Search

Carbon emissions—and hence fossil fuel combustion—must decline rapidly if warming is to be held below 1.5 or 2 °C. Yet fossil fuels are so deeply entrenched in the broader economy that a rapid transition poses the challenge of significant transitional disruption. Fossil fuels must be phased out even as access to energy services for basic needs and for economic development expands, particularly in developing countries. Nations, communities, and workers that are economically dependent on fossil fuel extraction will need to find a new foundation for livelihoods and revenue. These challenges are surmountable. In principle, societies could undertake a decarbonization transition in which they anticipate the transitional disruption, and cooperate and contribute fairly to minimize and alleviate it. Indeed, if societies do not work to avoid that disruption, a decarbonization transition may not be possible at all. Too many people may conclude they will suffer undue hardship, and thus undermine the political consensus required to undertake an ambitious transition. The principles and framework laid out here are offered as a contribution to understanding the nature of the potential impacts of a transition, principles for equitably sharing the costs of avoiding them, and guidance for prioritizing which fossil resources can still be extracted.

The question of what responsibilities members of one generation have to later generations raises complex theoretical questions and is also of considerable practical importance. In this article, I introduce the practical issues at stake (Section 1), then explore the methodological issues surrounding how to think about intergenerational justice (Section 2), before evaluating competing normative frameworks (Sections 3–7). I conclude with a discussion of the practical challenges facing the realization of justice to future generations (Section 8).

This chapter tries to motivate support for what it terms the Right of Resistance against Global Injustice, where this should be understood as a right to bring about greater global justice. More specifically it defends two conceptions of this core idea. Roughly stated, the first maintains that persons have the right to take direct action that will immediately and directly secure their rights or the rights of others (what is referred to as the Right of Resistance against Global Injusticei (RRGIi)). The second holds that persons have the right to engage in action that transforms the underlying social, economic, and political structures that perpetuate injustice in order to bring about greater justice in the future (what is referred to as the Right of Resistance against Global Injusticeii (RRGIii)). These formulations are approximate and need to be explicated more fully, but they express the key ideas. The chapter seeks to specify these more fully, and to address various questions about the meaning, content, grounding, and limits of these rights.

This chapter explores the relationship between human rights, population and climate change. Some argue that to address climate change it is necessary to implement policies that reduce world population growth and perhaps also population size. This chapter examines two ways of approaching this issue, both of which focus on what human rights people have. One calls for limits on people's human right to reproductive choice. A second approach holds that respecting core human rights will be sufficient to tackle the demographic drivers of climate change. This chapter critically evaluates both accounts and proposes a third one that builds on the second approach but goes beyond it.

This concluding chapter addresses the normative issues raised by the environment. The environment includes the earth's crust, soil, and natural resources; the atmosphere; all the earth's water; and the biosphere. Human activity has a profound impact on the environment. Indeed, many of the activities that humans engage in — activities which often serve important human interests and goals — result in environmental degradation. Persons depend on the environment in many ways: for their food, health, and for many of their goals in life. As such, humans face a problem when people impact on the environment to such an extent that it undercuts people's capacity to enjoy the standard of living to which they are entitled. Thus, a just account of the environment will take into account both the fact that people have legitimate interests which involve using the environment and the fact that there must be limits on people's environmental impacts.

What kind of world should current generations bequeath to those who come after them? One appealing principle holds that those alive at any one time should leave future people with a standard of living that is at least as good as the one that they claim for themselves. Versions of this principle have been put forward by economists, philosophers, and legal scholars. However, while the principle is an attractive one, its meaning is also elusive. This chapter therefore explores how best to spell out the underlying principle. It then seeks to motivate support for this principle and to outline its implications for development, global inequalities, and addressing climate change.

In recent years, a number of powerful arguments have been given for thinking that there should be suprastate institutions, and that the current ones, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and United Nations Security Council, need to be radically reformed and new ones created. Two distinct kinds of argument have been advanced. One is instrumental and emphasizes the need for effective suprastate political institutions to realize some important substantive ideals (such as preventing dangerous climate change, eradicating poverty, promoting fair trade, and securing peace). The second is procedural and emphasizes the importance of political institutions that include all those subject to their power in as democratic a process as possible, and builds on this to call for democratically accountable international institutions. In this chapter, the author argues that the two approaches need not conflict, and that they can in fact lend support to each other.

