Climate Justice and Historical Emissions

Lukas H. Meyer, Pranay Sanklecha

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781107069534
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108110334
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume investigates who can be considered responsible for historical emissions and their consequences, and how and why this should matter for the design of a just global climate policy. The authors discuss the underlying philosophical issues of responsibility for historical emissions, the unjust enrichment of the earlier developed nations, and questions of transitional justice. By bringing together a plurality of perspectives, both in terms of the theoretical understanding of the issues and the political perspectives on the problem, the book also presents the remaining disagreements and controversies in the debate. Providing a systematic introduction to the debate on historical emissions and climate change, this book provides an unbiased and authoritative guide for advanced students, researchers and policymakers in climate change justice and governance, and more widely, for anyone interested in the broader issues of global justice.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Table of contents
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: On the Significance of Historical Emissions for Climate Ethics
• 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
• 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
• 3 Historical Emissions: Does Ignorance Matter?
• 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
• 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
• 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice: Historical Emissions and the Beneficiary Pays Principle
• 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
• 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
• 9 In the Name of Political Possibility: A New Proposal for Thinking About the Role and Relevance of Historical Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions: A Perspective from the Particularly Vulnerable Countries
• Index