Two Theories of Responsibility for Past Emissions of Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

A central question about the ethics of climate change is whether individuals or nations who have emitted greenhouse gases in the past should be held responsible for their pollution. If individuals or nations 1 were held responsible for their past pollution, they would be required to repair the harm that their pollution caused. As a practical matter, developed nations were the first to use fossil fuels. Developed nations accordingly emitted more greenhouse gases in the past than other nations. Thus, theories that hold nations responsible for their past emissions would require developed nations to take on relatively greater commitments to reduce emissions than developing countries.The argument for holding nations responsible for past emissions has received substantial attention in the literature. For example, Peter Singer (2004, 33-34) stated the idea as follows:[T]o put it in terms a child could understand, as far as the atmosphere is concerned, the developed countries broke it. If we believe that people should contribute to fixing something in proportion to their responsibility for breaking it, then the developed nations owe it to the rest of the world to fix the problem with the atmosphere.1. Although many aspects of claims of responsibility for past emissions will be different depending on whether individuals or nations are held responsible (see Posner and Weisbach 2010, 103-06), our claims apply equally to individuals as to nations. Therefore, for ease of reference, we will simply speak of "nations" for the remainder of this article.

A fair global carbon budget for least developed countries (LDCS)

“…Due to their physicochemical characteristics, greenhouse gases have a long residence time in the atmosphere and, therefore, they take hundreds of years until they are naturally dissipated (IPCC, 2013). Taking this into account, a central issue in the discussions on climate change is whether nations that have polluted in the past should be held accountable for emissions that are still in the atmosphere and then bear the costs of future mitigation actions (Hayner & Weisbach, 2016). What is at stake is equity when sharing the responsibility for emissions, or historical responsibility, which is the moral and legal responsibility for past emissions.…”

Untitled

“…Em função das suas características físico-químicas os gases causadores do efeito estufa têm um elevado tempo de permanência na atmosfera, deste modo, podem levar centenas de anos até serem naturalmente dissipados (IPCC, 2013). Tendo isso em conta, uma questão central nas discussões em torno das mudanças climáticas é se as nações que poluíram no passado devem ser responsabilizadas pelas emissões que ainda estão na atmosfera, para então, assumirem os custos das ações futuras de mitigação (Hayner & Weisbach, 2016). O que está em causa é a equidade na partilha de responsabilidade das emissões, ou responsabilidade histórica, isto é, a responsabilidade moral e jurídica por emissões passadas, cuja discussão possui caráter fundamental ao contrário do que buscam pregar alguns governos (Shue, 2015).…”