Climate Change Justice

Eric A. Posner, Cass R. Sunstein

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2007 · 119 citations · 38 references

DOIFull text

Open access

Concepts

TL;DR

Anthropogenic climate change threatens global food security, health, displacement, conflict, and economic growth, raising widespread justice concerns about how harms and responsibilities are distributed. The article reviews key justice claims concerning mitigation, cost sharing, adaptation investment, and compensation for climate change. The authors provide a concise review of these justice claims, outlining their main arguments and implications.

Abstract

Abstract Anthropogenic climate change is a global process affecting the lives and well‐being of millions of people now and countless number of people in the future. For humans, the consequences may include significant threats to food security globally and regionally, increased risks of from food‐borne and water‐borne as well as vector‐borne diseases, increased displacement of people due migrations, increased risks of violent conflicts, slowed economic growth and poverty eradication, and the creation of new poverty traps. Principles of justice are statements of what persons are owed either by others or by institutions and policies. Climate change gives rise to many concern of justice. This article briefly summarizes some of the most important of these, including claims to have climate change mitigated, claims regarding the sharing of the costs of climate change mitigation, claims for investment into adaptation, and claims to be compensated.

References

38