Until recently the prevailing view among many political philosophers was that global justice required that states honour each other’s independence, keep their treaties, and comply with the rules of the just war tradition. This view has long been challenged by realist thinkers, inspired by Machiavelli and Hobbes, who think it idealistic and utopian. The last 35 years have seen a marked increase in the interest on the part of political philosophers in the question of whether there are global principles of justice, and if so, what they are. A number of political philosophers have defended a cosmopolitan conception of global justice. Some, like Peter Singer, have drawn on a consequentialist political morality to defend global principles of justice. Others employ social contract theory to defend universal principles of justice and others ground their commitment to global principles of justice on human rights. These cosmopolitan perspectives have been challenged from a number of perspectives. Some, like John Rawls, argue that a cosmopolitan approach is insufficiently tolerant of non-liberal societies and defend instead a world order built around the ideal of a society of decent states. Others, like David Miller, defend the moral importance of nationality and national self-determination. Underlying these differences are different assumptions about the circumstances under which principles of justice apply. Cosmopolitans tend to think that the global realm is morally analogous to the domestic realm and hence that the principles of justice that apply in the domestic realm (such as, say, utilitarianism or rights) can be exported to the global realm. Their critics tend to think that the global realm is disanalogous to the domestic realm in morally relevant ways; hence they hold either that no principles of justice apply at the global level (realists) or that some do but they are different in nature to those that govern relations between members of the same state or nation (Rawls and nationalists).

This chapter sets out the main normative dimensions that should be used in assessing whether societies have made social progress and whether a given set of proposals is likely to bring progress. So ...

Economic Growth, Human Development, and Welfare" of the 2018 Report of the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP). Mission of the IPSP: The International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP) will harness the competence of hundreds of experts about social issues and will deliver a report addressed to all social actors, movements, organizations, politicians and decision-makers, in order to provide them with the best expertise on questions that bear on social change. The Panel will seek consensus whenever possible but will not hide controversies and will honestly present up-to-date arguments and analyses, and debates about them, in an accessible way. The Panel will have no partisan political agenda, but will aim at restoring hope in social progress and stimulating intellectual and public debates. Different political and philosophical views may conceive of social progress in different ways, emphasizing values such as freedom, dignity, or equality. The Panel will retain full independence from political parties, governments, and organizations with a partisan agenda. While the Panel will primarily work for the dissemination of knowledge to all relevant actors in society, it will also foster research on the topics it will study and help to revive interest for research in social long-term prospective analysis

This chapter considers two questions of distributive justice that arise when we face dangerous climate change. The first (the Just Target Question) concerns what balance to strike between ensuring that moral subjects are not harmed by climatic changes and ensuring that the policies required to prevent harmful climatic changes are not unduly onerous. The second (the Just Burden Question) concerns how the costs involved in combating dangerous climate change should be distributed among duty-bearers. The chapter identifies several methodological issues we need to confront to address these questions. In addition to this, it outlines how one might answer the Just Target Question, and evaluates several leading accounts of how to answer the Just Burden Question. One central finding is that the issues of justice raised by climate change cannot be treated in isolation but must be analysed as part of a more general global and intergenerational account of justice.

This chapter explores the relevance of facts and empirical enquiry for the normative project of enquiring what principles of distributive justice, if any, apply at the global level. Is empirical research needed for this kind of enquiry? And if so, how? Claims about global distributive justice often rest on factual assumptions. Seven different ways in which facts about national, regional and global politics (and hence empirical research into global politics) might inform accounts of global distributive justice are examined. A deep understanding of the nature of global politics and the world economy (and thus empirical research on it) is needed: to grasp the implications of principles of global distributive justice; to evaluate such principles for their attainability and political feasibility; to assess their desirability; and, first, to conceptualize the subject-matter of global distributive justice and to formulate the questions that accounts of global distributive justice need to answer.

