Journal of Social Philosophy-Special Issue- The Global Environment, Climate Change, And...

CONTRIBUTORS

Robin Attfield is professor of philosophy at Cardiff University, where he hastaught Philosophy since 1968. His latest book is the edited collection TheEthics of the Environment (Ashgate, 2008). His latest monograph is Creation,Evolution and Meaning (Aldershot + Ashgate, 2006). As an ethicist he hasparticipated in conferences and workshops on environmental ethics and on theethics of global warming of UNESCO and Fondazione Lanza (among others).

Simon Caney is professor in political theory, University of Oxford, and Fellowand Tutor in Politics at Magdalen College. He is the author of Justice BeyondBorders (Oxford University Press, 2005). He currently holds an ESRC ClimateChange Leadership Fellowship (2008–2011). He is working on twobooks—Global Justice and Climate Change (with Derek Bell—under contractto Oxford University Press) and On Cosmopolitanism (under contract to OxfordUniversity Press).josp_1452 4..6

Stephen M. Gardiner is associate professor of Philosophy at the Universityof Washington in Seattle. His main research interests are in ethical theory,political philosophy, environmental ethics and Aristotle’s ethics. He is aco-editor (with Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue) of ClimateEthics (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and the editor of Virtue Ethics,Old and New (Cornell, 2005).

Tim Hayward is professor of environmental political theory at the Universityof Edinburgh. He has published widely in environmental theory and his currentresearch integrates this with international political theory. His most recent bookis Constitutional Environmental Rights (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Keith Hyams is lecturer in political theory at the University of Exeter and anactivist with the Camp for Climate Action. He is the author of articles onNozick, political authority and the morality of consent, and is completing abook entitled The Liberal Battleground: Consent in Morality and Politics. Hispresent research explores the foundations of egalitarian justice and the nature ofmoral justification.

Catriona McKinnon is reader in political theory at the University of Reading.She has written on liberalism, cosmopolitanism, toleration, equality anddistributive justice, and the values and ideals of welfare policy. She is theauthor of Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism (Palgrave,2002), Toleration: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2006), and the editor ofIssues in Political Theory (Oxford University Press, 2008). She is currentlycompleting a book on climate change and liberal justice, due for publicationin 2010.

Darrel Moellendorf is professor of philosophy and Director of the Institutefor Ethics and Public Affairs at San Diego State University. For the 2008–09academic year he is a Member of the School of Social Sciences at the Institutefor Advanced Studies. His main research is in the areas of global justice andmorality and climate change.

Steve Vanderheiden is assistant professor of political science andenvironmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is theauthor of Atmospheric Justice: A Political Theory of Climate Change (OxfordUniversity Press, 2008) and editor of Political Theory and Global ClimateChange (MIT Press, 2008).

Editor’s Note

Carol C. Gould

This special issue of the journal addresses the crucial contemporary issue ofclimate change and places it in relation to the broader concerns with justice andwith the global environment more generally. I have had the privilege of coeditingthis issue with Tim Hayward, Professor of Environmental Political Theory at theUniversity of Edinburgh, who was one of the first thinkers to consistently focuson the significance of the environment for social and political philosophy. I amgrateful to Tim for taking the lead in shepherding this project through its variousstages and for doing the large part of the editorial work. The fruits of this labor willbe evident to readers, but I can say in advance how truly pleased I am to presenthere the original thinking of so many distinguished contributors. I hope that thisspecial issue will stimulate further philosophical attention to the range of issuesinvolved in preserving a global environment adequate to human well-being, inwhich norms of equality and global justice come to play an increasingly substan-tial role. Although the articles here do not primarily speak to the concern fornonhuman animals and other beings on our planet, their interests too are obviouslydeeply implicated in climate change, and topics along those lines will continue tobe a focus of articles in subsequent issues of this journal.josp_1453 133..134

This issue also marks a significant transition in the journal’s editorial process.The longtime Managing Editor of the journal, Kathalene Razzano (who super-vised much of this issue’s editorial work as well) has had to return to full-timedissertation writing, and a new Managing Editor—Francis Raven—has taken overthat position from her. Kathalene was a model editor, I think, who not onlyperformed the usual editorial tasks with precision, but developed a distinctivemanagerial style marked by personal attention to authors and reviewers. Francisbrings to this position his experience in a similar role at the Journal of Aestheticsand Art Criticism and he has thus far enabled a seamless transition in our evalu-ative processes. I am confident that authors and reviewers will enjoy working withhim and will find him insightful, efficient, and helpful.

Please note that the journal has a new e-mail address beginning with this issueand we ask that all submissions be directed to it: [email protected]. If youwould like to contact the Editor directly with suggestions for special issues or withcomments about the journal, the address for that is: [email protected]. We alsorequest that authors adhere closely to the publication guidelines located on theinside back cover of each issue. This journal strives for a triple blind reviewprocess, in which not only are reviewers and authors anonymous to each other, but

JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 40 No. 2, Summer 2009, 133–134.© Copyright the Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

mailto:[email protected]


also the identities of authors of submitted articles are blind to the Editor throughall stages of the review process, until after the final decision to accept or reject agiven paper is made. We therefore request that authors be sure to send all sub-missions only to the managing editor at [email protected].

134 Carol C. Gould


Introduction

Tim Hayward

Global environmental issues are moving up the international political agenda.Climate change, in particular, is now widely recognized as one of the greatestchallenges facing the international community in the twenty-first century.

Until recently, the very occurrence of anthropogenetic climate change wasstill a matter of political dispute. But now, even as ideologically driven skepticismabates about whether dangerous climate change is occurring, we are brought toconsider alarming new scientific findings about the possible nature of the change.As Stephen Gardiner opens by observing, as recently as the 2001 report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the problem was still viewed as amatter of gradual, incremental effects. However, greater attention is now beingfocused on the possibility of “encountering major threshold phenomena in theclimate system, where breaching such thresholds may have catastrophic conse-quences.” Gardiner’s article explores the possibility that awareness of such starkand dramatic threats could actually serve to break the political inertia that con-tinues to hold back the implementation of measures that would be adequate todealing with the problem as scientists present it. However, he thinks there arereasons to be skeptical and cautious about such a prospect: for the possibility ofabrupt change might only reshape rather than undermine the usual concerns, andit might even make appropriate action more rather than less difficult to achieve.“Worst of all, if the abrupt change is severe, it may provoke the equivalent of anintergenerational arms race.” The “intergenerational arms race” has structuralsimilarities to debt deflation. The longer you put off dealing with the problem, theharder it becomes to deal with it; and the harder it is to deal with, the stronger yourincentive to put off dealing with it. Gardiner concludes we have to look beyondpeople’s generation-relative preferences; the hope he holds out is that contem-plating the possibility of abrupt change will help us engage intergenerationalmotivations. If severe abrupt climate change is a real threat, the time for action isnow, when many actions are likely to be prudentially and morally easier than inthe future.josp_1443 135..139

It seems that we need to appreciate, therefore, the sense in which our gen-eration is enjoying a “free ride” at the expense of future generations. The articleby Simon Caney contributes to our understanding of the nature of this intergen-erational collective action problem with his critical analysis of the reasons why thepresent generation might feel justified in applying a positive social discount rateand devoting more resources to our contemporaries than to future generations.


One of the standard justifications for discounting the future is the argument that itwould be wrong to take on the expense of mitigating on behalf of future genera-tions because they will be better off than us. Of course, it is a matter of contentionwhether future generations really will be better off than us—especially if they facethe costs of unabated climate change—but Caney argues that, even granting thatcontentious assumption, the conclusion does not follow. Nor, he argues, candiscounting be justified on the grounds that future risks and/or uncertainties—in virtue of their indeterminable probability—place a lesser call on our currentresources than do our manifest contemporary problems. This issue is at the heartof contestation about the appropriate meaning and application of the Precaution-ary Principle. Caney’s innovative argument aims to show how a justification forprecaution can be derived from analysis of how climate change jeopardizesfundamental human rights. A human rights-oriented approach gives us goodreason to reject “time” discounting, “growth” discounting, and “risk and uncer-tainty” discounting, he argues, and strengthens the case for an aggressive policy ofmitigation and adaptation dedicated to preventing rights-jeopardizing climatechange.

The context of abrupt climate change and the question of how to justifyprecaution are brought together by Catriona McKinnon. In virtue of the prospectof runaway climate change precipitated by passing various “tipping points” ofabrupt change, Mackinnon argues that a precautionary approach ought to beadopted by policy-makers. Noting that the Precautionary Principle admits ofstronger and weaker interpretations, and that a strong interpretation is indefensibleas a general principle for policy-makers, she argues it is nevertheless defensiblewith respect to climate change, against the background of a commitment to deliverjustice to future generations. Understanding intergenerational justice in broadlyRawlsian egalitarian terms, she distinguishes two Rawlsian arguments for takingprecautionary action against the worst outcomes of climate change. One wouldmake reference to the unjust distribution of advantage across generations thatcould be caused by failing to take precautions. The maximin principle supportsstrong precaution because the worst consequences of not taking precautionaryaction are worse than the worst consequences of taking it. On balance, though, shebelieves a more powerful argument would make reference to the “unbearablestrains of commitment”: for the consequences of failing to take precautionaryaction could be such extreme scarcity of resources and almost unimaginably badliving conditions that the joint pursuit of justice would be rendered impossible. Ifnot taking precautions could cause such circumstances for future generations, thenwe cannot choose not to take them.

The matter of intergenerational justice is further complicated, however, byquestions of intra-generational justice. Although climate change is likely eventu-ally to affect everyone—and that may be the reason why, of all global challengesof environment and justice, it is the one to have most galvanized attention—thecosts of dealing with it are likely to have greater impact on the lives of the pooramong future generations, just as they already do on the poor of the current

136 Tim Hayward

generation. Furthermore, those who suffer most from the effects of climate changeare generally among those who have benefited least from its primary cause,namely, the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. Darrel Moellendorf, accord-ingly, stresses a need for sensitivity to how the intra-generational assignment ofthe costs of mitigation and adaptation bears on the just assignment of intergen-erational costs of climate change. Adapting a broadly Rawlsian approach to modeldeliberative intergenerational impartiality, he develops a sophisticated account ofa principle that assigns proportionally equal intergenerational costs, and addressespotential objections to it—including against Parfit’s nonidentity problem. Some-thing Moellendorf’s argument serves to show is that if there were today a seriousglobal commitment to progressively reducing unjust inequalities over time, thismight be some justification for funding present reforms at the expense of futuremitigation—since that would mean institutions were being directed toward well-being of the future poor too. But because that condition is counterfactual, theprinciple of Intergenerational Equality remains more justifiable than the alterna-tives discussed.

Robin Attfield explores how these concerns about the complex interplay ofissues of intra- and intergenerational justice require us to reconceive the scope andcontent of ethics as more traditionally conceived. Taking his bearings from HansJonas’s “imperative of responsibility,” he examines the difficulties—particularlythose highlighted by Parfit—of how ethics can be adapted to deal with the fullrange of the foreseeable impacts of our present activities. Attfield’s central themeis that of “mediated responsibilities.” These arise where there is a distance, spatialor temporal, between an action and its foreseeable impacts, and Attfield seeksto show that moral accountability attends causal responsibility as much when it ismediated as when it is unmediated. One particular area of responsibility is cap-tured by the idea of “ecological debt,” whereby rich countries make dispropor-tionate use of ecological space. This idea is explicated by reference to equalentitlement to environmental capacities—which, he believes, could be supportedon either consequentialist or Kantian grounds. But this means the framework ofdecision making needs to be able to track current dispersed responsibilities fordistant and future consequences: Governments as well as individuals need torecognize their mediated responsibilities.

