Dual climate change responsibility: on moral divergences between mitigation and adaptation

Abstract

In this paper it is argued that climate change adaptation poses different moral questions than mitigation. Proceeding from a ‘hybrid’ model recently advanced by Simon Caney, an analytical framework for determining responsibility, which is based on a distinction between causal and remedial responsibility as well as one between well-off and badly-off agents, is constructed and applied. It is concluded that whether the burdens are envisioned as ones of mitigation or adaptation makes a difference for how responsibility is assigned to various agents within this framework, suggesting that theorists need to be clear about which kind of burden their distributive principles concern. As the analysis is based upon some important substantive assumptions, the paper concludes with a critical discussion of our conclusions and an invitation for additional research into the largely unexamined distinction between adaptation and mitigation.