What is Climate Justice?
Climate Justice
[klahy-mit juhs-tis]
Climate Justice is a term used for framing global warming as an ethical and political issue, rather than one that is purely environmental or physical in nature. This is done by relating the effects of climate to concepts of justice, particularly environmental justice and social justice and by examining issues such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change.2
— Wikipedia
What is Climate Justice? This question will be
examined to provide some insights in terms of what
societies can do to urge their governments to take
bolder actions in addressing the changing climate.
Definition
The notion of justice requires that we ask about how fair or how just something is and who decides? In simple terms, the Merriam Webster dictionary defines ‘justice’ as “the quality of being just, impartial or fair.”1 The notion of right and wrong and the ethical implications tie into the definition of climate justice. As defined in Wikipedia, “Climate justice is a term used for framing global warming as an ethical and political issue, rather than one that is purely environmental or physical in nature. This is done by relating the effects of climate to concepts of justice, particularly environmental justice and social justice and by examining issues such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change.”2 How much of the impacts of climate change are we willing to tolerate and adjust to, to make it a more just world?
As stated in the World Wildlife Fund 2016 Living Planet Report, the world lost 58% of the planet’s species between 1970 and 2012 and is on track to lose 67% by 2020.3 Scientists confirm that human activity is affecting biodiversity loss and claim we have entered the 6th mass extinction period.4 For some people, their very own survival is what’s at stake. According to a recent case study, the Quinault Indian Nation in Washington State is making plans to relocate to higher ground, due to the already felt climate change impacts of sea level rise causing flooding over their community.5 For others, it seems there is a moral imperative to consider the consequences of their actions.
Is it just for countries to consume and produce more carbon pollution at the expense of impacts to other countries? For example, the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population and uses around 25% of the world’s fossil fuel reserves.6 U.S. carbon footprint can also add the amount of CO2 measured as the balance of emissions embodied in trade through our high level of imports for products produced in China, which makes the U.S. the number one carbon polluter when adding this measurement.7
To act on what is unjust in the world, defining justice can play an essential role. When people stand up to injustice, change happens as depicted throughout history with building social movements. For example, the fight for women’s right to vote, the battle for civil rights, and the recognition of same sex marriage were won through citizen pressure to change laws. According to Chenoweth and Stephan, in order for change to occur, society must be transformed to gain an understanding of what is unjust – yet movements aren’t fought by everyone.8
Forces of power and greed can influence the norms of society or rather, have society controlled into submission through the manufacturing of doubt. According to Oreskes and Conway, the fossil fuel industry invested in the same entities that manufactured doubt about the science that smoking was detrimental to one’s health.9
This is why it is imperative that climate science help people understand the human impacts on changing the climate. The fossil fuel industry doesn’t want people to understand the harm caused by rising carbon emissions. The industry’s power structures manufacture doubt so people will get confused and be less likely to act.10 Because of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ in the U.S., a policy requiring media to present both sides of controversial information in an equitable manner, the manufactured doubt has received equal time in the media and “when every voice is given equal time – and equal weight – the result does not necessarily serve us well.”11 While people’s perspectives on climate change have been influenced by the fossil fuel companies, the impacts related to climate change are becoming increasingly apparent with unprecedented storms such as Hurricane Katrina and Sandy and the impacts they have had on marginalized communities.12 The fossil fuel industry is like slavery in termsof how it is ‘woven’ into our economic system, which poses many challenges and we must be willing to recognize and act in the face of uncertainty.13 When people know what is right and wrong, however, moral values can move people to act.
Climate justice has evolved over time to help us understand, “problems, solutions and pathways for change. While climate justice is not the only useful framework to engage the ecological crisis, it is especially meaningful when it is used in a specific framework, not as a vague marriage of concepts of justice and climate action.”14 The evolution of climate justice is about understanding how impacts of human caused climate change can create unjust results and determining solutions through developing theories and frameworks for climate justice to address the problems in a just manner.