A specific proposal that links individual responsibility to the wider issues ofclimate change, and addresses governments’ responsibility for intra-national allo-cation, is that of personal carbon allowances (PCAs). Keith Hyams provides anintroduction to this relatively new policy idea and discusses the various questionsof ethics and justice it gives rise to. Philosophical questions about the distributionof PCAs focus particularly on how to allocate PCAs to individuals and whetherthey should be tradable. Answers will be influenced by what we take to be therationale for PCAs as a policy option. He argues that it is in virtue of consider-ations of fairness that PCAs are a better policy option for reducing a country’scarbon emissions than the obvious alternatives of either tax or industrial quotas.The task facing those who are moved by this rationale is to identify the norm that

Introduction 137

should regulate the fair introduction of PCAs into the market. In particular, weought to examine the normative merits of proposals that mirror methods alreadyused, or widely supported, to regulate the distribution of emission rights to statesor industrial firms. We should not assume, though, that the normative principlesapplicable to the international case will automatically apply in identical fashion tointra-national contexts.

The capacity of the earth’s atmosphere to absorb carbon emissions is one(very significant) component of what may, more comprehensively, be described as“ecological space.” Steve Vanderheiden argues that recognition of the finitude ofecological space “may invalidate many other longstanding normative commit-ments from the liberal canon, forcing us to rethink judgments reached on the basisof obsolete premises in light of a more realistic set of assumptions.” He claims thatwhile cosmopolitan justice theories—like those of Beitz and Pogge—have begunto display some recognition of ecological limits, they need to go further. We needto take seriously how ecological limits potentially constrain economic develop-ment and we should thus suspend cornucopian assumptions supporting a beliefthat growth of production and consumption in developing countries can be sus-tainable in the absence of economic contraction in industrialized ones. Theprinciple of “contraction and convergence” that cosmopolitan climate justiceadvocates have promoted with respect to global greenhouse gas emissions shouldapply more generally to the world’s resources. We need to understand the causalrole that uninhibited individual autonomy in consumption choices can play incausing ecological harm half a world away. The sphere of unconstrained libertyshrinks considerably once ecological limits are taken into account: for relevant toeach person’s ability to exercise control over their personal space of autonomy isthe restraint exercised by others in their own.

Tim Hayward’s contribution picks up on these themes to press critical ques-tions against the widespread presumption that cosmopolitanism represents a con-tinuation of liberal theories of justice. He points out the tension within liberalismbetween its progressive ideals and the ideological service it supplies for a capi-talist economy. If this tension is not generally regarded as a serious problemwithin the context of a liberal nation-state, he thinks it nevertheless has signifi-cance in the context of the new global challenges. Regarding global justice, hesuggests that the liberals who are most consistent in their thinking are those who,like Rawls, resist the claims of cosmopolitanism. If so, a consistent account ofcosmopolitanism involves something other than an extension of liberalism.Regarding the global environment, he suggests that the aim of sustainable devel-opment has been readily endorsed by liberals because of its optimistic implicationof a potential win-win-win scenario for protecting the environment while alsosecuring economic development and promoting global justice. Yet if we attend tothe losses and costs associated with this development model, we may find it moreappropriate to reframe the aims relating to global environmental justice in termsof ecological debt. This is to challenge liberal theorists either to defend thecornucopian assumption or to think through the full consequences of dropping it.

138 Tim Hayward

These include asking how progressive in fact is a distinctively liberal constructionof ethical goals in the contemporary circumstances of global justice. He suggeststhat what present circumstances require is an ethos of restraint and that this, in keyrespects, is the antithesis of a liberal ethos.

In any event, the question of what global justice requires in the light ofecological constraints, on the one hand, and the imperatives of human rights, onthe other, is revealed by the present collection of articles to be as intellectuallychallenging as it is practically urgent.

Introduction 139

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Saved by Disaster? Abrupt Climate Change, Political Inertia,and the Possibility of an Intergenerational Arms Race

Stephen M. Gardiner

We are all used to talking about these impacts coming in the lifetimes of our children andgrandchildren. Now we know that it’s us.1

In recent years, scientific discussion of climate change has taken a turn forthe worse. Traditional concern for the gradual, incremental effects of globalwarming remains; but now greater attention is being paid to the possibility ofencountering major threshold phenomena in the climate system, where breach-ing such thresholds may have catastrophic consequences. As recently as the2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suchevents were treated as unlikely, at least during the current century.2 But the workof the last six years tends to suggest that these projections are shaky at best. Asthe United States’ National Research Council warns us, climate surprises are“inevitable.”3

josp_1444 140..162

In this paper, I want to explore some ways in which this paradigm shift maymake a difference to how we understand the moral and political challenges posedby climate change, and in particular the current problem of political inertia. I willexamine two suggestions. The first is that abrupt climate change underminespolitical inertia, in part through undermining three common explanations for it,based in economic, psychological, and intergenerational factors. The second sug-gestion is that this shift is in one respect beneficial: the focus on abrupt, as opposedto gradual, climate change actually helps us to act. On the one hand, it suppliesstrong motives to the current generation to do what is necessary to tackle theclimate problem on behalf of both itself and future generations; on the other hand,failing this, it acts as a kind of fail-safe device, which at least limits how bad theproblem can, ultimately, become.

My thesis is that these suggestions are largely mistaken, for two reasons.First, the possibility of abrupt change tends only to reshape, rather than under-mine, the usual concerns; hence, the root causes of moral corruption remain.Second, the possibility may make appropriate action more, rather than less,difficult, and exacerbate, rather than limit, the severity of the problem. Worst ofall, if the abrupt change is severe, it may provoke the equivalent of an intergen-erational arms race.


I. Abrupt Climate Change

The debate on global change has largely failed to factor in the inherently chaotic, sensi-tively balanced, and threshold-laden nature of Earth’s climate system and the increasedlikelihood of abrupt climate change.4

Until recently, scientific discussion of climate change has been dominated bywhat I shall call “the gradualist paradigm.” Researchers tended to assume5 that theresponse of natural phenomena to increases in greenhouse gas concentrationswould be mainly linear and incremental, and this assumption tended to result inanalogous claims about likely impacts on human and nonhuman systems. Hence,for example, the original IPCC report projected a rise in global temperature at anaverage of 0.3°C per decade in the twenty-first century,6 and typical estimates ofthe economic costs of impacts ran at around 1.5–2 percent of gross world product.7

Such results are hardly to be taken lightly, and much of the first three IPCCreports was taken up with showing how and why they are matters of serious concern.But recent research suggests that they may underestimate the problem. This isbecause there is increasing evidence that the climate system is much less regularthan the gradualist paradigm suggests. In particular, there may be major thresholdphenomena, and crossing the relevant thresholds may have catastrophic conse-quences. Scientists have been aware of the possibility of such thresholds for sometime. But recent work suggests that the mechanisms governing them are much lessrobust, and the thresholds themselves much closer to where we are now, thanpreviously thought. This suggests that we need an additional way of understandingthe threat posed by climate change. Let us call this “the abrupt paradigm.”8

Where might this paradigm be instantiated? Three possibilities are especiallywell-known. The first is ice sheet disintegration, accompanied by a major rise insea level. In the past, such change has occurred very abruptly—as much as “anaverage of 1 m of sea level rise every 20 years” for four hundred years.9 Further-more, the current potential for change is substantial. Melting the mountain glaciersand Greenland alone would lead to a sea level rise of around seven meters, andadding the West Antarctic ice sheet would boost the total to twelve meters.10

Moreover, it is easy to see why such melting could be catastrophic. Even a totalrise of more than two meters “would be sufficient to flood large portions ofBangladesh, the Nile Delta, Florida, and many island nations, causing forcedmigration of tens to hundreds of millions of people.”11 Indeed, since “a largeportion of the world’s people live within a few meters of sea level, with trillionsof dollars of infrastructure,”12 James Hansen believes that such a rise would“wreak havoc with civilization,”13 making the issue of sea level “the dominantissue in global warming” and one which “sets a low ceiling on the level of globalwarming that would constitute dangerous anthropogenic interference.”14 Giventhis, it is clearly a matter of concern that the Greenland ice sheet is “currentlythought to be shrinking by 50 cubic kilometers per year,” and that this might primethe ice sheets for a sudden, “explosive,” and irreversible disintegration.15

Saved by Disaster? 141

The second possibility is a weakening of the ocean conveyor of the NorthAtlantic, which, among other things, supports the Gulf Stream to Western Europe.Again, paleoclimatic evidence suggests that the system is vulnerable to abruptchange. Furthermore, substantial effects on ocean circulation are projected byclimate models, and there is little reason to doubt that such change could becatastrophic, at least to some countries.16 Given this, it is sobering to see somescientists reporting that the conveyor may already be showing some signs ofdisruption.17

A third, less-understood possibility is that “vast stores of methane hydrate—asuper-greenhouse gas—that are currently frozen under the oceans will, whenglobal warming has reached some point, rise to the surface and dissipate them-selves into the atmosphere.”18 Again, there is precedent. Such a release is said tohave caused the biggest extinction of all time, the end of the Permian era 251million years ago, when ninety percent of species were suddenly lost.19 Clearly, achange of this kind would be catastrophic. A New York Times columnist aptlyreferred to it as “the Big Burp Theory of the Apocalypse.”20

Now, the three prominent examples are of serious interest in their own right.However, it may be that the most important thing about them is the support theylend to the abrupt paradigm. This is because perhaps our greatest uncertainty at themoment concerns how good we are at identifying catastrophic risks. In short, it isreasonable to think that our current grasp of the possibilities is seriously incom-plete;21 and this may be the most crucial fact from the point of view of policy.

If there are abrupt thresholds, where might they be? Recent work suggeststhat some are in the area of projected emissions, and of these, some may be closeby. According to the IPCC, the preindustrial atmospheric concentration of carbondioxide was around 280 parts per million (ppm), and the current concentration isaround 380 ppm. Based on a range of model scenarios, making different assump-tions about rates of technological change and economic and population growth,the IPCC projects atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide of 535–983 ppm,and an increase in surface temperature of 1.1–6.4°C (best estimate, 1.8–4.0°C) bythe end of the century.22 Estimates of where the relevant thresholds might beinclude: 1°C for the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet; 2°C, 450 ppm CO2

or 2–4°C, 550 ppm for the West Antarctic ice sheet; and 3°C in one hundred years,700 ppm CO2 for a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation.23 Clearly, we are indangerous territory.

II. Some Causes of Political Inertia

Still, perhaps the news is not all grim. For it has been suggested that thepossibility of abrupt change may help us out of our current problem of politicalinertia. Let me first sketch this problem and then suggest why it might be thoughtthat the threat of abrupt change might help.

The fact that climate change poses a serious threat has been known forsome time. In 1988, the United Nations Environment Program and the World

142 Stephen M. Gardiner

Meteorological Association created the IPCC, and charged it with the task ofproviding member governments with state of the art assessments of “the science,the impacts, and the economics of—and the options for mitigating and/or adaptingto—climate change.”24 In 1995, the IPCC claimed that “the balance of evidencesuggests a discernible influence on climate.”25 In 2001, it went still further,asserting that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely tohave been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations,”26 and in its mostrecent report in 2007, it upgraded this assessment to “very likely” (meaning aprobability of 90% or more).27 The IPCC’s main conclusions have been endorsedby all major scientific bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences, theAmerican Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science. This consensus appears tobe remarkably robust.28

Despite this, progress on solving the problem has been minimal. First, as amatter of substance, humanity’s emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbondioxide, grew by nearly thirty percent between 1990 and 2005.29 Moreover, thereis no sign of serious, sustained reductions either globally or in particular nations:indeed, the rate of growth has increased recently to around two to three percent peryear.30 Estimates of future trends vary considerably.31 But under a scenario usuallytaken to be representative of “business as usual,” annual carbon dioxide emissionswill increase over the century from around eight gigatonnes of carbon (Gt C) in2000 to around twenty Gt C in 2100, an increase of 250 percent (to >700 ppmCO2).32 Under a more extreme scenario of rapid, fossil-fuel intensive growth, thefigure rises to around twenty-nine Gt C per annum in 2100, an increase of morethan 350 percent (to around 1000 ppm CO2). Second, at the political level, despitesome notable efforts, overall progress has been less than impressive. In the globalarena, several weak agreements have been made, but then broken. At nationallevels, even those nations who express the strongest commitment to tacklingclimate change publicly—such as the European Union, United Kingdom, andNew Zealand—have had difficulties in restricting their emissions.33

Plainly, there is a mismatch between the apparent seriousness of the problemand our collective institutional response. What accounts for this? No doubt thereare many possible explanations, more than one of which may play a contributingrole. Here I shall discuss three particularly prominent suggestions, to see how farthey might be undermined by the emergence of the Abrupt Paradigm.34

1. Economics

One explanation for political inertia is, of course, that people believe thataction is not justified. Such arguments are often couched in economic terms.35 So,for example, Bjorn Lomborg asserts that “economic analyses clearly show that itwill be far more expensive to cut CO2 emissions radically than to pay the costs ofadaptation to the increased temperatures.”36 Now, in my view, such arguments aredubious even under the gradualist paradigm. Nevertheless, it is worth discussing


the impact of the Abrupt Paradigm on them, since it appears to undercut theseeconomic arguments even more decisively.

