proposals both for carbon taxes,
and more specifically in an international context, tradable permit systems.
At Kyoto in 1997, negotiators agreed to adopt such a system, although
its specific form is still being developed. In this context, there is (at least
superficially) a close fit between concerns of justice and concerns of economic efficiency. Similarly, such joint concerns underlie proposals for differentiation of commitments.
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Second, retributive justice raises questions of compensation. It follows
from the responsibility-based principle and relates to Shue’s first question.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) advocated in the negotiations
the establishment of a fund, to be provided by those who have caused
global climate change, to compensate those who have suffered as a consequence. This suggestion, however, has hitherto been ignored by most
states and is reduced in the FCCC to the provision: “The developed country Parties . . . shall also assist the developing country Parties that are
particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting
costs of adaptation to those adverse effects” (FCCC 1992, Article 4(4)).
Perhaps perversely, questions of compensation have also been raised by
OPEC countries. They argue that since implementation of the FCCC will
impose disproportionate costs on them, they should be compensated for
any such losses (Kassler and Paterson 1997).2
Concerning distributive justice, most of the literature concerning equity
in climate negotiations and justice in general argues that justice requires
policy responses that significantly address existing international inequalities (e.g., Shue 1999). The general political theory literature argues this
most clearly. The climate change literature, being more policy oriented,
tends to favor an equal per capita emissions position as the most equitable
solution. However, it is considered, at least in the short term, to be politically infeasible. Thus a mixture of the egalitarian with the “comparable
burdens” position is advocated (e.g., Grubb et al. 1992, 321; Young
1991): emissions are to be distributed over time in a fashion that moves
from the existing distribution toward an egalitarian one. However, an
egalitarian position (at least in the sense that radical reductions in existing
inequalities are advocated) is still seen as the primary implication of justice; the “comparable burdens” position is seen as a consequence of practical politics.
This argument in favor of at least a significantly more egalitarian world
leads to a number of conclusions on how to address equity concerns in
relation to global climate change. Two practical questions arise in this
context. The first is the distribution of emissions reductions and the costs
associated with them. There is a clear consensus that the primary costs
should be borne by industrialized countries, and the “historical responsibility” argument has been invoked most often in climate negotiations.
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This is also reflected in the FCCC, especially Article 3(1) on the principle
of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” and in the division
within Article 4 between obligations of all parties and obligations to limit
emissions for the developed-country parties. Conflict has arisen over the
fair allocation of emissions over the longer term; developing countries,
and some commentators (e.g., Agarwal and Narain 1990; Bertram 1992;
Epstein and Gupta 1990; Grubb 1989; Krause, Koomey, and Bach 1989)
have argued that long-term emissions should be allocated on an equal
per capita basis. While this position is explicitly rejected by most industrialized-country negotiators as unjust (because of the immediate burden it
may place on them) and by many commentators as politically impractical
(because of the objections of powerful states), it remains the most persuasive argument on ethical grounds. Indeed objections to it as a basic principle have subsided to an extent (practical objections nevertheless remain),
enabling some to go on to specify in detail how the emissions levels of
industrialized and developing countries may converge over time (e.g.,
Jepma and Munasinghe 1998; Meyer 1994; Shukla 1999).
The second question raised in the negotiations concerns “financial resources and technology transfers.” The implications of justice involve
substantial financial and technological transfers from North to South, to
assist developing countries in minimizing the growth of their greenhouse
gas emissions during phases of accelerated economic growth. By way of
example, Grubb puts likely North-South transfers to address global
warming at $100 billion per year (Grubb 1990, 287). This magnitude of
transfers envisioned is not uncommon. The argument is justified on the
basis that Northern countries have caused global climate change, and any
actions by the South must be conditional on financial and technological
assistance from the North (see FCCC 1992, Article 4(7)). However, in
practice, it has been much more conflictual. While accepting, in principle,
that this would be a just distribution of the burden, Northern countries
have, in practice, refused to provide anything more than nominal sums.
On the institutional side, however, significant advances have been made
with the emergence of systems and mechanisms such as Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism, which may provide for new
financial resources and technology transfers in the future (see chapters 2,
11–13), both of which can be said to reflect acceptance of principles of
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justice that reduction of international inequalities is a necessary consequence of justice in climate negotiations.
A fairly strong consensus exists among analysts that one of the most
practical ways of addressing both these former questions is to devise a
system of tradable permits for greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Grubb
1989). This would enable an egalitarian principle of the distribution of
emissions to be matched with minimizing the costs to the North of meeting reduction targets, and would also facilitate North-South financial and
technological transfers. It has the advantages, too, of meeting the concerns of economists and policy makers for efficiency in implementing
obligations.
Finally, the question of distributive justice raises distributive issues
among industrialized countries. This has emerged in negotiations in terms
of the problem of “differentiation”—whether Annex I countries’ obligations under the FCCC should be differentiated or not.3 The problem is
clearly less acute than that between North and South because of the
smaller variations of per capita gross domestic product. But both “natural” variations (land area, climate, dependence on particular commodities) and past efforts in promoting energy efficiency and conservation,
both of which affect a country’s marginal costs of emissions abatement,
have been used by various countries to suggest that commitments should
be differentiated because of the equity considerations. The deal struck at
Kyoto reflects such concerns to an extent. While that agreement appears
to be primarily a result of Realpolitik, according to the position advocated by Brian Barry at least (see above), the deal may reflect an acceptance by negotiators that “none can reasonably reject” arguments that
countries’ situations should be taken into account while negotiating particular agreements.
4 Conclusions
Most contemporary commentators regard notions of equity or justice to
be central to the successful formulation of global climate change policies.
They also predominantly suggest that a position that explicitly aims to
reduce existing international inequalities, through North-South transfers
and a disproportionate burden sharing by the North, is most likely to
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satisfy the implications of justice. The empirical relevance of justice depends on which theoretical orientation given in chapter 3 (realism, historical materialism, institutionalism) is considered most plausible. However,
this discussion directs questions to each perspective. Realists would need
to demonstrate that the way that justice was used in climate change negotiations was purely rhetoric and had no substantive impact on the outcome. This would be a difficult claim to sustain in this policy field.
Marxists would also be skeptical about the value of talking about justice
in relation to international negotiations on global climate change. They
would suggest that the reductions in international inequality cannot be
achieved within the present world capitalist system. The argument in favor of equity or justice fits most easily with the liberal institutionalist
perspective, which emphasizes the importance of norms. The challenge
is posed by asking how questions of justice become institutionalized in
international processes—that is, how the varying conceptions of justice
produce stable norms over the long term. In the negotiations, justice was
used to support specific arguments or positions, and sometimes was used
to back up interests, as realists and Marxists would both emphasize.
However, the reliance on a discourse of justice meant that not all positions could be supported. This approach also exerts a constraint on the
outcomes of future negotiations on the further development of a global
climate change regime.
Notes
1. For an overview of these positions, see Brown 1992. For an extended analysis
of how they apply to climate change, see Paterson 1996b.
2. This has been only one of many arguments made by them in negotiations,
primarily to slow down the pace of those negotiations and limit efforts to reduce
CO 2 emissions. See Kassler and Paterson 1997 for a full analysis.
3. See the various contributions to Paterson and Grubb 1996 for differing perspectives on this question.