What’s Just?

Climate change is a collective global issue that requires a collective response—but that is not its whole story. Those most responsible for the existence of problems (industrialized societies with a long history of emissions) are not the same people or countries as those likely to be most affected by the consequences. Nor are they necessarily the same as those most capable of doing something; so for example China has a capacity that is much greater than its historical responsibility. What this means is that major questions of justice arise in the distribution of the burdens and benefits of action (and inaction). Climate change crystallizes questions that pervade many global issues, and so provides a crucial arena for thinking about how to pursue justice in general. How then do we use justice to frame social responses to a climate-changing world? Any response here is complicated by the fact that justice itself is what political theorists call an “essentially contested concept” on which agreement is not possible, even in theory, despite the philosophical industry that addresses the concept. Further, and strikingly in the case of climate change, the range of injustices experienced can become “compound” when existing ones make new ones even worse (Shue, 1992). For two decades climate justice has been addressed and contested by negotiators, social movements, and philosophers. Justice means different things to different people at different stages of climate change. We examine definitions of justice in ethical theory, in its articulation in global negotiations, and for movements that demand it. While there is some general agreement on injustices in the causes and effects of climate change, justice claims can differ strikingly, and sometimes clash. We also explore the prospects for justice in adaptation to climate change. Key dimensions of climate justice were identified in the original agreement of UNFCCC in 1992. This specified that nations would work to “protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of mankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities.”

The Costs of Inaction and the Limits of Economics

The costs of climate change, like the proverbial “death and taxes,” are inevitable, though not entirely fixed or predictable in terms of when they arrive. Humanity has some control over the specifics. As with taxes, different people will be suffering different levels—though when it comes to climate change, the damage can fall most heavily on those least able to bear it. In addition, the costs of inaction will mostly be borne by today’s young people and their children and grandchildren. Thus moral issues arise concerning how the burdens of action should be shared. Many climate scientists see the costs of inaction as very likely immense, making inaction a foolhardy gamble that must be avoided. Many economists, by contrast, are still arguing over how to compute the net benefits of doing anything versus doing nothing. We surveyed the dimensions of the likely damage due to climate change as identified by scientists in Chapter 2. In this chapter our concern is not with the actual content of the damage, but rather with how to put a value on it, and what this implies for the character and magnitude of actions that should be taken. When the costs of inaction are clearly greater than the costs of action, basic economic logic would seem to dictate that action should be taken. Humanity will inevitably bear some mix of the costs of mitigating climate change (especially by reducing emissions), adapting to change, and living with consequences that are not avoided. Doing nothing to mitigate, as has largely been the case so far, results in the costs of inaction we will emphasize in this chapter. If inaction continues, the science tells us that the risks are huge—eventually the future of humanity and all of life as we know it are at stake. No economists advocate driving humanity to ruin, but many seem willing to gamble with that possibility in exchange for the benefits of faster economic development through continuing exploitation of fossil fuels in both the short and long term.

The Anthropocene

Climate change will challenge the human community in many ways for centuries to come. Human influence on the climate is now the primary driver of the shift to a less stable and more dynamic global environmental system—the Anthropocene. In this chapter we explore some profound implications of this new age. First, what we mean by “the environment” is now itself ever-changing, with human actions affecting the very makeup, functioning, and evolution of global and local ecosystems, pushing them in new directions that can be difficult to predict. Second, this new reality has consequences for the founding principles of environmental management, conservation, ecosystem restoration, and action on the environment in general. The use of the past as a baseline natural world to be restored or mimicked is no longer possible, and so the era of preservation as the basis of environmental management is over. Climate change is pushing ecological systems out of their Holocene comfort zone (the last 10,000 years of unusual climatic stability). Our conceptions of a “natural” world and how people relate to it will have to change as well. Scientific controversies, environmental politics, and ecological management begin to look very different as a result. While most environmental scientists warn of the profound difficulties of navigating the Anthropocene, some technological optimists envisage a brave new future where humanity progresses through continued advances in biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology (Silver, 1997; Kurzweil, 2005). In this light, climate change and the transition to the Anthropocene are just a bump in the path of human progress. This kind of thinking extends to geo-engineering the planet to both avoid the worst of climate change and even push human development in new directions. While some climate scientists are beginning to explore the possibilities and consequences of geo-engineering, others are concerned that such bold action will exacerbate environmental uncertainties. These tensions among scientists represent competing visions of the degree to which governance informed by science can really understand and constructively guide Earth processes. If humanity survives into the long run, there may be ways that the Anthropocene can be organized to provide for both ecosystem and human functioning.

