Stream: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations

This paper addresses an important challenge for future earth system governance: how to ensure that governance norms that emerge from inter-state negotiations foster equity and sustainability at all levels from the local to the global. I look back on two decades of global climate change governance to clarify how norms can structure access to global public goods and the allocation of responsibility for mitigating environmental degradation. Early normative debates on global climate governance offered cause for optimism among those concerned about equity and sustainability. But over time climate governance has evolved in such a way that threatens to exacerbate existing inequalities both within and between states. I therefore argue that global civil society has an important role to play both in promoting particular governance norms and monitoring their evolution. The appropriate definition of these norms ought to emerge from critical and inclusive public deliberation. In this paper I argue that two cross-cutting norms are best suited to securing sustainability and equity in future earth system governance. The first is common but differentiated responsibilities between and within states, which would help to secure equitable access to global public goods such as the atmosphere. The second norm emerges from the work of Val Plumwood and other green political theorists, and can be termed ‘remoteness reduction’. Whereas transnational mitigation allows a disassociation between the human practices that produce pollution and the necessary efforts to mitigate this pollution, a norm of ‘remoteness reduction’ would reinforce the connections between decisions and their consequences and thus ensure that responsibility is appropriately allocated.