Historical Emissions

Butt, Daniel; Meyer, Lukas H.; Sanklecha, Pranay

doi:10.1017/9781107706835.004

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Still, it is possible to find analyses concerning a somehow analogous topic, namely, whether developed countries would have emitted GHGs as they did if they had known of the harmful effects of climate change. 16 For instance, Zellentin (2014) , and Butt (2017) . The discussion on the latter issue, I think, sheds light on the former.…”

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerning historical emissions and after recognizing that people cannot be morally responsible for harmful effects of the emissions released in a state of excused ignorance, Daniel Butt argues “that more advanced scientific knowledge would have made no difference to the actions of the emitters or to those responsible for regulating them: even if they had known of the likely consequences of their actions, they would have carried on regardless” ( 2017 , p. 66). Butt’s general thesis is that if an agent acted in a state of ignorance concerning a particular effect of his act, and knowledge of that effect would have likely made no difference in how the agent behaved, such ignorance cannot block the attribution of remedial responsibility for the outcome actually produced ( Butt 2017 , p. 66).…”

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The epistemic challenge rests on identifying whether people would have acted as they did if they had known the relevant information. The normative challenge questions whether such a counterfactual condition is relevant for establishing the morally faulty character of the historical past emitters and, accordingly, for assigning remedial responsibility ( Butt 2017 , p. 67).…”

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is commonly understood that knowing the sufferings and harms developing countries will undergo does not make a significant difference in how developed countries behave. As Butt asserts, they tend to privilege national interests, despite the harms other countries might suffer as a consequence of their actions ( 2017 , p. 67). We might think not only about how developed countries behaved historically concerning emissions of GHGs, as Butt does, or about how developed states have strong preferences for increasing national security budgets by cutting their aid to relieve extreme global poverty, even in times of peace, 17 See García-Gibson (2017) .…”

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second consideration Butt gives for showing that awareness about the harmful effects of historical emissions would have made no difference in how developed countries behaved is that “the development of knowledge about the effects of GHG emissions has not, in fact, served to check emissions in any kind of meaningful way” ( Butt 2017 , p. 68). A similar point seems to apply to the consumption of the benefits that stem from historical emissions obtained at the expense of present members of developing countries.…”

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Climate Justice and the Duty of Restitution

Borgogno

2022

Moral Philosophy and Politics

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Much of the climate justice discussion revolves around how the remaining carbon budget should be globally allocated. Some authors defend the unjust enrichment interpretation of the beneficiary pays principle (BPP). According to this principle, those states unjustly enriched from historical emissions should pay. I argue that if the BPP is to be constructed along the lines of the unjust enrichment doctrine, countervailing reasons that might be able to block the existence of a duty of restitution should be assessed. One might think that the duty to provide restitution no longer has moral weight if many benefits were already consumed, if the particular benefits obtained from historical emissions cannot be transferred from one country to another, or if present members of developed countries framed their life plans based upon the expectation of continued possession of those benefits. I show that none of these reasons negate the duty to provide restitution.

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Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Benefits Are No Longer Herementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Climate Justice and the Duty of Restitution

Borgogno

2022

Moral Philosophy and Politics

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Distributive justice and the global emissions budget

Schulan

Tank

Baatz

2023

WIREs Climate Change

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In order not to significantly overshoot maximum levels of warming like the 1.5 and 2°C target we must stay within a fixed emissions budget. How to fairly distribute the entitlements to emit within such a budget is perhaps the most intensely discussed question in all of climate justice. In our review we discuss the most prominent proposals in moral and political philosophy on how to solve this question and put a special emphasis on scholarly contributions from the last decade. We canvass the arguments for and against emissions egalitarianism, emissions sufficientarianism, and emissions grandfathering as well as the debates surrounding them. These are how to deal with non‐compliance, how to split emissions between producers and consumers, how to best account for terrestrial carbon sinks, and whether emissions from having children should be subtracted from parents' emissions budgets. From the viewpoint of justice, it matters not only that we act against climate change but also how we do so. This review aims to elucidate one of the major ways in which our reaction to climate change could be just or unjust.This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Global Justice Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change

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The ethics of climate change loss and damage

Düvel,

García‐Portela

2024

WIREs Climate Change

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In the last decade, the international community has become increasingly aware that some negative impacts of climate change cannot be prevented. During the COP19 in Warsaw in 2013, the parties who agreed to the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) acknowledged that there were already greater climate impacts than could be reduced by adaptation (UNFCCC, 2014). These impacts have been called “loss and damage”, and the policies and measures that deal with them are usually referred to as L&D, or L&D measures or policies. Since then, examples of loss and damage have unfortunately become abundant, but we lack a systematic approach to the ethical issues surrounding loss and damage. This article provides an overview of some of the ethical issues surrounding loss and damage in the context of climate change. We discuss what should count as loss and damage, how access to justice for loss and damage should be granted and their different rationale, as well as issues of noneconomic and nonanthropocentric loss and damage.This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change

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Historical Emissions

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Climate Justice and the Duty of Restitution

Climate Justice and the Duty of Restitution

Distributive justice and the global emissions budget

The ethics of climate change loss and damage

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