Governance

It is all very well to contemplate what policies are likely to prove effective and just, as we did in Chapters 4 and 5, but that assumes we have some effective authority to put them into practice. So comparisons of (for example) emissions trading schemes against carbon taxes as ways of achieving greenhouse gas emissions reduction need some kind of body to craft the policy and implement it effectively. Sometimes that body will be a sovereign government, but sometimes the government is missing altogether or has only partial jurisdiction—for example, if a carbon trading scheme can extend across national boundaries. When government is missing we can however still speak of processes of governance— notably at the global level. “Governance” is a broader concept that allows for more fluid, informal, and transnational arrangements, though it can also include government as conventionally defined. Global inaction on greenhouse gas emission reduction and inadequate national policies are sometimes blamed simply on an absence of political will. But a big part of the story is that if we can’t get the structure and process of governance right, we are not going to get the policies right. So it remains remarkable that some high-profile proposals either ignore the governance question altogether, or treat it in simplistic terms. For an example of ignoring governance altogether (doubly remarkable in that the person doing it is a political scientist) consider the policy proposals ranked by a group of experts assembled by Bjørn Lomborg under the auspices of his Copenhagen Consensus Center (Lomborg, 2010). Using cost–benefit analysis plus expert judgment, the top three solutions were: 1. Marine cloud whitening research 2. Energy research and development 3. Stratospheric aerosol insertion research The first of these would require creating mists from sea water to create clouds that better reflect sunlight, the third injecting tiny particles into the atmosphere to simulate the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions. Though cast in terms of “research” the reason for this ranking is the anticipated net benefit of the anticipated policy (policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions came bottom).

Climate’s Challenges

Climate change presents a particularly tough challenge. There are of course plenty of other tough problems around: inequality, poverty, terrorism, the instabilities of financial systems, the risks of nuclear technologies, persistent and potentially violent antagonisms in international politics. Yet we have at least a sense of the nature of these sorts of problems, and governments know more or less how to respond to them, although they do not always do so—or do so successfully. The challenges of climate change, by contrast, almost seem to defy comprehension, let alone appropriate response. The science is complex and long contested by a well-financed movement that accuses climate scientists of falsifying conclusions in support of a left-wing political agenda. There is a collision between what the science implies and seemingly common-sense understandings based on casual observation of the weather. The size of the threat calls into question received ideas about the inevitability of human progress: if progress requires continued economic growth based on ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, then that kind of progress is clearly no longer sustainable. The economic stakes could not be higher, calling into question the future of industries such as coal and cars, and leading to deep political conflicts as those whose industries, profits, employment, and lifestyles feel threatened resist the necessary changes. Even among those who accept the science and recognize the size of the challenge, key questions are hotly debated. So there is dispute about how to think of the risks that climate change brings: for example, should we spend money on preparing for low-probability but potentially catastrophic impacts (such as rapid sea-level rise)? To what extent should we care about the risks our current emissions are imposing on future generations, who will suffer the impacts? If it is accepted that emissions need to be reduced, how rapidly should that reduction occur in light of the economic costs that it will necessarily impose? And how should the burden of reductions be allocated between rich and poor countries, between rich and poor people within countries, between different industries and economic sectors?

