An introduction to climate justice
Author: Connie Gamble | National Affairs Director
“Climate change is intrinsically linked to public health, food and water security, migration, peace, and security. It is a moral issue. It is an issue of social justice, human rights and fundamental ethics. We have a profound responsibility to the fragile web of life on this Earth, and to this generation and those that will follow”
As air time afforded to climate change is on the rise within the media and politics, the global community is increasingly being forced to respond to the crisis as we continue to feel its impact on civilisation. Climate justice is a concept which falls within the broader sphere of climate ethics, and goes beyond the environmental parameters of climate change to acknowledge the crisis as one of a political and ethical nature.
Anthropogenic climate change is objectively a product of human activity, and its consequences will manifest in more severe and frequent extreme weather events, entailing a mass disruption of environmental systems ultimately influencing our natural climate variability.
While it is one thing to note sea level rise, it is another to address how this will disproportionately affect different communities and countries, to recognise that the capacity to respond to such an issue will differ between them. This approach is at the core of climate justice; it addresses its asymmetric impact on communities, and the fact that it has the potential to drive inequality deeper than it already is. As such, responses to the crisis must then take these differences into account to ensure a just transition to a sustainable, secure future.
Advanced and emerging economies: the role fossil fuels play in development
Looking at the history of the international sphere, fossil fuels have played an extremely pivotal role in establishing global power relations. As we seek to create policy that mitigates emissions and adapts to climate change, the pursuit of climate justice takes into account existing inequalities and the impact of policy on such issues.
By observing the history of many of the world’s oldest advanced economies, we see that the 19th century industrial revolution of the UK, Europe and the United States was built on an extreme, never before seen reliance on the burning of fossil fuels. Over decades, the industrialisation of economies under a liberal capitalist model centralised the role energy played in strengthening and developing international standing.
These formative years allowed for an era of unprecedented growth, allowing those at the forefront of this period to instil this hierarchical power dynamic on an international scale. Intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations, World Bank and IMF to name a few, are oft criticised as manifestations of historical power relations, which serve to structurally engrain these power dynamics in the face of emerging economies under globalisation.
Decades of agreement on climate research calls for a rapid departure from high emission economies, seeking to minimise if not eliminate greenhouse gas emissions altogether. Thus, more and more people are demanding comprehensive climate policy development at an international level.
“Climate change is a global consensus. We need to respond to this challenge with concerted global efforts according to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities”
Considerations of equity and just policy are critical in the creation of such policy; the imposition of emissions cuts or restrictions on emerging economies threatens to hinder this economic development. Economic development as such has the potential to elevate the social living standards of millions, clearly demonstrated by China’s economic miracle of the early 21st century. The goal of mitigating emissions thus clashes with traditional models of development which inherently rely on an increased dependency on fossil fuels. For emerging global powers such as India or Brazil, demands to curb emissions may hinder the economic prosperity, further curbing government ability to engage in social spending.
The graph below further visualises the strong relationship between wealth and emissions.
Source: Our World in Data 2020
As such, climate justice seeks to highlight the differentiated potential impacts that global policy goals may have on different economies and communities. Critics are quick to note that this potential obstruction of emerging economies from progressing to advanced economies conveniently perpetuates existing global power relations by maintaining authority in the international sphere.
Equity, justice and security for humanity
One alternative conceptualisation of a just future in the face of climate change merges a human rights approach with a response drastic global lifestyle differences. It frames equity and climate justice as central to sustainable development.
Kate Raworth of Oxfam proposes a doughnut model, where a global existence which places communities between two ‘extremes’ enables the pursuit of a social justice and environmentally stable future.
Firstly, the social foundations promote equality within and between states, where all humanity has access to certain standards of living. This lays the groundwork for how humanity can operate by integrating fundamental principles of human rights. Social equity is necessary for a humanity that can prosper comfortably into the future.
Secondly, in terms of the environmental ‘ceiling’, Raworth uses planetary boundaries to restrict human activity from being detrimental to the environment. Currently, poorer countries and communities consume and emit significantly less, while the wealthy increasingly consume more resources to maximise profits. Resource equity refers to the distribution of resources in a way such that developing countries can consume more to meet certain social living standards as outlined by the social foundation. Additionally, the high emissions lifestyles of developed countries must be significantly curbed, which, if adopted by all members of the global community, would be inconceivably unsustainable and entail unimaginable and irreversible environmental consequences.
From this interpretation of equity in climate change, it is clear that a certain level of global governance and state action is required. The provision of the social foundations for the doughnut can be translated to the requirement of international aid from developing states. Such action must be encouraged and enforced on a global level. However, as aforementioned, this process is harder to navigate when global efforts may unequally affect communities.
This article has presented climate justice from a few simple perspectives as an introduction; climate justice as an overarching principle is deeply complex in nature, as it addresses the interplay of an objectively environmental event with pre-existing, nuanced issues that are political, economic and social in nature.
In our pursuit to mitigate emissions and adapt human systems to the indiscriminate consequences of climate change, it is critical that we are aware of the human impacts of our responses.