Let us begin with the usual objections. First, interpreted as a general claimabout economic analysis, Lomborg’s assertion appears to be false. In fact, theresults of economic analyses vary widely, and are inconclusive. Hence, forexample, the economist Clive Spash asserts:

[E]conomic assessment fails to provide an answer as to what should be done. The costs ofreducing CO2 emissions may be quite high or there may be net gains depending on theoptions chosen by the analyst. The benefits of reducing emissions are beyond economists’ability to estimate, so the extent to which control options should be adopted, on efficiencygrounds alone, is unknown.37

However, second, interpreted more narrowly, Lomborg may be correct. If hemeans to refer only to standard economic approaches—in particular those relyingon current market prices and employing substantial discount rates (of the orderof five percent or more)—then it may be true that there is wide agreement inthe results of such analyses in the direction he suggests. However, unfortunately,this claim does not have the implication that Lomborg intends—that inaction onclimate change is justified—since it is precisely these features of standard eco-nomic approaches that many people argue makes them inappropriate tools forassessing long-term impacts. For one thing, over the long term, prices change inresponse to such things as technological advances and changes in supply anddemand, driven in part by wider social changes. Such changes are, by their nature,very difficult to predict. Moreover, the associated uncertainties are significantenough to undermine the use of fine-grained cost–benefit analysis over the verylong term. Commenting on the problem, John Broome goes so far as to say:“Cost–benefit analysis, when faced with uncertainties as big as these, wouldsimply be self-deception.”38 For another thing, there are serious theoretical andpractical issues surrounding the use of positive discount rates for the long-termfuture. Some object that such rates should not be used at all, while others claimthat the rate employed should at least be substantially lower than the standardrates.39

In short, the standard economic approach looks extremely problematic forlong-term impacts of climate change. But perhaps there is a rejoinder. Enthusiastsfor the standard approach may want to argue that we need not be too concernedabout future uncertainty so long as climate change itself has only a minor impacton factor prices; and perhaps they will claim that the worry about discount ratescan be overcome if we make sure that we reinvest productive gains and save forthe future. Even as it stands, this rejoinder has limited appeal.40 Still, the abruptparadigm may undermine even this. For one thing, a severe abrupt change, such asa substantial temperature drop in Europe caused by a major change in oceancirculation in the North Atlantic, would presumably have a large impact on globalsociety, and so on relative prices. Indeed, a report commissioned by the Pentagon


speculated that the regional impacts of a shutdown in the thermohaline circulationwould be “a world where Europe will be struggling internally, large numbers ofrefugees washing up on its shores, and Asia in serious crisis over food and water,”such that “disruption and conflict” would be “endemic features of life.”41 Foranother, such a change would probably affect both the productivity of investment,and the possibility of intergenerational saving. If there is a severe abrupt change,we might predict that the current generation would dissave whatever had been setaside for the future in order to address more immediate hardships. (More on thislater.) Again, consider the Pentagon report: “In the event of abrupt climate change,it’s likely that food, water, and energy resource constraints will first be managedthrough economic, political, and diplomatic means such as treaties and tradeembargoes. Over time though, conflicts over land and water use are likely tobecome more severe—and more violent. As states become increasingly desperate,the pressure for action will grow.”42

In conclusion, a severe abrupt change would surely undermine the reliabilityof existing cost–benefit analyses of climate change. Hence, there is at least onerespect in which the possibility of a catastrophic abrupt climate change does seemto help with the problem of political inertia: it appears to undermine (what was leftof) the appeal of the economic arguments.

2. Psychology

A second prominent explanation for political inertia is psychological. Forexample, Elke Weber claims that political inertia is not surprising, since neitherpeoples nor their governments have (yet) become alarmed about climate change,and this has meant that they have not (yet) become motivated enough to act.43

Why aren’t people alarmed? A full explanation would no doubt be verycomplex. But Weber’s account suggests that the outline is accessible enough. Inshort, human beings have two processing systems—the affective and theanalytical44—and these two systems are influenced in different ways, and bydifferent kinds of inputs. Moreover, in cases involving risk and uncertainty—suchas climate change—the affective system is dominant.45 This gives rise to a numberof general problems. First, the two systems can, and often do, offer differentjudgments for the same cases.46 Second, the reasons for these differences seemshallow. In particular, the two systems acquire information in different ways—theaffective tends to rely on personal experience, whereas the analytical favorsstatistical descriptions—with the result that “ostensibly same information can leadto different choices depending on how the information is acquired.”47 Third, forreasons we shall see in a moment, the interplay of the two mechanisms gives riseto a systematic bias in decision making: “low-probability events generate lessconcern than their probability warrants on average, but more concern than theydeserve in those rare instances when they do occur.”48

To make matters worse, these problems interact badly with some relatedpsychological phenomena surrounding risk. For one thing, Weber claims that


there is a “finite pool of worry.” People have a limited capacity for the kind ofworry that motivates action, so that an increase in concern about one risk tends toreduce concern about others.49 For another, there is an analogous limitation inpeople’s responses to problems even when they are motivated to act. Decisionmakings have a “single action bias,” such that they are “very likely to take oneaction to reduce a risk that they encounter and worry about, but are much lesslikely to take additional steps that would provide incremental protection or riskreduction.” Moreover, this bias persists even if the single action taken is neither themost effective, nor suitably coordinated with other actors, since a single actionalone is enough to reduce worry.50

These two tendencies have a number of implications. First, the presence of afinite pool of worry suggests that we can expect political inertia even when peopleappreciate that a particular problem exists, if concern for that problem is “crowdedout” by other issues that seem more pressing. Second, given its dominance, failureto engage the affective mechanism is likely to result in a particular problem’sbeing marginalized by other—perhaps objectively less important—concerns thatdo so engage.51 Third, even successful engagement is not enough, given the“single action bias.” Hence, in cases where piecemeal, incremental policy makingis unlikely to work, it is vital not only to take major action when an issue hassucceeded in grabbing the political spotlight, but also then to take all (or most) ofthe action necessary.

The relevance of these general claims to climate change seems clear. First,most of the available information comes from science and is both abstract andstatistical. Hence, it engages the analytical system. However, given the dominanceof the affective system, such engagement is liable to be ineffective by itself.Second, it is difficult to engage the affective system in the case of climate changebecause within that system “recent personal experience strongly influences theevaluation of a risky option”52 and “personal experience with noticeable andserious consequences of global warming is still rare in many regions of theworld.”53 Third, given this, we should expect a communication problem. Weberclaims that statistical information has a different impact on those who are used toemploying their analytical systems and those who are not. Hence, she claims,there is likely to be a mismatch between the reactions of scientists and laypeopleto the same information.54 Finally, concerns about the psychological limits ofattention and action seem pressing. For one thing, empirical work suggests thatmany people see climate change as a real problem, but also rank it below manyother concerns, particularly when it comes to voting behavior.55 For another, manypolitical communities do seem to have suffered from a kind of attention-deficitdisorder when it comes to climate change. Moreover, those efforts that have beenmade tend to be predominantly piecemeal and incremental. Even the currentKyoto agreement is routinely defended as “merely a necessary first step.” Butthese may be dangerous tendencies given the single action bias.

What are the implications of all this psychology? Weber suggests that wemust find a way of engaging the affective system, “perhaps by simulations of


[global warming’s] concrete future consequences for people’s home or otherregions they visit or value.”56 But then she adds that invoking the gradualistparadigm is unlikely to work:

To the extent that people conceive of climate change as a simple and gradual change . . . therisks posed by climate change would appear to be well-known and, at least in principle,controllable (“move from Miami to Vancouver when things get too hot or dangerous inFlorida”). While some of the perceived control may be illusory, the ability or inability totake corrective action is an important component of vulnerability.57

Instead:

It is only the potentially catastrophic nature of (rapid) climate change (of the kind graphi-cally depicted in the movie “The Day after Tomorrow”) and the global dimension ofadverse effects . . . that have the potential for raising a visceral reaction to the risk.58

In short, Weber claims that the abrupt paradigm has the capacity to engage theaffective system in a way sufficient to motivate action. Given this, the growingscientific support for that paradigm is indeed good news in one respect. For itoffers a potential way out of psychologically induced political inertia.59 Of course,Weber herself wants to go even further than this. For she asserts that it is abruptclimate change alone—and only truly global and catastrophic instances of it atthat—which can help.60

3. The Intergenerational Analysis

The third explanation of political inertia is, I confess, my own. This suggeststhat one root of the problem lies in its intergenerational structure. The basic ideacan be illustrated (in a simplistic way) as follows.61 Imagine a sequence of groupsoccupying the same territory at different times. Suppose, for the sake of simplicity,that each group is temporally distinct: no member of one group exists at the sametime as any member of another group (i.e., there is no “overlap” between thegroups). Call each group so conceived a “generation.”62 Suppose then that thepreferences of the members of each group are “generation-relative”: they concernonly things that happen within the time frame of that group’s existence. Finally,suppose that there are such things as temporally extended goods: goods that havebenefits and costs that accrue in more than one generation. For current purposes,let us distinguish two kinds of such goods: those that have benefits in onegeneration and costs in later generations can be called “front-loaded goods”; thosethat have costs in one generation and benefits in later generations can be called“back-loaded goods.”63

Other things being equal, in such a situation we would expect that if eachgroup does exactly as it pleases it will consume as many front-loaded goods aspossible, and eschew all back-loaded goods. But this observation appears to raisea basic problem of intergenerational fairness. Surely, the thought goes, there are


situations in which a given group ought to forgo at least some front-loaded goodsand invest in at least some back-loaded goods; presumably there are at least someconstraints (of fairness, or justice, or some other such notion) on legitimateintergenerational behavior. If this thought is correct, then we might expect thatgroups that are unaware of, or do not recognize, such constraints will tend tooverconsume front-loaded goods, and underconsume back-loaded goods. In otherwords, each such generation will take advantage of its temporal position byillegitimately passing on costs to later generations for the sake of securing benefitsfor itself, and illegitimately forgoing opportunities to benefit later generations forthe sake of avoiding costs to itself. Moreover, this problem will be iterated overtime—since the incentives that generate the basic behavior arise anew for eachgeneration as it comes into existence—with the result that such buck passing islikely to produce cumulative effects on generations further along the temporalsequence. Hence, one can expect a systematic bias in overall decision makingacross generations. Let us call this “the problem of intergenerational buckpassing” (PIBP).64

Elsewhere, I have argued that the PIBP is manifest in the case of climatechange.65 On the gradualist paradigm, this looks especially likely. But might theabrupt paradigm help? Initially, it appears so, since the potential proximity of therelevant thresholds appears to undercut the intergenerational aspect of climatechange. Consider, for example, the following statement by the (now former)British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisa-tion and strong economic growth from a world population that has increased sixfold in 200years, is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarmingand is simply unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuriesahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own.And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. Imean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, thatit alters radically human existence.66

Blair’s main claim appears to be that the impacts of climate change are bothextremely serious, and coming relatively soon. (He does not mention abruptclimate change explicitly, but it is reasonable to assume that this is what he has inmind.) If this is right, it seems to give current people powerful reasons to act.Again, the abrupt paradigm appears to extinguish a major source of politicalinertia.