In the debates surrounding global justice, the overwhelming focus has been on the duties that fall to the affluent and powerful, and the emphasis has been on their duties to comply with various principles of justice. In this essay, I examine what those who bear the brunt of global injustice are entitled to do to secure their own entitlements and those of others. In particular, I defend an account of what I term the “right of resistance against global injustice.” To do so I advance several methodological and substantive claims. On the methodological level: I argue that in deriving and defining this right of resistance we can (a) learn from the normative accounts developed to analyze war, humanitarian intervention, civil disobedience, revolution and anti colonialism. However, (b) the right to resist global injustice raises some distinct problems; and, thus, the normative principles that should inform any right of resistance against global injustice are not reducible to those that govern the appropriate kinds of response to other kinds of injustice. Turning now to the substantive component, I propose an account of resisting global injustice that specifies (i) who may engage in resistance, (ii) what would constitute a just cause for engaging in resistance, (iii) against whom those engaging in resistance may impose burdens, (iv) what methods resistors can employ, and (v) in what circumstances resistance is permissible.

Climate change is projected to have very severe impacts on future generations. Given this, any adequate response to it has to consider the nature of our obligations to future generations. This paper seeks to do that and to relate this to the way that inter-generational justice is often framed by economic analyses of climate change. To do this the paper considers three kinds of considerations that, it has been argued, should guide the kinds of actions that one generation should take if it is to treat both current and future people equitably. In particular it examines the case for what has been termed pure time discounting, growth discounting and opportunity cost discounting; and it assesses their implications for climate policy. It argues that none of these support the claims of those who think they give us reason to delay aggressive mitigation policies. It also finds, however, that the second kind of argument can, in certain circumstances, provide support for passing on some of the costs of mitigation to future generations.

The article Whose carbon is burnable? Equity considerations in the allocation of a “right to extract,” written by Sivan Kartha, Simon Caney, Navroz K. Dubash, and Greg Muttitt, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 24 May 2018.

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

The recent article by Robiou du Pont et al makes counter-intuitive claims about the degree to which different countries’ pledged mitigation contributions under the Paris Agreement are “equitable”, i.e., whether they meet benchmarks associate with various equity approaches. The analysis is flawed however, in three ways, with a cascading and systematic bias against poorer and lower-emitting countries. Firstly, the methodology is heavily driven by “grandfathering” as an allocation approach, despite the absence of any ethical justification. Second, it omits “Responsibility” as a basis, without explanation, even though it is included in the set of categories (taken from the IPCC AR5) within which the authors claim to be working. And third, the IPCC raised several other ethical considerations not covered by the authors’ particular choice of categories. Each of these three analytical shortcomings biases the results in favor of the wealthier and higher-emitting countries.

The last 35 years have seen the emergence and defense of “cosmopolitan” accounts of justice and political institutions. This chapter examines the relationships between three leading cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice (those of Charles Beitz, Henry Shue, and Thomas Pogge) and the environment. It further aims to explore at a more general level how cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice need to consider both the environmental impacts of realizing their principles of justice and the environmental preconditions of realizing them, so as to ensure that their vision of the just society is sustainable and that humanity is not living beyond its means. Having examined the relationship between cosmopolitan accounts of justice and the environment, the chapter concludes by analyzing the relationship between cosmopolitan accounts of political institutions and the environment, exploring the implications for sovereignty and the scope of democratic institutions.