Transition, Resilience, and Reconstruction

In the long run, responding to the challenge of climate change is going to require a de-carbonized economy with different energy systems and reconceptualized social-ecological relationships. Given the magnitude of the task, quite how to move in this direction remains a matter of some contention. In this chapter we examine several potentially complementary approaches, though nobody has yet identified the key to transition, and we do not resolve all the big questions about how to proceed. This coverage of a variety of innovations also makes sense in light of the failure to date of established centers of power—be they the global economic system, UNFCCC negotiations, or national governments—to craft effective responses. We group innovations under social resilience, new thinking about economics, new movements that embody this thinking, and new governance. Some developments are incremental, some more radical. These developments give us something more upbeat to end on, showing that transition is already being lived, if only, so far, on the margins of societies. In Chapter 4 we looked at the importance of adaptation, especially in light of current global failure to advance on the mitigation front. Adger et al. (2011a: 757) point out that “adaptive responses are not equal in terms of the sustainability of resource use, energy intensity, reduction of vulnerability, or in the distribution of their benefits.” While the international community has had difficulty in coming to terms with adaptation (even by 2011 the Green Climate Fund adopted at the Durban meeting of UNFCCC covered adaptation but omitted any clear definition of the term), it does hold significant potential. Adaptation does not have to be defeatist, and indeed can be linked to empowerment— we adapt by recognizing “that human beings can protect themselves from damage by living harmoniously with their atmospheric environment” and reduce their vulnerability to climate change (Burton, 1994: 15). In this section we consider how adaptation might contribute to transition. On the academic side, adaptation to environmental change is increasingly understood in terms of the concept of resilience. According to the multinational Resilience Alliance (2013), “A resilient ecosystem can withstand shocks and rebuild itself when necessary.

Actions that Promise and Practices that Fall Short

Almost all national governments now recognize the reality of climate change, and the need to respond. As should be clear from the previous chapter, the costs of inaction eventually become prohibitive. The repertoire of actions available to governments (and others) is substantial, and in this chapter we take a look at what can be done. Many actions ought to make a difference. Yet there prove to be formidable reasons why governments often do not adopt them; and when they do, policies that ought to work on paper are crafted and implemented in ways that render them less effective or even counterproductive. The reasons have a lot to do with the way powerful interests, dominant discourses, and political-economic systems are configured in today’s world. They have still more to do with the profound and novel challenge that climate change presents—driving home the need to contemplate bigger questions about how societies are organized, not just what governments and others should do. These larger questions receive our attention in subsequent chapters, but it is important to examine the repertoire of available actions, still needed in any reconfigured systems. Policy discussions often focus on major actions like a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme that would increase the cost of burning fossil fuel and so provide incentives to reduce its use, develop renewable technologies and, eventually, change lifestyles. But before rushing to design some optimal single instrument like this, we should think about all the other established practices and policies that make a difference, and that could be changed for the better. For example, coal mining is typically taxed lightly, but could be taxed more. In the US, homeowners can deduct mortgage interest from their taxable income, encouraging construction of large homes spaced further apart; that deduction could be focused on more efficient housing. Zoning laws could be changed to make urban landscapes more energy efficient and pedestrian friendly. Governments could redirect existing spending on research and development to cleaner energy. Further action possibilities include sequestration and long-term storage of carbon in forests and other biomass, and discouraging the release of carbon from plants resulting from land clearing.

Constructing Science and Dealing with Denial

Climate science has a long history. The Swede Svante Arrhenius in 1896 recognized that the burning of fossil fuels could add CO2 to the atmosphere in sufficient quantities to warm the Earth, though he thought it would take millennia for that to become apparent. Arrhenius himself thought this would be beneficial to agriculture, anticipating some contemporary emphatic climate change deniers for whom CO2 is nothing more or less than “plant food.” The twentieth century saw anthropogenic (i.e. caused by humans) climate change gradually progress from a scientific curiosity likely to arise only in a very distant future to something more pressing (see Weart, 2008 for a history). Charles Keeling began monitoring atmospheric CO2 on Mount Mauna Loa in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1958, providing strong evidence that CO2 levels were rising. In 1965 the Science Advisory Committee to the US president raised the specter of changes in the climate appearing by 2000. Climate science gradually grew in extent and prominence, aided by advances in satellite monitoring and computing power. One watershed moment occurred in 1988, on a hot day in Washington DC, when James Hansen of NASA testified to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee of the US Senate that global warming had arrived. The same year British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (who had a degree in chemistry) announced in a speech to the scientists of the Royal Society that she was convinced of the need to act—embracing environmental concern she had until then derided. Since the 1980s climate research has exploded, exploring ever more facets of the issue. The role of the IPCC, established by the United Nations in 1988, has become crucial. The Panel does not actually conduct or sponsor research itself, but rather summarizes the weight of scientific opinion in periodic assessment reports aimed at policy makers, especially those participating in the negotiations of the UNFCCC. With literally thousands of scientists from diverse disciplines participating in the assessment, it has a significant impact on how scientists connect their subsequent research to discoveries by others and learn how to communicate with each other, building an ever greater capacity to both assess and synthesize climate science into a more cohesive whole (Edwards, 2010).