III. Against Undermining

At first glance, then, it appears that the abrupt paradigm undercuts all three ofthe major explanations for political inertia we have considered. But I shall nowargue that in the case of the last two explanations, this appearance is deceptive.Instead, it is plausible to think that the possibility of abrupt climate change will


actually make the intergenerational problem worse, rather than better, and that thepsychological problem will add to this sad state of affairs.

Let us begin with the intergenerational problem. Blair suggests that someimpacts of climate change are serious enough to “[alter] radically human exist-ence,” “within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own.”A rough calculation suggests that this means possibly within the next twenty-sixyears, and certainly within the next seventy-five (or fifty-eight) years.67 At firstglance, such claims do seem to undermine the usual intergenerational analysis.But this is too hasty. For the notion of proximity is made complicated in theclimate change case by the considerable time lags involved—the same lags thatgive rise to the PIBP.

Consider the following. First, the atmospheric lifetime of a typical moleculeof the main anthropogenic greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is often said to bearound two hundred to three hundred years. This introduces a significant laggingeffect in itself, but obscures the fact that around twenty-five percent remainsfor more than a thousand years.68 Moreover, many of the basic processes set inmotion by the greenhouse effect continue to play out more than thousands ofyears. Second, these facts have implications for the shape of the climate changeproblem. For one thing, the problem is resilient. Once the emissions necessary tocause serious climate change have been released, it is difficult—and perhapsimpossible—to reverse the process. For another, the problem is seriously back-loaded. At any given time the current impacts of anthropogenic climate change donot reflect the full consequences of emissions made up to that point. Finally, thisimplies that the full effects of current emissions are substantially deferred. Evenif we are to reap some of what we sow, we will not reap all of it.69

These points suggest that it is worth distinguishing two kinds of proximity:temporal and causal. When Blair claims that the impacts of climate change arecoming soon, he means to speak of temporal proximity: The impacts are near tous in time. But claims about causal proximity are different. Here the claim is thatthe point at which we effectively commit the earth to an abrupt change by ouractions is close at hand. Given the presence of resilience, serious back-loading andsubstantial deferral, temporal proximity does not always imply causal proximity,and vice versa. This fact has important implications, as we shall now see.

1. Domino Effect

Consider first a scenario where we are in a position to commit humanity (andother species) to a catastrophic abrupt impact, but we ourselves will not suffer thatimpact because it will be visited on future generations. In other words, there iscausal, but not temporal proximity. (Call this scenario “Domino Effect.”) Severalof the most worrying impacts currently envisioned seem to fit this scenario. Forexample, even very rapid ice sheet disintegration is presumed to take place overcenturies, such that its impacts are intergenerational;70 similarly, the limited workthat has been done on deposits of methane hydrate in the oceans suggest that the


associated impacts would not arise for several centuries, if not millennia.71 Hence,the real concern in these cases is with causal proximity. The worry is that by ouractions we may commit future generations to catastrophic climate changes.72

However, such a scenario clearly raises, rather than undermines, the intergenera-tional analysis. So, we will have to look elsewhere for a challenge to the PIBP.73

2. On the Cards

A second kind of scenario would involve temporal but not causal proximity.Suppose, for example, that we are already only a few years from crossing a majorclimate threshold, and that at this point we are already committed to doing so. Themost obvious reason why this might be the case would be because, given the timelags, our past emissions make breaching the threshold literally inevitable. But itmight also be that we are already committed because there are emissions that weare morally no longer going to be able to avoid, for example, because avoidingthem would impose intolerable costs on current people and their immediatedescendents. (Call this scenario “On the Cards.”)

If it turned out that On the Cards characterized our situation, and if we knewthat it did so, then the implications of the abrupt paradigm for political inertiawould be more mixed than the basic objection to the intergenerational analysissuggests. First, and most obviously, On the Cards might simply reinforce inertia.Suppose, for example, that a given generation knew that it would be hit with acatastrophic abrupt change no matter what it did. Might it not be inclined tofatalism? If so, then the temporal proximity of abrupt change would actuallyenhance political inertia, rather than undercut it. (Why bother?)

Second, and less obviously, On the Cards may provoke action of the wrongkind. For example, assume, for simplicity, that the two main policy responses forclimate change are mitigation of future impacts through reducing the emissionsthat cause them and adaptation to minimize the adverse effects of those impactsthat can or will not be avoided. Then, the following may turn out to be true of Onthe Cards. On the one hand, the incentives for the current generation to engagein mitigation may at least be weakened, and might disappear altogether. This isbecause, if a given abrupt change is, practically speaking, inevitable, then itappears to provide no incentive to a current generation with purely generation-relative motivations for limiting its emissions. Perhaps the current generation willstill have reasons to engage in some mitigation, since this might help it to avoidfurther impacts (including abrupt impacts) after the given abrupt change. But thegiven abrupt change does no motivational work of its own. Hence, its presencedoes not help future generations. On the other hand, the incentives for the currentgeneration to engage in adaptation might be substantially improved. If big changesare coming, then it makes sense to prepare for them.74 In itself, this appears to begood news for both current and future people. But there are complications. For itremains possible that the current generation’s adaptation efforts may be unfair tothe future. This point is important, so it is worth spending some time on it.


Let us consider three ways in which the improved motivation for adaptationprovided by On the Cards may come into conflict with intergenerational concerns.First, considering only its generation-relative preferences, a current generationaware of an impending abrupt change will have an incentive to overinvest inadaptation relative to mitigation (and other intergenerational projects). That is,given the opportunity, such a generation will prefer to put resources into adapta-tion (from which it expects benefits), rather than mitigation (which tends to benefitthe future).75 Moreover, even within the category of adaptation, the current gen-eration will have an incentive to prioritize projects and strategies that are morebeneficial to it (e.g., temporary “quick fixes”) over those that seem best from anintergenerational point of view.

Second, this problem is likely to be exacerbated by psychological effects. Forexample, Weber claims that proximity which brings with it engagement of theaffective mechanism often leads to an overreaction—“low-probability events gen-erate . . . more concern than they deserve in those rare instances when they dooccur.”76 Hence, those in the grip of an abrupt change are likely to overinvest intheir adaptive responses.

Third, and most importantly, the proximity of the abrupt change may actuallyprovide an incentive for increasing current emissions above the amount that evena completely self-interested generation would normally choose. What I have inmind is this. Suppose that a generation could increase its own ability to cope withan impending abrupt change by increasing its emissions beyond their existinglevel. (For example, suppose that it could boost economic output to enhanceadaptation efforts by relaxing existing emissions standards.) Then, it would havea generation-relative reason to do so, and it would have this even if the net costsof the additional emissions to future generations far exceed the short-term ben-efits. Given this, it is conceivable that the impending presence of a given abruptchange may actually exacerbate the PIBP, leaving future generations worse offthan under the gradualist paradigm (or than they would be if the earlier generationhad not discovered the falsity of that paradigm). Furthermore, just like the originalPIBP, this problem can become iterated. That is, if the increased indulgence inemissions by earlier generations intent on adapting to a specific abrupt climatechange worsens the situation for a subsequent generation (e.g., by causing afurther threshold to be breached), then the later generation may also be motivatedto engage in extra emissions, and so on. In short, under the On the Cards scenario,we may see the structural equivalent of an Intergenerational Arms Race surround-ing greenhouse gas emissions. Abrupt climate change may make life for a par-ticular generation hard enough that it is motivated to increase its emissionssubstantially in order to cope. This may then increase the impact on a subsequentgeneration, with the same result. And so it goes on.

At first, the possibility of an intergenerational arms race may seem outland-ish, in at least two ways. For one thing, it may seem to envisage an impossible, orat least very remote possibility: that the proximity of abrupt climate change couldmotivate even more greenhouse gas emissions than are currently being generated.


For another, it may seem to attribute to a generation a hopelessly immoral (andtherefore utterly unrealistic) outlook.

The first objection seems to me implausible. Consider, for example, a sub-stantial change in the ocean conveyor brought on by climate change. If thephysical impacts in Europe were anything like the magnitude of the past eventsmentioned by oceanographers, then the social and economic impacts would likelybe very large, and negative.77 Is it implausible to think that such impacts wouldcause a sharp change in energy and industrial policies in Europe? Is it unlikely thata Europe facing shortages of food, water, and fuel (as the Pentagon report pre-dicted) would abandon high energy taxes and clean burning technologies, seekingwhatever aid additional energy could give it in fighting such problems?78 More-over, is it likely that the rest of the world, witnessing such impacts, would stand byand stoically refuse to aid those in distress? Would they not relax their ownstandards, burning their own oil and coal in whatever ways might be helpful inalleviating such a tragedy? Such actions seem entirely natural. Moreover, they arelikely to be exacerbated by the psychology of risk. If Weber is right that there isa finite pool of worry, and a single action bias, one would expect a currentgeneration to be consumed with the immediate tragedies of a severe abrupt changeat the expense of other, more long-term worries.

This brings us to the second objection. However likely people might be to actin these ways, wouldn’t they have to be grossly immoral to do so? I am not so sure.As the above scenario suggests, there may be something admirable about theactions of such a generation, even if there is also something tragic, in that suchactions predictably harm future people. Indeed, such a generation may be morallyjustified in its actions. Considering a similar situation, Martino Traxler likens thecase to one of self-defense:

Where the present harm from not emitting is conspicuous enough, we would be unrealistic,unreasonable, and maybe even irrational to expect present people to allow present harm andsuffering to visit them or their kith and kin in order that they might avoid harm to futurepeople. In these cases, we may with good reason speak of having so strong or so rationallycompelling a reason to emit that, in spite of the harm these emissions will cause to (future)others, we are excused for our maleficence.79

We seem then to have uncovered a way in which abrupt climate change maylead to a form of the PIBP that is actually worse in several respects than the onesuggested by the Gradualist Paradigm. First, abrupt climate change might increasethe magnitude of intergenerational buck passing, by increasing the presence offront-loaded goods. If a current generation can protect itself more effectivelyagainst an abrupt change through extra emissions that harm the future, then it hasa reason to do so.80 Second, a severe abrupt change may make taking advantageof such goods not simply a matter of self- or generation-relative interest (whichmight be morally criticized), but morally justifiable in a very serious way. Hence,abrupt change may make buck passing even harder to overcome.81


3. Open Window

On the Cards shows that it is possible for abrupt change to make mattersworse. But perhaps that scenario is too pessimistic. Hopefully, even thoughthere is a sense in which the climate thresholds are close, it is not true that weare already committed to crossing one.82 Interestingly, this thought reveals atension in the proximity claim that is supposed to undermine the intergenera-tional problem: to be successful, the threatened abrupt change must be tempo-rally close enough to motivate the current generation, but distant enough so asnot yet to be “on the cards.” This tension suggests that the argument against theintergenerational analysis presupposes a very specific scenario: that there is anabrupt change that would affect the current generation, to which the planetis not yet committed, but to which it will become committed unless thecurrent generation take evasive action very soon. (Call this scenario “OpenWindow.”)

Several issues arise about Open Window. The first, obviously enough, iswhether there is such a window, and, if so, how big it is. These are empiricalquestions on which our information is sketchy. Still, the preliminary estimates arenot particularly encouraging. First, two parameters loom large. At the presenttime, scientists often say that there is a further temperature rise beyond that whichthe Earth has yet experienced but which is “already in the system.” Estimates ofthis commitment typically range from 0.5 to 1.0°C, suggesting that a fair amountof climate change is already literally “on the cards.” The vital issue then becomeshow much more is in effect on the cards, since we cannot stop the world economy(and so the current trajectory and level of global emissions) on a dime. Barring asudden technological miracle, the answer to this question would also seem to be“a substantial amount.” These facts suggest that we are already committed to anyabrupt changes likely to arise in the short to medium term. Thus, On the Cards hassubstantial relevance.