In this article I propose to explore two issues. The first concerns what kinds of contributions academics can make to reducing poverty. I argue that academics can contribute in a number of ways, and I seek to spell out the diversity of the options available. I concentrate on four ways in which these contributions might differ. These differences concern: (i) whether their direct focus is on changing policies or on changing the behaviour of the affluent or on empowering the disadvantaged (the target); (ii) whether they seek to block specific harmful policies or to canvass particular beneficial policies (the positive/negative nature of the contribution); (iii) whether their focus is on specific policies or whether they seek more generally to shape the way that the issues that bear on poverty are framed (the specificity/generality of the contribution); and (iv) the means by which academics can make a contribution (the modalities of social engagement). It is, I think, important to recognize this diversity. Some may be unable to contribute in some ways but can contribute in others; some may be more adept at some kinds of anti-poverty initiatives than they are at others; and some may simply be more willing to pursue certain activities rather than others. Recognizing and describing the different options available to academics can hopefully encourage greater participation in all kinds of anti-poverty action. My second aim is to outline some norms that should inform any academic involvement in activities that seek to reduce poverty. I set out six proposals. These concern: (i) the need to construct coalitions among people with different ethical frameworks; (ii) the value of constructing non-ideal theory on the basis of our best understanding of an ideal world; (iii) the need for integrated analysis that connects anti-poverty initiatives to other areas of moral concern; (iv) the vital importance of interdisciplinarity; (v) the need for epistemic modesty and revisability; and (vi) the need for accountability.

Cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gas emissions are an important part of the climate change policies of the EU, Japan, New Zealand, among others, as well as China (soon) and Australia (potentially). However, concerns have been raised on a variety of ethical grounds about the use of markets to reduce emissions. For example, some people worry that emissions trading allows the wealthy to evade their responsibilities. Others are concerned that it puts a price on the natural environment. Concerns have also been raised about the distributional justice of emissions trading. Finally, some commentators have questioned the actual effectiveness of emissions trading in reducing emissions. This paper considers these three categories of objections – ethics, justice and effectiveness – through the lens of moral philosophy and economics. It is concluded that only the objections based on distributional justice can be sustained. This points to reform of the carbon market system, rather than its elimination.

In a recent paper in this journal I argued that the distribution of the burdens involved in combating climate change should be determined by a combination of a particular version of the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) and a particular version of the Ability to Pay Principle. Carl Knight has presented three objections to my analysis. In what follows, I argue that he largely misinterprets my arguments.

The prospect of dangerous climate change requires Humanity to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. This in turn raises the question of how the permission to emit greenhouse gases should be distributed and among whom. In this article the author criticises three principles of distributive justice that have often been advanced in this context. He also argues that the predominantly statist way in which the question is framed occludes some morally relevant considerations. The latter part of the article turns from critique and advances a new way of addressing the problem. In particular, first, it proposes four key theses that should guide our normative analysis; and, second, it outlines how these four theses can be realised in practice.

Many hold that the state has normative significance because its borders define the scope of egalitarian principles of distributive justice. On this view egalitarian principles of distributive justice should be applied within the state but should not be adopted at the global level. This article examines two reasons for accepting this view and for rejecting global egalitarianism, and finds both wanting. It then presents three challenges to any view that holds that the scope of principles of distributive justice should be determined by the boundaries of the state. It concludes by noting four distinct ways in which the state has normative significance, each of which can be endorsed by global egalitarians.

It is widely recognised that climate change is having malign effects on human life. How though should we evaluate these changes? The dominant approach employs cost–benefit analysis. In this essay I defend an alternative. I argue that we should see climate change as a threat to human rights. The inter-temporal character of climate change poses a second question, namely should we subject these rights to a positive discount rate. I examine five arguments which purport to show that the human rights jeopardised by dangerous climate change should be subject to a positive discount rate and conclude that none of these succeed. I argue that the rights jeopardised by dangerous climate change do not diminish in importance throughout time.

Justice Beyond Borders seeks to defend an egalitarian liberal account of global justice.1 Gillian Brock and Margaret Moore have written two challenging critiques of Justice Beyond Borders and I am ...

There is a strong sense of malaise surrounding climate politics today. This has been created at least in part by factors such as the chasm between the scale of action required and the adequacy of current political commitments, stalemate in global negotiations, the low price of carbon, and a growing sense of indifference among the publics of some developed countries about the threat posed by climate change. Within the policy community these issues are generally treated as different problems each to be overcome on their own terms. Yet, we argue, suggested solutions to these problems hold much in common-namely a focus on identifying agency, whether the capacity of institutions to act or the behavior of individuals. What is often missing from such accounts of climate politics is a recognition that the problems of how agency is attributed, what we might term governance traps, are structural in nature. Governing climate change therefore requires that we study the conditions through which these challenges arise and which in turn serve to frame agency in particular ways. We suggest that examining the ways in which notions of responsibilities and rights are currently being framed within climate politics provides one way into these dynamics. This opens up the critical questions that need to be addressed ahead of the critical Conference of the Parties meeting in Paris in November 2015.

