Two Kinds of Climate Justice: Avoiding Harm and Sharing Burdens

THE overwhelming majority of climate scientists hold that humanity is facing the prospect of severe climate change and the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contain some stark warnings. In the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, the ‘best estimate’ of the increase in global mean temperatures in the period between 1980–1999 and 2080–2099 ranged from 1.8°C (B1 scenario) and 4.0°C (A1F1 scenario). If we consider the ‘likely range’ of temperature increases in this period, we see that the figures range from between a 1.1°C increase (B1) and 6.4°C increase (A1F1). These changes—and the sea level rises and severe weather events associated with climate change—will have disastrous effects on human and non-human life. One can distinguish between two ways of thinking about climate justice. One starts by focusing on how the burden of combating the problem should be shared fairly among the duty-bearers. An agent’s responsibility, then, is to do her fair share. Its concern is with what I shall term Burden-Sharing Justice. A number of principles of burden-sharing justice have been proposed and assessed. Three, in particular, have been suggested—the principle that those who have caused the problem should bear the burden; the principle that those who have the ability to