Second, preliminary calculations suggest that our ability to avoid a moresubstantial commitment is limited. Consider, for example, the European Union’scall for limiting the global temperature rise to 2°C in order to avoid “dangerousclimate change.” The origins of this target are a little unclear;83 but according toone recent analysis, its policy implications are sobering. At the very least, strongaction appears to be needed very quickly:

. . . to have a high probability of keeping the temperature increase below 2C, the total global21st century carbon budget must be limited to about 400 Gigatonnes. . . . A budget of 400GtC is very small. To stay within this budget, global emissions would almost certainly haveto peak before 2020 and decline fairly rapidly thereafter. If emissions were to continue togrow past 2020, so much of the 400 GtC budget would be rapidly used up that holding the2C line would ultimately require extraordinary rates of emission reduction, rates corre-sponding to such large and historically unprecedented rates of accelerated capital-stockturnover that, frankly, it’s difficult to imagine them occurring by virtue of any normal,orderly economic process. Time, in other words, is running out.84


But given the current substantial growth in global emissions, stabilization in lessthan fifteen years is a very ambitious target. According to the authors of theanalysis, the 400 Gt budget is so tight that even if the developed nations were toreduce their emissions to zero by 2028, it would require serious reductions bydeveloping countries starting in 2030. Obviously, absent some technologicalmiracle, the antecedent of this claim is politically (and morally) impossible. Butthe consequent is almost as implausible, given that projections indicate that in2030, the developing nations will still be quite poor.85

It is thus unclear whether the 2°C target is feasible. Hence, if meeting thattarget is really necessary for avoiding any catastrophic abrupt impacts for thecurrent people—and, some, of course, believe that 2°C is too high86—then theprospects for motivating action on those grounds appear slim. Much would thendepend on how many other impacts that are still causally proximate are temporallyclose enough to have notable effects on the current generation. This remains anempirical question. But the projections suggest that we are now dealing with avery limited subset of the impacts of climate change. In short, for a generationinterested only with impacts that affect its own concerns, the window may beclosed, or at best, only slightly ajar.

Hopefully, the projections just cited will turn out to be unduly pessimistic.87

Hence, it is worth making some observations about the importance of the PIBP evenif there is an Open Window for the current generation. Our second issue then iswhether, if the window is open, this undermines the relevance of the PIBP. Oneconcern is that generations might care less about the end-of-life abrupt climatechange than earlier-in-life ones. Another is that even an open window severelyrestricts the relevance of future people’s concerns. For Open Window to beeffective, there have to be enough effects of present emissions that accrue within thewindow to justify the current generation’s action on a generation-relative basis. Butthis ignores all the other effects of present emissions—that is, all those that accrueto other generations. So, the PIBP remains. Moreover, in light of the PIBP, there isa realistic concern that solutions that avoid a particular abrupt climate change willbe judged purely on how they enable a present generation to avoid that changearising during their lifetime, not on their wider ramifications. In other words, eachgeneration will be motivated simply to delay any given abrupt climate change untilafter it is dead. So, it may endorse policies that merely postpone such a change,making it inevitable for a future generation. Finally, sequential concerns may ariseeven under the open window scenario. Considering the PIBP, it would be predict-able that earlier generations tend to use up most of any safety margin left to them.Given this, it may turn out that some later generation cannot help pushing over agiven threshold, and using up most of the safety margin for the next.

4. The Self-Corrective Argument

If all of this is the case, the potential for the abrupt paradigm to underminethe intergenerational problem appears to be slim. But before closing, it is worth


addressing one final argument. Weber suggests that the psychological problemsshe identifies may eventually take care of themselves:

Failing these efforts, the problem discussed in this paper is ultimately self-corrective.Increasing personal evidence of global warming and its potentially devastating conse-quences can be counted on to be an extremely effective teacher and motivator.88

The basic idea seems to be that, once realized, the impacts brought on by inactionon climate change are of a sort to engage the affective mechanism. Of course, asWeber recognizes, this may only happen once a substantial amount of damage isalready done, and the planet is committed to significantly more.89 Still, the claimis that at least there is some kind of limit to inertia provided by the phenomena ofclimate change themselves.

Does the abrupt paradigm impose some limit on how bad climate changecan get? Perhaps. But again the intergenerational problem rears its ugly head. Ifclimate change is resilient and seriously back-loaded, the effects on a presentgeneration that experience an abrupt change and know these facts are unclear. Iffurther bad impacts are already on the cards, or if the open window is only slightlyajar, then, if the present generation is guided by its generation-relative preferences,we may still expect substantial intergenerational buck-passing, and so moreclimate change. Experience of abrupt impacts may not teach and motivate, pre-cisely because for such a generation the time for teaching and motivating hasalready passed—at least as far as its own concerns are implicated. Moreover, weshould expect other factors to intervene. If a generation experiences a severeabrupt change, we might expect long-term concerns (such as with mitigation) tobe crowded out in the finite pool of worry by more immediate concerns. We mightalso expect such a generation to be morally justified in ignoring those concerns, toat least some extent. In short, we might expect something akin to the beginningsof an intergenerational arms race.90

IV. Concluding Remarks

This paper has considered three theses: that the possibility of abrupt changeundermines the usual economic, psychological, and intergenerational causes ofpolitical inertia; that it provides the current generation with positive motivationto act; and that it implies that there is some kind of fail-safe system that willlimit humanity’s ongoing infliction of climate change on itself and other spe-cies.91 Against these claims, I suggested that although the real possibility ofabrupt change does tend to undermine economic explanations for inertia (whichwere, however, not very strong anyway), it does not undercut either its psycho-logical or intergenerational roots. Instead, the abrupt paradigm threatens tomake climate change an even worse problem than the gradualist model it issupposed to augment or supersede. Abrupt climate change may actually increaseeach generation’s incentive to consume dangerous greenhouse gas emissions,


and may even cause at least some generations to have a moral license todo so.

I conclude that we should not look to the disasters of abrupt change—eitherthe actual experience of them, or increasing scientific evidence that they arecoming—to save us. One implication of this is that we should not waste precioustime waiting for that to happen. If severe abrupt climate change is a real threat,the time for action is now, when many actions are likely to be prudentially andmorally easier than in the future. Still, how effectively to motivate such actionremains a very large practical problem, about which the psychologists have muchto teach us. In my view, if we are to solve this problem, we will need to lookbeyond people’s generation-relative preferences. Moreover, the prevalence of theintergenerational problem suggests that one set of motivations that we need tothink hard about engaging is those connected to moral beliefs about our obliga-tions to those only recently, or not yet, born.92 This leaves us with one finalquestion. Can the abrupt paradigm assist us in this last task? Perhaps so: for oneintriguing possibility is that abrupt change will help us to engage intergenerationalmotivations. Indeed, Weber explicitly suggests as much in the full version of apassage quoted earlier:

It is only the potentially catastrophic nature of (rapid) climate change (of the kind graphi-cally depicted in the movie “The Day after Tomorrow”) and the global dimension ofadverse effects which may create hardships for future generations that have the potentialfor raising a visceral reaction to the risk.93

If Weber is right that the potential effects of abrupt change on future people cancause the needed psychological effects,94 then the psychology of abrupt climatechange might turn out to be of profound importance after all, even taking the PIBPinto account. Still, this would now be because such change helps to underwrite asolution to the intergenerational problem, not because it undermines its applica-tion.95 Hence, such a result would fit well with the main aim of this paper, whichhas been to show that a solution to the intergenerational problem is still required,and that, given this, these are the relevant psychological and philosophical ques-tions to be asking.

This paper was originally prepared in 2006. Versions were presented at work-shops on Global Justice and Climate Change at San Diego State University andthe University of Reading, and also at the University of Delaware and the Uni-versity of Leeds. I am grateful to those audiences, and also to Neil Adger, PeterAtterton, Cecilia Bitz, Simon Caney, Paula Casal, Dale Jamieson, WillettKempton, Catriona MacKinnon, Andrew McGonigal, Darrel Moellendorf, HenryShue, and two anonymous reviewers. I am especially grateful to Lije Millgram forinitial discussions, and to Michael Oppenheimer for inviting me to attend thePrinceton workshop on climate change and the psychology of long-term risk inlate 2005 that persuaded me to write it up.


Notes

1 Martin Parry, co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,quoted in David Adam, Peter Walker, and Alison Benjamin, “Grim Outlook for Poor Countries inClimate Report,” Manchester Guardian, September 18, 2007.

2 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). The 2007 Report is equivocal. For example,Working Group I tried to avoid the topic of rapid ice sheet collapse, and was criticized by somescientists for doing so, while Working Group II asserted that the chances of such collapse wereconsiderable. (See IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis; IPCC, Climate Change 2007:Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007]; CorneliaDean, “Even Before Its Release, World Climate Report Is Criticized as Too Optimistic,” New YorkTimes, February 2, 2007; David Adam, “Scientists Warn It May Be too Late to Save the Ice Caps,”Manchester Guardian, February 19, 2007.) The Synthesis Report charted an intermediate course,saying that it projected linear sea level rise, but more rapid change “cannot be excluded.” Moregenerally, it stated: “Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt orirreversible,” and mentioned high levels of species extinction as an example. (IPCC, ClimateChange 2007: The Synthesis Report [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007], 13.) For amore recent assessment, see Timothy Lenton, Hermann Held, Elmar Kriegler, Jim Hall, WolfgangLucht, Stefan Rahmsdorf, and Hans Joachim Schnellnhuber, “Tipping Points in the Earth’s ClimateSystem,” Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences 105, no. 6 (2008): 1786–93.

3 US National Research Council, Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, Abrupt Climate Change:Inevitable Surprises (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2002).

4 Robert Gagosian, “Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?”, Woods Hole OceanographicInstitute (2003), 12.

5 One scientist suggested to me that they were right to do this, since standard methodology says thatwe should consider the null hypothesis before exploring “more exotic” possibilities. This claimsuggests that the paradigm shift may have procedural roots: the standard methods of scienceencourage a focus on the linear before the abrupt. If true, this raises questions about whether sucha procedure is desirable. Perhaps under some circumstances—such as the threat of catastrophe—society might want to put a stronger priority on investigating nonlinear possibilities.

6 IPCC, Climate Change 1990: The Scientific Basis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);cf. Donald Brown, American Heat: Ethical Problems with the United States’ Response to GlobalWarming (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 18–19.

7 John Houghton, Climate Change: The Complete Briefing, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2004), 184.

8 For explicit mention of “a new paradigm,” see US National Research Council, Abrupt ClimateChange, 1. The Council offers the following scientific definition of an abrupt change: “Techni-cally, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold,triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and fasterthan the cause.” But, recognizing that what is important from the point of view of policy is thesocietal and ecological impacts, it also suggests that an abrupt change is “one that takes place sorapidly and unexpectedly that human or natural systems have difficulty adapting to it” (ibid., 14).I have two concerns about these definitions. First, it is not clear that being unexpected ought to beessential to the second definition. If we could reliably predict that we were just about to cross amajor climate threshold, this would not lessen the policy concern. (More on this later.) Second, andmore importantly, there is some tension between the definitions. Since the policy definition makesno mention of thresholds and new states, it seems that a perfectly regular but high magnitudechange might count as abrupt on the second definition but not the first.

