We now know that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are interfering with the planet’s climate system in ways that are likely to lead to dangerous threats to human life (not to mention nonhuman life) and that are likely to compromise the fundamental well-being of people who live at a later time. We have not understood this for very long—for most of my life, for example, we were basically clueless about climate. Our recently acquired knowledge means that decisions about climate policy are no longer properly understood as decisions entirely about preferences of ours but also crucially about the vulnerabilities of others—not about the question “How much would we like to spend to slow climate change?” but about “How little are we in decency permitted to spend in light of the difficulties and the risks of difficulties to which we are likely otherwise to expose people, people already living and people yet to live?” For we now realize that the carbon-centered energy regime under which we live is modifying the human habitat, creating a more dangerous world for the living and for posterity. Our technologically primitive energy regime based on setting fire to fossil fuels is storing up, in the planet’s radically altering atmosphere, sources of added threat for people who are vulnerable to us and cannot protect themselves against the consequences of our decisions for the circumstances in which they will have to live—most notably, whichever people inherit the worn-and-torn planet we vacate. As we academics love to note, matters are, of course, complicated. Let’s look at a few of the complications, concentrating on some concerning risk. Mostly, we are talking about risks because, although we know strikingly much more about the planetary climate system than we did a generation ago, much is still unknown and unpredictable. I will offer three comments about risk. The third comment is the crucial one and makes a strong claim about a specific type of risk, with three distinctive features.
Reparations — Legally Justified and Sine qua non for Global Justice, Peace and Security
