PH338 Climate Change: Burden Sharing
Responses to Climate Change
What ought to be done, and by whom? How should the channels of mitigation,
adaptation and compensation be used and how should duties be distributed? We will
examine atomism and holism (Caney) and how we might combine principles of cost-
sharing and responsibility.
Duties
Mitigation: Reducing emissions, removing emissions, avoiding temperature
increases, solar radiation management (SRM), increasing albedo, ensuring
temperature rises do not harm core interests.
Adaptation: Improve irrigation, flood defences, protection against disease. Redress
harming of core interests.
Compensation: financial and symbolic reparations
Geoengineering: Encompasses carbon dioxide/GHG removal and solar radiation
management
Responsibilities
Responsibility is the most difficult to determine - there are different senses: personal,
accountable, criminal, moral, legal, fiduciary (Hart). To simplify, we can separate
responsibility into backward-looking (what caused a situation?) and forward-looking (the
response to the situation). Backwards-looking responsibility tends to follow three patterns
- causal; outcome; and moral responsibility.
Hart highlights the ambiguity of the word, with the example of captain of the ship got
drunk
Backward looking: Can be causal, outcome, moral based responsibility
Forward looking: normative consideration as to what/who should act.
Miller: Remedial responsibility: who bears duties to remedy a poor situation? Not
clear who agents are to take responsibilities
(Individuals, Collectives, States, Nations, Corporations)
UNFCCC defines responsibility as “in accordance with their common but
differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and
economic conditions”
States are agents, appeals to common responsibilities
Developed states bear greater responsibility to address climate change
because of the pressure they have put on the global environment and their
financial and technological ability to take action (Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development, 1992)
Outcome responsibility occupies a space between the others: causal mechanisms are
Responses to Climate Change
What ought to be done, and by whom? How should the channels of mitigation,
adaptation and compensation be used and how should duties be distributed? We will
examine atomism and holism (Caney) and how we might combine principles of cost-
sharing and responsibility.
Duties
Mitigation: Reducing emissions, removing emissions, avoiding temperature
increases, solar radiation management (SRM), increasing albedo, ensuring
temperature rises do not harm core interests.
Adaptation: Improve irrigation, flood defences, protection against disease. Redress
harming of core interests.
Compensation: financial and symbolic reparations
Geoengineering: Encompasses carbon dioxide/GHG removal and solar radiation
management
Responsibilities
Responsibility is the most difficult to determine - there are different senses: personal,
accountable, criminal, moral, legal, fiduciary (Hart). To simplify, we can separate
responsibility into backward-looking (what caused a situation?) and forward-looking (the
response to the situation). Backwards-looking responsibility tends to follow three patterns
- causal; outcome; and moral responsibility.
Hart highlights the ambiguity of the word, with the example of captain of the ship got
drunk
Backward looking: Can be causal, outcome, moral based responsibility
Forward looking: normative consideration as to what/who should act.
Miller: Remedial responsibility: who bears duties to remedy a poor situation? Not
clear who agents are to take responsibilities
(Individuals, Collectives, States, Nations, Corporations)
UNFCCC defines responsibility as “in accordance with their common but
differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and
economic conditions”
States are agents, appeals to common responsibilities
Developed states bear greater responsibility to address climate change
because of the pressure they have put on the global environment and their
financial and technological ability to take action (Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development, 1992)
Outcome responsibility occupies a space between the others: causal mechanisms are