These points help to bring out my reason for using the language of “paradigms.” Since ourprimary policy concern is with the impacts of climate change, the relevant difference betweengradual and abrupt change appears to be one of degree, rather than kind. Suppose, for example,


that on the gradualist paradigm the climate system turned out to be very sensitive to even quitesmall alterations, so that the increments of uniform and regular climate change were large. Then,the linear change envisioned by gradualism might turn out to have results that mirror severe abruptchange in their phenomenology and impacts. Conversely, if a sudden and irregular change wereonly of modest magnitude, then it might resemble the typical gradualist changes in its effects.Under such scenarios, the issue of whether the underlying change was scientifically regular orabrupt would not be of much interest to policy-makers, since it is only if the impacts of gradualand abrupt change diverge substantially that the distinction becomes important. This suggests thatwe need terms that will help us to focus on the most salient impact scenarios. With this in mind,I have characterized the irregular change in the abrupt paradigm in terms of catastrophic out-comes, thresholds, and proximity. Clearly, we might encounter catastrophic outcomes quicklyeven under linear change (e.g., if the magnitude of such change were considerable), and if thatwere the case, much of what is said about the abrupt paradigm below would apply equally to thiskind of gradual change. Still, given prevailing gradualist views, it seems safe to say that the usualgradualist paradigm is not of this form. My claim then is that the abrupt and gradualist paradigmsare good focal points for discussion. This can be the case even if both are a little caricatured.

9 James Hansen, “A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes ‘Dangerous Anthropo-genic Interference’?” Climatic Change 68 (2005): 269–79, at 269.

10 Michael Oppenheimer and Richard Alley, “The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Long-Term ClimatePolicy,” Climatic Change 64 (2004): 1–10; United Nations Environment Program, Global Envi-ronment Outlook 4 (2008), 64 (available at http://www.unep.org/geo/).

11 Hansen, “A Slippery Slope,” 274.12 James Hansen, “Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb,” Scientific American 290 (2004): 68–77,

at 73.13 Hansen, “A Slippery Slope,” 275.14 Hansen, “Defusing,” 73.15 Quirin Schiermeier, “A Sea Change,” Nature 439 ( January 19, 2006): 256–60, at 258; James Hansen,

“Can We Still Avoid Dangerous Human-Made Climate Change?” Talk presented at the NewSchool University, 2006.

16 Gagosian, “Abrupt Climate Change”; Richard Alley, “Abrupt Climate Change,” Scientific American291, no. 5 (2004): 62–69, at 68; R. J. Stouffer et al., “Investigating the Causes of the Response ofthe Thermohaline Circulation to Past and Future Climate Changes,” Journal of Climate 19 (2006):1365–87; Michael Vellinga and Richard A. Wood, “Global Impacts of a Collapse of the AtlanticThermohaline Circulation,” Climatic Change 51 (2002): 251–67.

17 See, for example, Harry L. Bryden, Hannah R. Longworth, and Stuart A. Cunningham, “Slowing ofthe Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 25 Degrees North,” Nature 438 (December 1,2005): 655–57. Many facets of such work remain controversial. Though most agree thatthe past events occurred and were accompanied by a slowdown, there is disagreement about theextent of the climatic impacts, how they might be relevant to predicting future climate change,and whether we are indeed seeing signs of such change already. Still, much of this controversyconcerns when we might expect a change, not whether there will be one if global warmingcontinues well into the future. Models predict a point “beyond which the thermohaline circulationcannot be maintained,” but also that this requires warming of 4–5°C. Most scientists apparentlybelieve that we will not experience that this century (Schiermeier, “A Sea Change,” 257); but it isworth pointing out both that this hardly lessens the intergenerational issue, and that even a smallprobability of collapse this century is a matter for concern.

18 Brian Barry, Why Social Justice Matters (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 260.19 Robert Berner, “Examination of Hypotheses for the Permo-Triassic Boundary Extinction by Carbon

Cycle Modeling,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences 99, no. 7 (2002): 4172–77;Barry, Why Social Justice Matters, 260.

20 Nicholas Kristof, “The Big Burp Theory of the Apocalypse,” New York Times, April 16, 2006.


http://www.unep.org/geo

21 Alley, “Abrupt Climate Change,” 69. Consider, for example, the recent emergence of ocean acidi-fication as a serious concern.

22 IPCC, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2007).

23 For a summary, see Michael Oppenheimer and Annie Petsonk, “Article 2 of the UNFCCC: HistoricalOrigins, Recent Interpretations,” Climatic Change 73 (2004): 195–226. More recent work byLenton et al., “Tipping Points,” gives similar estimates: 1–2°C for Greenland, 3–5°C for the WestAntarctic, and 3–5°C for the thermohaline. They identify loss of Artic summer sea ice as the mostimminent threat, at 0.5–2°C with a transition timescale of approximately ten years.

24 IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, 7.25 IPCC, Climate Change 1995 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), cited by Houghton,

Climate Change, 105.26 IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, cited by Houghton, Climate Change, 106.27 IPCC, Climate Change 2007: The Scientific Basis, 8.28 Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science, December 3, 2005, 1686.29 Gregg Marland, Tom Boden, and Robert J. Andres, “Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuel

Burning, Cement Manufacture, and Gas Flaring: 1751–2005” (2008). Carbon Dioxide Informa-tion Analysis Center, United States Department of Energy. Available at: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.htm.

30 Hansen, “Can We Still Avoid?”; Frances Moore, “Carbon Dioxide Emissions Accelerating Rapidly,”Earth Policy Institute (2008), available at: http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/CO2/2008.htm;and James Hansen and Makiko Sato, “Greenhouse Gas Growth Rates,” Proceedings of theNational Academy of Sciences 101, no. 46 (2004): 16109–14.

31 This is mainly because they must be based on different projections of factors such as consumptionbehavior, population, and economic growth.

32 Houghton, Climate Change, 116.33 European Environment Agency, The European Environment: State and Outlooks 2005 (available at

http://www.europa.eu/publications/state_of_environment_report_2005_1); Roger Harrabin, “UKSeeking CO2 Trading Increase,” BBC, September 18, 2008; Stephen Gardiner, “The GlobalWarming Tragedy and the Dangerous Illusion of the Kyoto Protocol,” Ethics and InternationalAffairs 18, no. 1 (2004): 23–39.

34 Important suggestions not considered here include scientific uncertainty, media bias, misinformationcampaigns, and cultural barriers to change. I do not wish to deny the importance of suchconsiderations, nor that of a more general account of political inertia. I do assume, however, thatthe three considerations I do consider are important enough to deserve separate treatment (seeBjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001];Climatic Change 77: Special Issue on Climate Change and the Psychology of Long-Term Risk[2006]; and Gardiner, “The Global Warming Tragedy.”).

35 Some, of course, argue that the science is not compelling. Others add that there is some kind ofconspiracy afoot. For current purposes, I will set such views aside. For some discussions, seeBrown, American Heat; Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change”; Gardiner, “The GlobalWarming Tragedy”; and Elizabeth Desombre, “Global Warming: More Common than Tragic,”Ethics and International Affairs 18, no. 1 (2004): 41–46.

36 Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, 318.37 Clive L. Spash, Greenhouse Economics: Value and Ethics (London: Routledge, 2002), 178.38 John Broome, Counting the Cost of Global Warming (Isle of Harris, UK: White Horse Press, 2002), 19.39 Tyler Cowen and Derek Parfit, “Against the Social Discount Rate,” in Justice Between Age Groups

and Generations, ed. Peter Laslett and James Fishkin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,1992), 144–61; Martin Weitzman, “Why the Far Distant Future Should Be Discounted at ItsLowest Possible Rate,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 36 (1998): 201–8;Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2006).


http://cdiac.ornl.gov

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/CO2/2008.htm

http://www.europa.eu/publications/state_of_environment_report_2005_1

40 First, Broome’s fundamental point is about historical uncertainty in general, not the effects of climatechange in particular. Second, there are major concerns about whether we will actually reinvest inlong-term projects.

41 Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implicationsfor United States National Security” (2003), 14. Available at: http://www.grist.org/pdf/AbruptClimateChange2003.

42 Ibid., 22.43 Elke Weber, “Experience-Based and Description-Based Perceptions of Long-Term Risk: Why

Global Warming Does Not Scare Us (Yet),” Climatic Change 77 (2006): 103–20, at 103. See alsoAnthony Leiserowitz, “American Risk Perceptions: Is Climate Change Dangerous?” Risk Analysis25, no. 6 (2005): 1433–42, at 1438 and 1440; and “Before and After the Day After Tomorrow,”Environment 46, no. 6 (2004): 23–37, at 27. Broader psychological, institutional, and politicalexplanations are canvassed in Oppenheimer 2006 in the papers by Baron, Bazerman, Leiserowitz,and Sunstein. I focus on Weber’s account because it has the most direct relevance to the distinctionbetween the abrupt and gradual paradigms.

44 Weber, “Experience-Based,” 104.45 Ibid.46 Ibid.47 Ibid., 106.48 Ibid., 102.49 Hence, for example, “increases in the concern of the U.S. public about terrorism post 9/11 seem to

have resulted in decreased concern about other issues such as environmental degradation orrestrictions of civil liberties” (ibid., 115).

50 Weber, “Experience-Based,” 115.51 Ibid., 105.52 Ibid., 103.53 Ibid., 108.54 Ibid.55 See references in Dale Jamieson, “An American Paradox,” Climatic Change 77 (2006): 97–102, at

101–2, n. 1.56 Weber, “Experience-Based,” 103.57 Ibid., 112.58 Ibid., 113–14. (More on the full version of this passage later.)59 Weber does point out that there is some concern that abrupt climate change may “crowd out” other

legitimate policy concerns. (See my later remarks about the intergenerational arms race.)60 This view is far from universal. For example, a recent report argues that emphasis on abrupt change

is actually counterproductive: “. . . the scale of the problem as it is shown excludes the possibilityof real action or agency by the reader or viewer. It contains an implicit counsel of despair—‘theproblem is just too big for us to take on’. Its sensationalism and connection with the unreality ofHollywood films also distances people from the issue. In this awesome form, alarmism might evenbecome secretly thrilling—effectively a form of ‘climate porn’. It also positions climate change asyet another apocalyptic construction that is perhaps a figment of our cultural imaginations, furtherundermining its ability to help bring about action.” See Gill Ereaut and Nat. Segnit, Warm Words:How Are We Telling the Climate Story and How Can We Tell It Better? (London: Institute forPublic Policy Research, 2006), 7.

61 The next two paragraphs are adapted from Stephen Gardiner, “The Pure Intergenerational Problem,”The Monist 86, no. 3 (2003): 481–500.

62 I do not intend this as a general definition of a generation. This is just a helpful way to talk withinthe example.

63 Obviously, these are extreme cases and in the real world most intergenerational goods will have amore complex profile than this. We might say that the goods distinguished are “pure” versions ofthe relevant goods. But, of course, similar concerns will arise for goods with more complex


http://www.grist.org/pdf

profiles whose net costs and benefits are distributed in the same general way. Talkingin terms of pure front-loaded and back-loaded goods merely simplifies the exposition of theproblem.

64 For an earlier analysis of the problem, see Gardiner, “The Pure Intergenerational Problem.” Note thatthe PIBP does not assume that there ought to be no consumption of temporally diffuse goods.Moreover, any application of the PIBP will need to be understood against the background of sometheory of what would constitute legitimate consumption of such goods. However, this is not to saythat the existence of the PIBP is contingent on some particular theory of legitimate intergenerationalconsumption. Instead, the PIBP arises for any such theory that does not assume that the then-currentgeneration may do completely as it pleases. Hence, the PIBP assumes only that there is a genuinequestion about legitimate intergenerational consumption, and that the right answer is not that one.

65 See Gardiner, “The Global Warming Tragedy.” Obviously, the application of the PIBP to the realworld is complicated by several factors, and especially the existence of generational overlap. ButI do not think this undermines such an application in this case. For some general reasons forskepticism about overlap, see Gardiner, “The Pure Intergenerational Problem.”

66 Tony Blair, Climate Change Speech (2004). Available at: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page6333.asp.