Overview
Scientists have been studying the changing climate for several decades and the consensus among nearly all of them in recent years is that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere is due to human activity.15 While this is happening, nations around the world have been gathering annually for the United Nations Climate Conference of the Parties to address climate change, known as the Conference of the Parties (COP). The COP has been meeting annually for over 20 years, with no progress towards lowering carbon emissions.16
But for the first time in history, at the 2015 Paris COP21 Summit, 195 countries came to the agreement that climate change must be addressed, and that all countries must take collective global action to keep global temperatures below a 1.5 oC rise.17 Each country was required to submit their own intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs).18 The INDCs ensured that every country contributed to lowering carbon emissions which would be part of the global effort. These contributions are only symbolic until results are produced, yet Posner and Weisbach suggest that symbolic behaviors can have a positive impact.19 This symbolic behavior can lead more countries to commit and when “more and more people take actions on similar goals, a sense may develop that enough people care about a problem to make substantive government action possible.”20
Although the Paris Agreement aims to curb temperature rise to 1.5 oC, the United Nations Environment Programme 2016 Emissions Gap Report states a 3 oC rise trajectory is more likely.21 This is why citizen pressure becomes necessary, to demand that governments take bolder and swifter action. People must act locally, regionally, statewide, nationally and internationally to demand climate action. Posner and Weisbach contend that in the United States, politicians find that the political concern for action doesn’t run deep, which produces inadequate laws that match the political will of the people.22
At the international level, just how much action each government should take has been the discussion at the COP summits. Many nations in the Global South claim that they are not the ones responsible for creating the problem, yet are feeling the greatest impacts. Countries in the Global North have been reluctant to respond to the Global South. Doing so would mean taking responsibility for their contribution to the climate pollution problem with no perceivable value set for the externalized costs of fossil fuel production and combustion.
Many low-lying nations with coastal areas at or near sea level are currently being swallowed up by the rising seas, with the already recorded near 1 oC temperature rise.23 Prior to the 2009 Copenhagen COP summit, the government officials of the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting, sitting on chairs at a table in full scuba gear, showing how they might conduct meetings in the future if climate change isn’t addressed.24 At the 2015 Paris COP summit, it was the Indigenous voices from around the world demanding that a 2 oC rise minimum wasn’t enough to protect their future, and that the target must only be a 1.5 oC rise limit if humans wish to stay alive. Another breakthrough in Paris was the inclusion of the concept of “climate justice” for the first time into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change language.25 As we move forward collectively in communities, regions, and countries, we must address the issue of justice alongside the changing climate. Having a deeper understanding of climate justice will help enable communities’ leverage points for urging their governments to take climate action. Climate justice addresses social, racial, economic and environmental justice all together. Many environmental justice battles, such as stopping large scale damming projects that impact farmers and fisheries or shutting down asbestos mining which impacts communities’ health, have been fought in the 20th century in regards to injustices caused by the projects. Yet, climate justice is a battle for our existence which gives us a moral imperative to act. As Reverend Lennox Yearwood said at a No Dakota Access Pipeline rally in Washington, D.C. in September 2016, “I know we fought for equality in the 20th century…but the reality is that we are now fighting for existence in the 21st century.”26
Theories
Political philosophers have been determining theories of climate justice for about 20 years.27 Yet, as the impacts of climate change increase, the central focus of political theory has been on climate justice in the last decade.28 Justice is a concern of both moral philosophers and political theorists and political theories can provide potential ways to respond to climate change.29
In considering climate justice on the international scale, political philosophers have presented their theories to see if they uphold to the justice principles created. John Rawls and Simon Caney are two well-known political philosophers who have helped identify principles or theories of justice. Rawls identifies justice as the primary virtue of social institutions whereby laws and institutions must continue to be reformed or abolished if they are deemed unjust.30 In general, Rawls contends that justice does not allow for the losses to some in order to provide gains for the greater good.31 In relation to climate change, impacts created by those who consume more CO2 cause injustices by this consumption when the climate impacts are impacting communities that create the least amount of carbon pollution. More specifically, Rawls suggests that “the primary subject of justice is the basic structure of society, or more exactly, the way in which the major social institutions distribute fundamental rights and duties and determine the division of advantages from social cooperation.”32
