Eric A. Posner (University of Chicago Law School) & Cass R. Sunstein (University of Chicago - Law School) have posted Climate Change Justice on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Greenhouse gas reductions would cost some nations much more than others, and benefit some nations far less than others. Significant reductions would impose especially large costs on the United States, and recent projections suggest that the United States has relatively less to lose from climate change. In these circumstances, what does justice require the United States to do? Many people believe that the United States is required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions beyond the point that is justified by its own self-interest, simply because the United States is wealthy, and because the nations most at risk from climate change are poor. This argument from distributive justice is complemented by an argument from corrective justice: The existing “stock” of greenhouse gas emissions owes a great deal to the past actions of the United States, and many people think that the United States should do a great deal to reduce a problem for which it is largely responsible. But there are serious difficulties with both of these arguments. Redistribution from the United States to poor people in poor nations might well be desirable, but if so, expenditures on greenhouse gas reductions are a crude means of producing that redistribution: It would be much better to give cash payments directly to people who are now poor. The argument from corrective justice runs into the standard problems that arise when collectivities, such as nations, are treated as moral agents: Many people who have not acted wrongfully end up being forced to provide a remedy to many people who have not been victimized. The conclusion is that while a suitably designed climate change agreement is in the interest of the world, a widely held view is wrong: Arguments from distributive and corrective justice fail to provide strong justifications for imposing special obligations for greenhouse gas reductions on the United States. These arguments have general implications for thinking about both distributive justice and corrective justice arguments in the context of international law and international agreements.
I missed this when it was first posted. Highly recommended. I was particularly interested in the argument against redistribution from the availability of superior alternatives, i.e., direct payments to the poor. Sunstein & Posner acknowledge the obvious counter-argument:
It is possible that the more direct methods are inferior, for example because it is not feasible to provide that direct aid; but this argument has not been made out.
It seems to me that the "feasibility" issue is, in some sense, the core of the dispute. The salience of distributive justice to the distribution of the costs of ameliorating climate change arises because direct aid to the poor is perceived as outside the feasible choice set, whereas concentrating the burden of greenhouse gas reduction on wealthier nations is sometimes perceived as inside the feasible choice set. Sunstein and Posner are surely right when the suggest that we really need evidence on this question, but I don't really see why their burden-shifting move is adequate. It is their argument: shouldn't they at least attempt to provide evidence that their proferred alternative (direct aid to the poor) is inside the feasible choice set?
This quibble aside, download it!