67 Blair’s four children were born between 1984 and 2000. If we assume an average lifespan of eightyyears, then he is claiming with certainty that there will be radical impacts no later than 2080. SinceBlair himself was born in 1953, he is also claiming that radical impacts could come before 2033.Moreover, on the reasonable assumption that he intends to suggest that abrupt climate changewould have profound effects on the course each of their lives (rather than simply being observedby them right at the end of their lives), Blair presumably envisages time frames notably closer thanthese outlying dates.

68 David Archer, “Fate of Fossil Fuel CO2 in Geologic Time,” Journal of Geophysical Research 110(2005): 5.

69 See Stephen Gardiner, “A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and theProblem of Moral Corruption,” Environmental Values 15 (2006): 397–413.

70 Hansen, “Defusing.”71 Lenton et al., “Tipping Points”; David Archer and Bruce Buffett, “Time-Dependent Response of

the Global Ocean Clathrate Reservoir to Climatic and Anthropogenic Forcing,” Geochemistry.Geophysics. Geosystems 6 (2005), Q03002, doi:10.1029/2004GC000854; Danny Harvey andZhen Huang, “Evaluation of the Potential Impact of Methane Clathrate Destabilization on FutureGlobal Warming,” Journal of Geophysical Research 100 (1995): 2905–2926.

72 For this reason, Hansen describes the ice sheets as a “ticking time bomb” (Hansen, “Slippery Slope,”275). I prefer the analogy of a Domino Effect, since the central issue is that one generation is in aposition to initiate a chain of events that will be very difficult (though not impossible) to stop.

73 Blair himself mentions both a mismatch in timing between cause and effect, and the intergenerationaldimension, suggesting a sensitivity to the PIBP.

74 Alley, “Abrupt Climate Change”; US National Research Council, Abrupt.75 This incentive is likely to be augmented by the possibility of greater opportunities for “double

counting” and “no regrets” policies within adaptation, as opposed to mitigation, projects. Forexample, suppose that one adaptation strategy involved building up emergency response capabili-ties. Such a strategy would presumably bring with it benefits for dealing with non-climate as wellas climate-related disasters.

76 Weber, “Experience-Based,” 103.77 Some people may regard the possibility of such impacts as itself outlandish. But that will not help

here. For here we are considering arguments that use such possibilities in their main premises. Thequestion is, if such impacts are possible and likely close by, does this undermine the intergenera-tional problem? My answer is that it does not.

78 Note that California’s widely-lauded recent climate change legislation includes an explicit “safetyvalve” clause, such that the Governor may delay or suspend regulations “in the event of


http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output

extraordinary circumstances, catastrophic events, or threat of significant economic harm.” SeeCalifornia Assembly Bill 32 (2006), section 38599.

79 Martino Traxler, “Fair Chore Division for Climate Change,” Social Theory and Practice 28 (2002):101–34, at 107. See also Stephen Gardiner, “Is Arming the Future with Geoengineering Really theLesser Evil?” in Stephen Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson and Henry Shue, eds., ClimateEthics: Essential Readings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

80 Of course, such a scenario may arise under gradual change as well, even given the modest rate ofchange posited by the gradualist paradigm. It is simply more likely to arise, to arise quickly, andto swamp intergenerational concerns under the abrupt paradigm.

81 It is worth noting that the presence of an “intergenerational arms race” with a bias toward adaptationmight easily result in an economic argument for inaction predicated on the premise that unfetteredeconomic growth is the best adaptive strategy. In many cases—though not always—this maymanifest a form of what I elsewhere call “moral corruption.” See Gardiner, “APerfect Moral Storm.”

82 More weakly, perhaps we are committed only to crossing some thresholds and not others, and theabrupt climate change to which we are not yet committed is, on balance, worth avoiding, even forour own sakes.

83 Barry, Why Social Justice Matters, 265; Oppenheimer and Petsonk, “Article 2 of the UNFCCC.”84 Sivan Kartha, Tom Athanasiou, Paul Baer, and Deborah Cornland, “Cutting the Knot: Climate

Protection, Political Realism and Equity as Requirements of a Post-Kyoto Regime,” 4. Emphasisin original. Available at http://www.ecoequity.org.

85 Ibid., 10.86 E.g., Barry, Why Social Justice Matters, 267.87 Notice, however, that even if that is the case, they may enter into the present reasoning of the current

generation, and so corrupt its decision making.88 Weber, “Experienced-Based,” 116.89 In the sentence immediately following the quoted passage, she says “unfortunately, such lessons may

arrive too late for corrective action.” On the face of it, this remark appears to contradict the“self-corrective” claim. But this is an uncharitable reading. I provide a better one immediatelybelow in the main text.

90 These remarks are not criticisms of Weber herself, since she envisions that the motivation will beintergenerational. See next section.

91 Taken together, these claims are comforting in at least two ways. First, they suggest that the way toovercome political inertia is simply to make current people aware of the possibility of abruptclimate change, through personal experience or relevant simulations of that experience. Awarenessought to be enough—the thought goes—because the current generation does appear to be vulner-able to such change, and the magnitude of it is sufficient to engage the right affective mechanisms.Second, the three claims imply that if, for some reason, this does not work, at least there is a limitto how bad it can get before the problem of political inertia finally goes away.

92 We need also to think about duties to nonhuman nature. But since this is, at best, a far more difficultcase to make, let alone to motivate people from, I leave it aside here. For a few remarks, see StephenGardiner, “Environmentalism:An Update,” in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy,2nd ed., ed. Robert Goodin, Philip Pettit, and Thomas Pogge (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 589–92.

93 Weber, “Experienced-Based,” 113–14; emphasis added.94 Leiserowitz may disagree with this. He says “climate change is unlikely to become a high-priority

national issue until Americans consider themselves personally at risk” and though he may be takinga broad view of the “personal” in this passage—probably intending to refer to “impacts onthemselves, their family or their local community”—this is still likely to be too narrow to capture thekind of intergenerational concern needed. See Leiserowitz, “American Risk Perceptions,” 1437–38.

95 Some believe that the overlap of generations—parents with their children and grandchildren—isenough to neutralize the PIBP and ground intergenerational justice. I believe that this approach istoo quick. See Gardiner, “Pure Intergenerational Problem”; and Stephen Gardiner, “A Contract onFuture Generations?” in Intergenerational Justice, ed. Axel Gosseries and Lukas Meyer (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2009), 77–119.


http://www.ecoequity.org

Climate Change and the Future: Discounting for Time,Wealth, and Risk

Simon Caney

There is no quality in human nature, which causes more fatal errors in our conduct, thanthat which leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote, and makes usdesire objects more according to their situation than their intrinsic value.1

It is widely recognized that the Earth’s climate is undergoing profoundchanges. The most authoritative analysis is that produced by the Intergovernmen-tal Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In its most recent report, the Fourth Assess-ment Report, the IPCC confirmed that the Earth’s climate is getting warmer andis projected to continue to do so. The report employs six different scenarios.According to these six scenarios, the likely increase in temperature ranges from1.1°C to 6.4°C and the likely increase in sea level ranges from 0.18 meters to 0.59meters.2 Climate change will have very severe impacts on many people—producing poverty, disease, instability, and death from freak weather events. Itwill, in particular, have dire consequences for members of developing countries. Ihave argued elsewhere that it jeopardizes fundamental human rights.3 In light ofthis, there is a strong case for engaging in a vigorous policy of mitigation.

Some, however, query this, arguing that many of the impacts of climatechange will be felt in the future and that future disadvantages can be discounted.My purpose in this paper is to explore the issues of intergenerational equity raisedby climate change. To do so, it is necessary to start with a recognition of theintergenerational nature of anthropogenic climate change. Greenhouse gases havea long life span and emissions at one time can exert a considerable influence onevents decades, even millennia, later. To take the example of carbon dioxide:molecules of carbon dioxide can last for very different time periods, depending onwhether they are located in the atmosphere or near the surface of the ocean or deepin the ocean. The average lifetime is approximately one hundred years.4 Theemission of greenhouse gases thus raises questions of intergenerational, as well asinternational, equity. What obligations do we owe to future generations? May we(should we) apply a positive social discount rate and devote more resources to ourcontemporaries than to future generations?josp_1445 163..186

The answers to these questions make a considerable difference not simply towhether current generations should engage in mitigation or not. Suppose that wethink (as very many do) that some mitigation is necessary, the social discount ratealso bears on the question of how much current generations should mitigate and


this remains hotly contested. To ask by how much current generations shouldlower emissions requires one to assess their interests with the legitimate interestsof future people and so the question of whether a discount rate should be appliedto future generations is crucial here. As many have emphasized, the resources tobe spent on combating climate change (both the funds that should be spent onadaptation and the opportunities foregone by mitigating) could be spent on othercontemporary problems—including malaria, AIDS, malnutrition, and globalpoverty.5

A number of different reasons have been suggested as to why current gen-erations may legitimately favor devoting resources to contemporaries rather thanto future generations. These—either individually or jointly—challenge the casefor combating climate change. In this paper, I distinguish between three differentkinds of reason for favoring contemporaries. I argue that none of these argumentsis persuasive. My answer in each case appeals to the concept of human rights. Itmaintains that a human rights-centered perspective to climate change enables us toaddress each of these reasons.

I. The Social Discount Rate

To address the question of how current generations should make decisionswhich bear on the interests of future people, it is essential to introduce the conceptof a social discount rate.6 This concept has been discussed by economists fromAlfred Marshall, A. C. Pigou, and Frank Ramsey to contemporary economists likeSir Nicholas Stern.7 It refers to the rate by which the claims of future generationsto resources currently held by current generations diminishes or increases orremains constant over time. A social discount rate, thus, determines the extent towhich resources should be devoted to people’s interests now in preference topeople’s interests at a later date.8 The higher the positive social discount rate theless should be spent on the future. To explicate the concept further and relate it tothe issue of climate change, it is useful to have some figures in front of us. TheStern Review has famously argued that the cost of attaining a stabilization level of550 pm CO2e, thereby mitigating climate change, amounts to approximately onepercent of global GDP per annum.9 Eric Neumayer calculates that, in practice, thiswould require an outlay of $350 billion per annum rising to a figure of $1000billion by 2050.10 So the question to be examined is whether this sum is betterspent on current generations or on future generations.

Why might one legitimately hold that the money should be spent on currentgenerations rather than future ones? Standard analyses of the social discount ratecomprise four separate components, each of which shall be dealt with in turn.

A. First, there is what economists call pure time preference. Some hold that it isappropriate to ascribe a lower weight to human interests the further they are in thefuture just because of the fact that they exist in the future. Thus, one reason for

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adopting a social discount rate is that one thinks it appropriate to reflect pure timepreference. Pigou, Ramsey and, more recently, Sir Nicholas Stern have argued thatpure time preference is morally illegitimate.11 Similarly, Roy Harrod famouslysays that “pure time preference [is] a polite expression for rapacity and theconquest of reason by passion.”12 On his view, it is “a human infirmity.”13 HenrySidgwick takes a similar view, stating that “the time at which a man exists cannotaffect the value of his happiness from a universal point of view; and that theinterests of posterity must concern a Utilitarian as much as those of his contem-poraries.”14 Pure time preference, however, is far from being the only relevantconsideration.

B. Second, we need to ascertain the correct principle of intergenerational equity.Suppose that one holds that there should not be any pure time preference. One mightstill permissibly decide to devote resources to current people over future people fora second reason, depending on what principle of intergenerational equity oneadopts. One way to see this is to set intergenerational matters to one side for amoment. Consider a theory of justice that applies solely to a current generation. Itwill have several component parts. First, it has to decide whether all persons haveequal moral status or whether some have greater moral standing than others. (In theintergenerational context, those who subscribe to pure time discounting are reject-ing the principle of equal moral standing.) Now once we have determined this firstissue we then have to decide what distributive principle applies. Should it beeconomic equality or a Rawlsian difference principle or libertarianism or a deserttheory or a sufficientarian approach or something else? Now the same questionapplies at the intergenerational level. Once the issue of time discounting has beenaddressed, we then need to identify whether relations between generations shouldbe determined by a principle of equality or maximizing the good or whatever themarket produces or something else. The key point is that one might hold that currentgenerations should devote resources to current generations in preference to futuregenerations because of the distributive principle one affirms.

