Impure Procedural Justice in Climate Governance Systems

Abstract

Climate change governance is extremely challenging because of both the intrinsic difficulty of the issues at stake and the plurality of values and worldviews. For these reasons, the ethical concerns that characterise climate change should also be meaningfully addressed through a specific version of procedural justice. Accordingly, in this article we adopt an impure notion of procedural justice. On this theoretical basis, we define relevant fairness criteria and contextualise them for climate governance systems. Then, we empirically justify fairness criteria against a critical and divisive element for the future governance of the Green Climate Fund, i.e., the no-objection procedure. The article concludes with some considerations prompted by the analysis.

Gender As The Missing Component In The Turkish Climate Change Policies And Academic Papers | İklim Değişikliği Politikalarının ve Akademik Makalelerin Toplumsal Cinsiyet Perspektifi Açısından Sorgulanması

“…An iterative risk management (Figure 1) is suggested in adaptation to climate change where 'multiple feedbacks and people and knowledge shape the process and its outcomes' (IPCC, 2014: 9). Procedural justice and ethical considerations are important in climate change governance to ensure fair involvement of all impacted parties in decision-making procedure (Grasso and Sacchi, 2015). In 1992 the United Nations (UN) Agenda 21 identified women as a particularly disadvantaged group and urged governments to collect information on target groups and evaluate gender specific programmes.…”

Towards a Moral Compass to Guide Sustainability Transformations in a High-End Climate Change World

“…The moral standard that can shape and orient governance arrangements towards independence is procedural justice. In relation to governance, this moral standard generally requires that arrangements involve the relevant agents [65] in the design of the proposed social cooperation schemes [66,67] and grant them parity of participation [68].…”

A six-component model for assessing procedural fairness in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

“…Obviously, in the United Nations Framework Convention (UNFCCC) or any other substantive governance initiative, one could explore procedural justice in terms of the outcome because there are clear distributive effects, such as who has to reduce emissions, and how an unjust process might create or exacerbate existing unfairness (Grasso and Sacchi 2015;Tomlinson 2015;Okereke 2008Okereke , 2010. Since it seems that an IPCC report cannot be just or unjust in this manner, and perhaps only scientifically accurate or inaccurate, some might suggest that the emphasis of IPCC procedure should not be on justice, with its strong moral and ethical connotations, but rather on ensuring rigorous and comprehensive scientific review and selecting authors and input materials that can help to achieve such an outcome.…”

“…Given the paucity of material that concretely analyse procedural justice in environmental politics [Grasso and Sacchi (2015) is a notable exception], I turn to scholarship on social psychology and legal procedures, the combination of which provides extensive insight on what constitutes a fair procedure under varying circumstances. Within this body of literature, the work of Thibaut and Walker (1975) is often taken as the most important starting point.…”