scholarly journals How Fairness Principles in the Climate Debate Relate to Theories of Distributive Justice

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7302
Author(s):  
Marc David Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Average Temperature ◽  
Historical Responsibility ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Fairness Principles ◽  
Bridge Building

A central question in international climate policy making is how to distribute the burdens of keeping global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. In particular, there are four distributional issues: how to allocate the total amount of greenhouse gases that can still be emitted, who should bear the costs of mitigation, who should bear the costs of adaptation to unavoidable climate change, and who should bear the costs of residual climate damage. Regarding these distributional issues the academic literature offers a plethora of fairness principles, such as ‘polluter pays’, ‘beneficiary pays’, ‘equal per capita rights’, ‘grandfathering’, ‘ability to pay’, ‘historical responsibility’ and ‘cost effectiveness’. Remarkably, there is a theoretical gap between these principles and the central theories of distributive justice in moral and political philosophy. As a consequence, it is unclear how these principles are related, whether they can be combined or are mutually exclusive, and what the fundamental underlying values are. This paper aims to elucidate that debate. Understanding the different underlying values may facilitate bridge-building and movement in negotiation positions.

Convergence in per capita carbon footprint and ecological footprint for G7 countries: Evidence from panel Fourier threshold unit root test

2021 ◽  
pp. 0958305X2110114
Author(s):  
Veli Yilanci ◽  
Muhammed Sehid Gorus ◽  
Sakiru Adebola Solarin
Keyword(s):  
Unit Root ◽  
Structural Breaks ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Unit Root Test ◽  
G7 Countries ◽  
Convergence Hypothesis ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Nonlinear Behaviors ◽  
Nonlinear Unit Root Tests

This paper aims to explore the convergence of per capita carbon and ecological footprints in G7 countries during 1961–2016. For this purpose, we propose a new unit root test in the panel setting–the panel Fourier threshold unit root test. This test takes into consideration both multiple smooth structural changes and nonlinearity. According to the literature, the power of the nonlinear unit root tests is reduced in the case of ignoring structural breaks. Therefore, we expect to get more reliable empirical findings by utilizing this methodology. The empirical results of this paper show that these series have nonlinear behaviors for the period 1961–2016. Furthermore, they demonstrate that the absolute convergence hypothesis is valid in G7 countries for both regimes. Thus, governments can conduct common environmental policies, including international climate summits and agreements, instead of national-based policies to mitigate environmental deterioration in their countries.

China’s Fairness Discourses and Allocation of Climate Responsibility

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-95
Author(s):  
Feiyue Li
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Fair Allocation ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Global Response ◽  
Climate Change Negotiations ◽  
The World ◽  
International Climate ◽  
International Legal System ◽  
Per Capita

Abstract The idea of ‘fairness’ may be viewed as fundamental to a nation’s participation in the development of the international legal system governing climate change. As the second-largest economy and the largest Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emitter in the world, China’s actions on climate change are critical to the global response. Indeed, international cooperation on climate change is unlikely to succeed without China’s active engagement. Therefore, China’s perception of the fairness of responsibility allocation will significantly influence its attitudes toward its international climate responsibilities. However, limited work has been done to date to concretely examine China’s perspective of the fairness of responsibility allocation and to understand its fairness discourses and practices of climate responsibility in a dynamically evolved process. This article aims to fill that gap in the literature by elucidating how China perceives the fair allocation of climate responsibility and how its fairness discourses and practices have evolved over the course of the three phases of international climate change negotiations. It will be shown that China has perceived the factors of historically accumulated emissions, per capita emissions and capability to lie at the very core of its understanding of fairness.

scholarly journals Degradation and forgone removals increase the carbon impact of intact forest loss by 626%

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. eaax2546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean L. Maxwell ◽  
Tom Evans ◽  
James E. M. Watson ◽  
Alexandra Morel ◽  
Hedley Grantham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forest ◽  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Selective Logging ◽  
Carbon Accounting ◽  
Carbon Equivalent ◽  
Forest Loss ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
Global Land ◽  
International Climate

Intact tropical forests, free from substantial anthropogenic influence, store and sequester large amounts of atmospheric carbon but are currently neglected in international climate policy. We show that between 2000 and 2013, direct clearance of intact tropical forest areas accounted for 3.2% of gross carbon emissions from all deforestation across the pantropics. However, full carbon accounting requires the consideration of forgone carbon sequestration, selective logging, edge effects, and defaunation. When these factors were considered, the net carbon impact resulting from intact tropical forest loss between 2000 and 2013 increased by a factor of 6 (626%), from 0.34 (0.37 to 0.21) to 2.12 (2.85 to 1.00) petagrams of carbon (equivalent to approximately 2 years of global land use change emissions). The climate mitigation value of conserving the 549 million ha of tropical forest that remains intact is therefore significant but will soon dwindle if their rate of loss continues to accelerate.

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