Abstract
Flavio Comim argues that climate injustice is a pervasive feature of current climate change problems. Injustice is manifested in terms of cost–benefit asymmetries and in the erosion of individuals' capabilities. To understand the overall impact of climate change on poverty and human development, it is relevant to contextualize this discussion within the general issue about the impact of ecosystem services on human well-being. Moreover, it is important to qualify what we understand by ‘climate justice’ and use this characterization to think about policy directions for better responses. Comim examines the division between distributive and procedural justice, putting forward a capability reading of ‘climate justice’ that focuses on the integration of these two dimensions of justice.
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Notes
I am very grateful to Angels Varea for her insightful comments. Remaining errors are all my responsibility.
As noted by the HDR (2007/08: 60) ‘The ethical foundation of any society has to be measured partly on the basis of how it treats its most vulnerable members. Allowing the world's poor to bear the brunt of a climate change problem that they did not create would point to a high level of tolerance for inequality and injustice.’
In the ‘Introduction’ of her book Frontiers of Justice, Professor Nussbaum argues that (2006: 1) ‘theories of social justice must also be responsive to the world and its most urgent problems, and must be open to changes in their formulations and even in their structures in response to a new problem or to an old one that has been culpably ignored’. She focuses in her book on issues of disability, nationality and species membership, but there are many possible links with climate change issues.
This should be understood as a ‘working definition’, illuminating some features of the problem.
References
DFID, European Commission, UNDP and the World Bank (2002) Linking Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management: Policy challenges and opportunities, Washington: The World Bank.
HDR (2006) Human Development Report 2006 on Beyond Scarcity: Power, poverty and the global water crisis, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
HDR (2007) Human Development Report 2007/08 on Fighting Climate Change: Human solidarity in a divided world, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
IPCC (2007) Fourth Assessment Report, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis report, Washington, DC: Island Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. (2006) Frontiers of Justice: Disability, nationality, species membership, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Paavola, Jouni and W.Neil Adger (2002) ‘Justice and Adaptation to Climate Change’, Working Paper 23 – Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Mimeo, October.
Sen, Amartya (1992) Inequality Re-examined, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stern, Nicholas (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Shows how climate injustice is a pervasive feature of current climate change problems
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Comim, F. Climate Injustice and Development: A capability perspective. Development 51, 344–349 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2008.36
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2008.36