The paper has the following structure. In Section I, I introduce some important methodological preliminaries by asking: How should one reason about global environmental justice in general and global climate change in particular? Section II introduces the key normative argument; it argues that global climate change damages some fundamental human interests and results in a state of affairs in which the rights of many are unprotected: as such it is unjust. Section III addresses the complexities that arise from the fact that some of the ill effects of global climate change will fall on the members of future generations. Section IV shows that some prevailing approaches are unable to deal satisfactorily with the challenges posed by global climate change. If the argument of this paper is correct, it follows that those who contribute to global climate change through high emissions are guilty of human rights violations and they should be condemned as such.

Philosophical discussions of global justice often operate at an abstract level and rarely ask what specific policies should be adopted to bring about a fairer world. This essay aims to explore and investigate this kind of practical issue. It assumes a very minimal conception of global justice and then focuses on the question of which measures should be adopted to realize this minimal ideal. To do so it explores twelve separate measures, including debt cancellation, trade liberalization, global taxation, increased migration, and the implementation of international labour standards.

It is widely recognized that changes are occurring to the earth's climate and, further, that these changes threaten important human interests. This raises the question of who should bear the burdens of addressing global climate change. This paper aims to provide an answer to this question. To do so it focuses on the principle that those who cause the problem are morally responsible for solving it (the ‘polluter pays’ principle). It argues that while this has considerable appeal it cannot provide a complete account of who should bear the burdens of global climate change. It proposes three ways in which this principle needs to be supplemented, and compares the resulting moral theory with the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’.

Charles Beitz's Political Theory and International Relations has had an enormous impact on analyses of the ethical issues raised at the global level. It was the first systematic discussion of such ethical issues in the last 50 years if not more. It remains a landmark for a number of different reasons. First, it stands out for the sophistication of its philosophical argument and the meticulous argumentation throughout. The latter is deployed not simply to provide powerful critiques of other perspectives (such as realism and the morality of states). It also puts forward and defends with considerable ingenuity a cosmopolitan theory of distributive justice. A second striking and impressive feature of the book is that it successfully integrates philosophical argument with a deep grasp of the nature of world politics and the empirical and theoretical literatures on salient aspects of world politics. It remains an exemplar for how to argue in global political theory. To these two virtues we should also add that of a tremendous range. Beitz engages not simply with contemporary political theorists (such as Rawls) and International Relations scholars (such as Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye) but also with important thinkers of the past. His work analyses, among others, Grotius, Hobbes, Wolff, Vattel, Kant, Durkheim, Sidgwick and Mill. For these, and other, reasons Political Theory and International Relations has stood the test of time well. The book is divided into three parts, each of which remains of paramount importance to debates about the ethical character of global politics. Part One remains a key discussion of (the untenability of) realism. Part Two's discussion of the 'morality of states' poses a formidable challenge to those who maintain the unconditional value of state sovereignty. And Part Three provides the first systematic defence of a cosmopolitan conception of distributive justice an analysis which, especially given its emphasis on the moral significance of global interdependence, continues to be of utmost relevance.

In recent years a powerful case has been made in defence of a system of global governance in which supra-state institutions are accountable directly to the citizens of the world. This political vision- calling for what is commonly termed a ‘cosmopolitan democracy‘- has been defended with considerable imagination by thinkers such as Daniele Archibugi, Richard Falk, David Held, and Tony McGrew. At the same time, a number of powerful arguments have been developed in favour of cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice. Philosophers such as Brian Barry, Charles Beitz, Onora O'Neill, Thomas Pogge, Henry Shue, and Peter Singer have developed formidable arguments against wholly local theories of distributive justice and have argued for cosmopolitan conceptions of distributive justice.

Social diversity has become a major preoccupation of political philosophy. That concern is far from new. Its roots in the West are usually traced to the Reformation. Yet there has probably been no ...