Assessing Multilateral Climate Governance

Chapter Five assesses to what extent multilateral actors enable the three demands of justice developed in Part I of the book. Taking each demand of justice in turn, the chapter focuses on 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. Finally, the chapter assesses to what extent the Paris Agreement presents a shift from existing policies. In this way, the chapter provides a historical overview of multilateral climate change action, as well as looking to the future. Chapter Five puts forward that although there has been some progress made, none of the demands of justice come close to being met, and that there is an urgent need for change in the multilateral regime.

Bridging Theory and Practice

Chapter Four sets out the parameters for the cosmopolitan assessment of climate governance. The chapter first provides overview of the processes involved in global climate change governance: multilateral (United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC) and transnational (cities, corporations, NGOs, sub-state authorities). Following this, Chapter Four outlines why actors in the UNFCCC and actors involved in transnational governance processes can be held responsible for bringing about a just response to the climate change problem. The chapter grounds the responsibility of these actors in their capability to enable the three demands of justice set out in Chapter Three by restructuring the social and political context. Finally, Chapter Four outlines a methodological framework to clarify how current practice will be assessed. 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.

Introduction

The Introduction sets out the main aims of the book: 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. After this has been set out, the Introduction provides a brief overview of the climate change problem. Next, the Introduction defends the use of a cosmopolitan approach and comments on existing cosmopolitan research, to explain how this book relates to and contributes to current work on the subject. Finally, the Introduction outlines what is to come in the remainder of the book.

Assessing Transnational Climate Governance

Chapter Six assesses to what extent transnational actors enable the three demands of climate justice set out in Chapter Three. The assessment makes use of both existing climate change governance research and ten examples of transnational climate change governance initiatives, providing an insight into how transnational climate change governance has developed and where it stands today. Chapter Six focuses 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 chapter puts forward that although there is room for cautious optimism, overall transnational actors fail to fully enable any of the three demands of justice. The final part of Chapter Six summarises the findings made in Part II and considers what role both multilateral and transnational actors might play in the post-Paris Agreement regime. This is expanded on in the Conclusion of the book.

The Demands of Climate Justice

Chapter Three completes the climate justice account by defining three demands of justice required to meet a condition of justice in the case of climate change. These three demands are considered normative principles that must underwrite a more just global response to climate change. The chapter is organised into three parts, each one developing a demand of justice. The first part of the chapter concerns the right to health and sets out a minimum set of actions that must be pursued in order to protect this right. Part two of the chapter conducts relational analysis by exploring the relationship between developed countries and less developed countries and puts forward that states should be held to account for climate change action according to both their emissions levels and wealth levels. Finally, the third part of the chapter conducts relational analysis of the relationship between those who cause climate change and those who suffer from its effects, and makes the case that responsible actors extend beyond states to all capable actors, including individuals, firms, sub-state entities, international institutions, and states, irrespective of the country they live or exist in.

The Scope of Climate Justice

Chapter One defines the scope of climate justice. Defining the scope of justice is an essential part of any global justice account, because doing so clarifies who must be included in considerations of justice, or in other words, how wide the net of justice should be cast. The chapter considers the merits of a non-relational versus relational approach to climate justice and argues that both relational and non-relational elements are necessary to include the two key groups of victims of climate change in the scope of justice: future generations and those living in less developed countries. In this way, the chapter defends, and begins to develop, a climate justice account that includes both relational and non-relational elements. This account is further developed in Chapter Two, which defines the non-relational grounds of climate justice, and Chapter Three, which applies the mixed position in order to develop three demands of climate justice.

Conclusion

The Conclusion of the book focuses on the lessons that can be learned from the bridging of theory and practice. More specifically, the Conclusion considers how transnational and multilateral responses compare, and explains that state and non-state actors face very similar problems, including the ongoing struggle to lower greenhouse gas 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 integrating 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 therefore reflects on 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. The Conclusion ultimately recommends that transnational actors should be given as much space as possible to pursue their ambitions, with limited guidance from the UNFCCC.

The Grounds of Climate Justice

Chapter Two defines 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 chapter makes the case for using the human right to health as the non-relational moral minimum that grounds the climate justice position. Chapter Two puts forward that the human right to health provides a strong foundation for a climate justice because it captures the threats climate change poses to humans more comprehensively than other key human rights, including the right to food and water, the right to life, and the right to free movement.