Caney suggests that “an adequate theory of justice in relation to climate change must explain in what ways global climate change affects persons’ entitlements and it must do so in a way that (i) is sensitive to the particularities of the environment; (ii) explores the issues that arise from applying principles at the global rather than the domestic level; and (iii) explores the intergenerational dimensions of global climate change.”33
Wealthy countries have a stake or interest in supporting the marginalized countries based on the principle of “retributive justice” because they caused the problems for the marginalized communities.34 Marginalized countries may not be able to subsist with climate change impacts putting human rights at stake. All nations will need to help whether or not they have incurred human rights violations. The principle of “distributive justice” considers that all parties must pay for the costs due to climate change.35 We can agree that it is our duty or moral responsibility to act yet there is still debate or concerns about distributing responsibilities.36 The “polluter pays” principle is difficult to pursue because it is difficult to gain support for the costs of damage already done by people in the past, especially if they have passed on.37 This leads us to the moral argument of the “ability-to-pay” principle, meaning the wealthier countries have the ability.38
In addition, “procedural justice” considers who makes decisions and on whose behalf and that all impacted parties have a right to participate in the decision making process.39 Another consideration is “intergenerational justice”, how we leave the planet for future generations.40 In 2013, Robert Huseby created an amendment to the “Law of the Peoples” by Rawls to take into account future generations and it provides a “more complete and integrated solution to climate justice.”41 Theories of justice that help shape international policy and global governance can provide starting points for governance at the local level.42
“Ideal” and “non-ideal” theories focus on feasibility concerns around climate justice in regards to governments addressing climate change which Bell offers a critique.43 Bell argues that Posner and Weisbach limit what is possible in climate justice by stating that treaties or agreements can only be agreed upon if they are pragmatic and deal with only what is feasible.44 They argue that if “proposed principles are not feasible, we should reject them.”45 Rawls suggests that we can’t follow climate justice principles if they are beyond what is capable by humans, but that we also can’t reject principles if they don’t seem politically feasible.46
Theories that fall towards the ends of the spectrum of “non-ideal” theories don’t lead to feasible action. He also suggests that “ideal” theories must include a path or theory of transition. Political institutions can use theory of transition to guide decisions around “feasibility, legitimacy, stability and sustainability.”47 Theory of transition must include principles of climate justice that are based on empirical and moral grounds such that the result doesn’t create more injustices. Bell adds that if the principles are not accessible then the closest approximation to our ideals is the next step.48 To put it simply, we need governments to lead on reducing non-compliance and we need those that can pay the most to pay, Caney concludes.49
Understanding theories of climate justice help build frameworks of principles that the world can agree on before action can be determined. Frameworks emerged to shift the debate from technical or scientific to a more ethical perspective.50 Advocates of this shift felt that the scientific debate hindered action and it was important to come up with equitable policy solutions.51 The Bali Principles of Climate Justice and the Ten Principles for Just Climate Change Policies in the U.S. were developed in 2002.52 These principles were created to help shape policy decisions. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is another framework of principles that help guide global decision making for climate action. It was created in 1948 and has been translated into 500 languages.53 The details of the principles listed above can be found in Appendix A.
Different declarations have also been created by various groups and have been shared widely. This is an effort to not just define climate justice, but to provide roadmaps forward. The Indigenous Environmental Network has Four Principles of Climate Justice. It states that “Industrialized society must redefine its relationship with the sacredness of Mother Earth.”54
Economic, Social & Racial Justice
The theories of climate justice have been evolving through dissection of both feasibility and accessibility to solutions. In addition, this evolution considers other forms of justice including economic justice. Economic justice, in the case of the Global South is understood as the elevation of poor people out of poverty through economic growth. This growth, however, can lead to more climate pollution.
There is now evidence of poorer countries, such as Bangladesh leapfrogging technologies while rising out of poverty. According to a 2015 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, Bangladesh has the highest per capita installations of solar panels than any other country—rising from 25,000 to 3.8 million systems in the last decade with their 2016 target at 6 million units.56 They didn’t need to install national grids for energy, but rather have homes responsible for their own energy production and consumption. While climate justice includes economic justice, it must also include social and racial justice.
