Climate Justice. The Significance of Historical Emissions

Issues of justice and equity are considered highly important in international climate negotiations. Among the main justice principles which dominate the political debate on international climate policy are principles of both compensatory and distributive justice, in particular the polluter pays principle and an egalitarian distributive principle requiring equal per capita emission rights among people currently alive. The situation we face is non- ideal: particularly in the North, people alive now and in the past have often not kept within what could be considered their fair share of emissions; people in both the North and the South fare highly unequally with respect to both the beneficial and the harmful consequences of past emissions. In interpreting the implications of (both: compensatory and distributive) principles of justice a major dispute between North and South is whether, and how, historic emissions and their consequences can and ought to be taken into account: who among those currently alive can be held responsible for their ancestors` historic emissions and their (current and future) harmful consequences; and how ought we take into account the beneficial consequences of historic emissions when allocating emission rights today? The project aims at reducing disagreement (among negotiators in the ongoing international climate negotiations) about both the normative validity and the implications of the central compensatory and distributive dimensions of climate change.

In interpreting the implications of compensatory and distributive principles of justice for climate ethics a major international (political) dispute is whether, and how, historic emissions and their consequences can and ought to be taken into account: who among those currently alive can be held responsible for their ancestors historic emissions and their (current and future) harmful consequences; and how ought we take into account the beneficial consequences of historic emissions when allocating emission rights today? The project developed answers to these questions by linking conceptions of distributive and compensatory justice, responsibility and agency from different debates in legal theory and moral and political philosophy. In doing so Alexa Zellentin provided a firmer background theory for the Polluter Pays Principle. She also investigated the cultural aspects of climate change and showed them to be important not only for determining which mitigation and adaptation strategies are most suitable for any particular community but ought to be taken seriously which regard to evaluating which rights-infringements follow from climate change and should be subject to compensatory measures. The research group investigated the basic presuppositions of intergenerational justice and climate ethics. Pranay Sanklecha showed that it is neither possible to properly conceptualise why climate change matters, nor properly answer what we should do about it, without addressing the fundamental question about whether and why there should be a future, and of what sort. His research contributes to a new understanding of the foundations of climate ethics. Here the project developed an understanding of the relationship between the goods at stake in climate change and in standard accounts of distributive justice. The fact that emissions are a by-product of virtually all benefit-generating human activity, implies that the distribution of emission rights concerns all aspects of peoples well-being. The project investigated how best to understand the proper subject matter of distributive climate ethics. The research group also showed in detail that from the perspective of distributive justice historical emissions can be taken into account in distributing emission rights.