Pioneering work by Robert Bullard first identified the racial disparities in relation to environmental pollution impacts in U.S. cities.
For example, there is a higher proportion of communities of color living next to coal-fired power plants in America and they end up bearing the brunt of the pollution impacts. This is also true for toxic waste facilities and fossil fuel refineries.57 This must be addressed when determining new policies for confronting pollution. The world saw first-hand the devastating impacts of Hurricane Katrina and how the disadvantaged were displaced and not aided in reasonable time. The communities did not have the vehicles nor the financial resources to evacuate in the first place and they were not able to receive disaster relief.58 With the changing climate, communities will face additional impacts and the marginalized communities will be the hardest hit, unless the injustices they currently face are addressed.
In essence, climate justice is an extension of environmental justice where the marginalized communities are further disadvantaged due to climate change impacts. Climate justice provides a sociological call to action to address the social, racial, economic and environmental injustices facing marginalized communities.
Strategies
Climate justice involves employing strategies to build real solutions that are politically realistic alongside strategies that stop the agenda of creating false solutions. The Indigenous movement calls for long term solutions that take into account future generations. Short term solutions can be considered false solutions, under the guise of ‘emergency mode’ decision making.59 This entails making a decision with the notion that we must not let “perfect be the enemy of the good.”60
So the question becomes what does ‘good’ really mean? For example, in November 2016, a Washington State carbon tax initiative failed to take into account the concerns from various sectors of society.61 Communities of color aligned with labor, social justice, and major environmental groups to analyze how this initiative provided false solutions and attempted to stop the initiative as it was proposed, before it headed to the ballot.62 The initiative was also touted as a ‘better than nothing’ approach.63 To better understand the process of how we bring about change, we need to look at what we need, what is politically realistic, the false solutions that are created, and determine how these overlap in order to design just policies.
In general, strategies involve bringing in the climate justice principles and frameworks to help communities address possibilities. Communities don’t want to stop short of what may seem impossible. The vision of what is possible must be shared and committed to, for example a fossil free future. This may seem impossible, but if we fall short of this on a global scale, then humanity has lost. Justice involves standing up for the truth, and activism is “about using your power and voice to make a change in the world.”64 Citizens globally must align and use their voices to address the climate crisis.
End Notes — What is climate justice?
1. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. (2017). Justice. In Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com
/dictionary/justice
2. Wikipedia. (2017). Climate justice. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_justice
3. World Wildlife Fund. (2016). Living planet report 2016: Risk and resilience in a new era. Retrieved from http://awsassets
.panda.org/downloads/lpr_living_planet_report_2016.pdf
4. Cafaro, P. (2015). Three ways to think about the sixth mass extinction. Biological Conservation, 192, 387-393. doi:0.1016/j
.biocon.2015.10.017
5. U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. (2017, January 17) Quinault Indian Nation plans village relocation. Retrieved from
https://toolkit.climate.gov/case-studies/quinault-indian-nation-plans-village-relocation
6. Worldwatch Institute. (2016). Global fossil fuel consumption surges.
Retrieved from http://www.worldwatch.org/global-fossil-fuel-consumption-surges
7. Pan, J., Phillips, J., & Chen, Y. (2008). China’s balance of emissions embodied in trade: Approaches to measurement and allocating international responsibility. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 24(2), 354-376. doi:10.1093/oxrep/grn016
8. Chenoweth, E. & Stephan, M. J. (2008). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. International security, 33(1), 7-44. doi:10.1162/isec.2008.33.1.7
9. Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of doubt: how a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 240.
12. Schlosberg, D., & Collins, L. B. (2014). From environmental to climate justice: climate change and the discourse of environmental justice. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(3), 359-374. doi:10.1002/wcc.275
13. Lane, M. (2016). Political theory on climate change. Annual Review of Political Science, 19, 107-123. doi:10.1146
/annurev-polisci-042114-015427
14. Moore, H., & Russell, J. K. (2011). Organizing cools the planet: tools and reflections on across navigating the climate crisis. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 18.
15. Anderegg, W. R., Prall, J. W., Harold, J., & Schneider, S. H. (2010). Expert credibility in climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(27), 12107-12109. doi:10.1073/pnas.1003187107
16. National Aeronautics Space Administration. (2016, November 30). Carbon dioxide – direct measurements: 2005-present. Retrieved from http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
17. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2015). The Paris agreement. Retrieved from http://unfccc.int
/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf
18. Ibid.
19. Posner, E. A., & Weisbach, D. (2010). Climate change justice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
20. Ibid., 60.
21. United Nations Environment Programme. (2016). The emissions gap report 2016. Retrieved from
http://web.unep.org/emissionsgap/
22. Posner and Weisbach, Climate change justice.
23. National Aeronautics Space Administration. (2016, November 30). Global temperature – global land-ocean temperature index. Retrieved from http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
24. Buncombe, A. (2009). Rising sea levels inspire Maldives’ underwater cabinet meeting. New Zealand Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10601743
25. Roser, D., & Seidel, C. (2017). Climate justice: an introduction. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
26. Save Main St. (2016, September 13). Reverend Yearwood speaking at #NoDAPL Rally in DC. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/savemainstnow/videos/1117426678339322/?hc_ref=SEARCH
27. Fragnière, A. (2016). Climate change and individual duties. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(6), 798-814. doi:10.1002/wcc.422
28. Lane, “Political Theory.”
29. Ibid.
30. Rawls, J. (2009). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., 5.
33. Caney, S. (2005). Cosmopolitan justice, responsibility, and global climate change. Leiden journal of international law, 18(04), 750. doi:10.1017/S0922156505002992
34. Paterson, M. (2001). Principles of justice in the context of global climate negotiations. In U. Luterbacher, & D.F. Sprinz (Eds.), International relations and global climate change. (pp.119-26). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
35. Ibid.
36. Roser and Seidel, Climate justice.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Bulkeley, H., Carmin, J., Broto, V. C., Edwards, G. A., & Fuller, S. (2013). Climate justice and global cities: Mapping the emerging discourses. Global Environmental Change, 23(5), 914-925. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.05.010
40. Roser and Seidel, Climate justice.
41. Huseby, R. (2013). John Rawls and climate justice. Environmental Ethics, 35(2), 239. doi:10.5840/enviroethics201335219
42. Bulkeley et. al. “Climate justice and global cities.”
43. Bell, D. (2013). How should we think about climate justice? Environmental Ethics, 35(2), 189-208.
doi:10.5840/enviroethics201335217
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., 192.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., 195.
48. Ibid.
49. Caney, S. (2016). Climate change and non-ideal theory: six ways of responding to noncompliance. In C. Heyward, & D. Poser (Eds.), Climate justice in a non-ideal world, (pp.21-42). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
50. Moser, S. C., & Dilling, L. (Eds.). (2007). Creating a climate for change: communicating climate change and facilitating social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. United Nations. (2017). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
54. Moore and Russell, Organizing cools the planet, 19.
55. Ibid., 19.
56. International Renewable Energy Agency. (2015). Renewable energy and jobs annual review 2015. Retrieved from
http://www.irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/IRENA_RE_Jobs_Annual_Review_2015.pdf
57. Bullard, R. D., & Lewis, J. (1996). Environmental justice and communities of color. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books.
58. Masozera, M., Bailey, M., & Kerchner, C. (2007). Distribution of impacts of natural disasters across income groups: a case study of New Orleans. Ecological Economics, 63(2), 299-306. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.06.013
59. Moore and Russell, Organizing cools the planet.
60. Ibid., 21.
61. Mapes, L. V. (2015, December 24). Carbon Washington’s initiative 732 is a go after all. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/carbon-washingtons-initiative-732-is-a-go-after-all/
62. Roberts, D. (2016, November 8). The left vs. a carbon tax. Retrieved from
http://www.vox.com/2016/10/18/13012394/i-732-carbon-tax-washington
63. Westneat, D. (2016, July 12). Audubon backs I-732 to fight climate change – it’s better than nothing. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/audubon-backs-i-732-its-better-than-nothing/
64. Moore and Russell, Organizing cools the planet, 24.