C. Risk and Uncertainty. The considerations adduced so far do not exhaust thereasons why one might devote resources to current generations over future gen-erations. Two additional reasons to do so arise from each generation’s lack of sureknowledge of future generations. First, we lack sure knowledge of the impactsof climate change. Second, we lack sure knowledge that human life will continueto exist. For example, the Stern Review on The Economic of Climate Changediscounts by 0.1 percent per annum to reflect the possibility that humanity mightdie out for nonclimate-related reasons.15 Clearly, it matters what changes to theenvironment (rising sea levels and temperature increases) occur and how likelyeach possible scenario is. It also matters if humanity disappears because of somenonclimate-related calamity. If humanity dies out for nonclimate-related reasons,then one reason for being concerned about climate change (its impact on humanlife) no longer applies.16 Now if, for either reason, one is not certain that there will

Climate Change and the Future 165

be malign effects on human life then, so it might be argued, there is a case fordiscounting the amount which one is going to spend on preventing a calamity frompossibly taking place.

Before proceeding further it is worth noting the distinction between “risk,”on the one hand, and “uncertainty,” on the other. Risk refers to cases where oneidentifies an outcome and can determine the probability that it will occur. Uncer-tainty, on the other hand, refers to cases where one identifies an outcome but is notable to determine the probability of its coming to pass.17 Both might give us reasonfor discounting, but they are importantly different. For example, if one has reliableprobabilistic assessments to hand, then one can calculate the expected utility andmakes one’s decision on that basis. Where, though, we face uncertainty this courseof action is unavailable to us.

*

Putting this together, then, we see that the extent to which people may devoteresources to the present as opposed to the future is a function of the following fourvariables: (1) the legitimacy of pure time preference (may we accord less weightto their interests?); (2) the principles of intergenerational justice (what principlesof justice govern the relations between people over time?); (3) the certainty of theharmful effects (will these dangerous changes happen?); and (4) the certainty ofhuman existence (are we sure that what we are doing will result in threats tohuman beings?).

II. Pure Time Preference and Discounting

Let us now consider one factor in the social discount rate and analyze onecommon argument for prioritizing current generations over future generationsthat focuses on this one variable. The first argument to be scrutinized makes thefollowing claim:

Argument 1: Current generations should prioritize current generations over the interests offuture generations because it is permissible (and maybe even morally required) for currentpeople to engage in pure time preference.

Argument 1 defends a positive pure time discount rate. If we accept it, it followsthat current generations should spend less on mitigation and adaptation than ifthey adopt a zero pure time discount rate. In what follows I shall reject this viewand defend an alternative.

Before I introduce the view to be defended, it is worth drawing attention to thepossibilities. Some apply a zero pure time discount rate to all values. As was notedearlier, Pigou, Ramsey, Sidgwick, Stern, and others have argued for the correct-ness of this view. A second group has defended a positive pure time discount rate.What both views have in common is their assumption that one should treat all

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values in the same way. All values should be subjected to exactly the same(positive, negative, or zero) pure time discount rate.

A third position is, however, worth considering. This view adopts what mightbe termed a Scope Restricted Pure Time Discount Rate (or more simply, the ScopeRestricted View). This applies a zero pure time discount rate to some values butnot to others. Stated more fully, the Scope Restricted View has three features.First, it posits that there is a plurality of different values. Second, it affirms whatI shall term the Rights Principle. This holds that persons have human rights to theprotection of fundamental human interests from the threats posed by dangerousclimate change. Climate change jeopardizes various human rights including, forexample: (1) the right to life (since storm surges, flooding and freak weatherevents, and heat stress will all lead to human deaths); (2) the right to subsistence(since the increase in temperatures, increased flooding, and rising sea levels willlead to crop failure and therefore malnutrition); (3) the right to health (sinceclimate change will lead to increased exposure to vector-borne diseases (likemalaria) and water-borne diseases (like dengue and diarrhea); (4) the right toproperty (since flooding, sea-level rise, and freak weather events may destroypeople’s privately and collectively owned property); and (5) the right not to besubject to enforced relocation (since sea-level rises will force inhabitants ofcoastal settlements or small island states to move).18 The Rights Principle callsthen for the nonviolation, and the protection, of these vital rights—all of which arethreatened by dangerous climate change.19 There are a number of different waysof grounding these rights. I here assume that they are justified on the grounds thatthey protect vital human interests that are sufficient to generate duties on others.20

Now the third part of the view to be defended holds that a zero pure timediscount rate should be applied to the Rights Principle, but it need not be appliedto other political principles or values. Human rights that are jeopardized byclimate change should thus be secured (with no discrimination against thosefurther off in time), but other more marginal interests (like being able to travel tointeresting countries, or, more generally, the interest in satisfying preferences)may be subject to a positive pure time discount rate. Current generations shouldthen act so as not to bring about a state of affairs in which people in one hundredyears’ time are unable to exercise their rights, but might be allowed to weightfuture people’s interests in preference satisfaction, say, less than current people’sinterest in preference satisfaction.

Note that my version of the Scope Restricted View is not committed to callingfor (or rejecting) a positive pure time discount rate for other values such aspreference satisfaction. It simply allows the possibility that that might be the case.My emphasis is more on the first part: We may not discount current and futurepeople’s vital rights if, when and because the threat to them from climate changeis further off in the future.21

A. Thus far, I have described the Scope Restricted View but not defended theapproach to pure time preference that it adopts. I now wish to motivate some


support for the claim that the rights jeopardized by climate change should not besubject to a positive pure time discount rate and hence why Argument 1 fails. Letus consider then what reasons might support a zero pure time discount rate.

The most common argument is one originally presented by William StanleyJevons and later defended by A. C. Pigou. In The Theory of Political Economy,Jevons writes: “To secure a maximum of benefit in life, all future events, all futurepleasures or pains, should act upon us with the same force as if they were present,allowance being made for their uncertainty. The factor expressing the effect ofremoteness should, in short, always be unity, so that time should have no influ-ence.”22 Jevons’s argument, then, is that the “maximum of benefit” requires notaccording greater weight to a unit of pleasure because it is nearer in time. To prefera smaller unit of utility at t1 to a greater unit of utility at t2 would lead to asuboptimal level of utility. We find the same argument in Pigou’s seminal TheEconomics of Welfare. It is on the basis of this argument that he concludes thatpure time preference is a failure of rationality: in his words, “our telescopic facultyis defective.”23

Clearly, this argument will not provide a defense of the Scope Restricted Viewoutlined previously. Moreover, even if we set this aside, the limitations of thisargument are fairly clear. It presupposes a maximizing consequentialism and forvery familiar reasons (its indifference to the distribution of goods and its insen-sitivity to individual rights) I think that that position is unacceptable. Indeed, theargument exemplifies and illustrates a deep flaw in any maximizing doctrine.Consider the situation of an individual who is born in the future. The Jevons–Pigou argument would provide such a person with greater protection than theywould be afforded by a positive pure time discount rate. However, note that thatoutcome is not animated by a commitment to the individual per se. Jevons’s andPigou’s argument does aid the condition of future people but it does so onlyindirectly. Its direct concern is with increasing the total amount of well-being andit happens that a zero pure time discount rate furthers that goal. It illustrates wellRawls’s objection that utilitarianism treats each individual merely as “a container-person.”24 Given the problems with this argument, let us consider an alternativeargument.

B. A second objection to Argument 1 appeals (at a general level) to the ideal ofimpartiality and then (more specifically) to the logic underlying the Rights Prin-ciple. Consider impartiality first. The ideal of impartiality insists that politicaldecisions should not reward or penalize people on the grounds of personal prop-erties that lack any fundamental moral relevance. It is on this basis that we holdthat persons should not be discriminated against because of their race or genderor socioeconomic class. These factors do not correspond to any morally relevantfeatures of persons. In the same way, however, it seems inappropriate to discrimi-nate against a person simply because of their location in time, for that seemsequally arbitrary. It may be appropriate to favor some in some circumstances—if they are more deserving or more needy or they some possess other morally

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relevant property—but simply being born further into the future is not one of theseproperties. Put the other way round: being born earlier in time is just not the rightkind of property to justify favoritism.

To illustrate this point, we may consider Sidgwick’s defense of a zero puretime discount rate for this exemplifies the kind of reasoning advocated by theimpartiality argument. Sidgwick’s argument appeals to what is of fundamentalimportance from a utilitarian point of view (namely, “utility”) and deduces theappropriate pure time discount rate from that. Given that all that matters isthe promotion of utility, it follows that “the time at which a man exists cannotaffect the value of his happiness from a universal point of view; and that theinterests of posterity must concern a Utilitarian as much as those of hiscontemporaries.”25

This Impartiality Argument can similarly be applied to the reasoning under-lying the Rights Principle. Consider again the fundamental tenets of the theory.The argument for the protection of core rights invokes an orthodox conception ofrights (in my case Raz’s “interest theory”).26 The latter ascribes rights to agentswhen this protects an interest that is sufficient to impose duties on others. This,note, makes no reference to time. All that matters is the possession of fundamentalinterests and the reasonableness of the demands made on others, where that mightinclude how demanding those demands are, whether it is unfairly burdeningpeople, and so on. Time is not a morally relevant consideration. The logic of thecase for rights entails, therefore, that there should be a zero pure time discount ratefor the protection of rights. Put otherwise, a theory of justice animated by thedignity of persons and respect for their interests contains in it no room forascribing lesser protection of these rights for some than for others. This argumentthus defends the application of zero pure time discount rate to the protection ofrights.

Note, moreover, that the argument under scrutiny does not commit us toapplying a zero pure time discount rate to any other values. It simply appeals to therationale underlying rights and argues that these do not allow any pure timediscounting. As such it is, of course, silent on what kind of pure time discount rateis appropriate for other values. In short, this argument justifies the ScopeRestricted View defined earlier in this section (II.A).27

*

It would be useful at this point to take stock and to return to the case ofclimate change. I have defended a zero pure time discount rate for the protectionof the human rights jeopardized by climate change. This is supported by theImpartiality Argument (and an examination of the rationale underlying rights).This conclusion has considerable importance for climate change because thelatter jeopardizes key rights. Given that these should receive equal weightingthroughout time this strengthens the case for an aggressive program ofmitigation.


III. Economic Growth and Discounting

Let us now turn to a second type of argument for devoting resources to currentpeople over future people. Consider the following common argument:

Argument 2: Future generations will be wealthier than current generations and it istherefore more appropriate for current generations to devote resources to their contempo-raries rather than to future people. It follows that it would be wrong to mitigate on behalfof future generations when they will be much better off than us.28

This is not an argument for pure time discounting. It is an argument for thinkingthat even if those who are currently alive weight future people’s well-being asequal in standing to that of their contemporaries, they should devote moreresources to their contemporaries because current generations are worse off thanfuture generations will be.29 It makes the case for what William Nordhaus calls“growth discounting.”30 Broken down into its constituent parts, this argumentclaims:

(1) It is wrong to devote resources to future generations rather than to currentgenerations if future generations are wealthier than current generations.

(2) Future generations will be wealthier than current generations.

Therefore,

(3) Other things being equal, it is wrong to devote resources to future genera-tions rather than to current generations.

One response to this would be to dispute premise (2) and to challenge whether thiswould be the case even if there is dangerous climate change. Alternatively, onemight query the certitude with which this argument pronounces that future gen-erations will definitely be wealthier. Can we be that sure? Such confidence cer-tainly seems unwarranted at the moment. Isn’t there a risk that a global recessionmight leave some future generations worse off than the current one? If so, howdoes that affect the argument?31 I want, however, to focus on premise (1) and toargue that (1) relies on an implausible principle of intergenerational justice. Whywould it be wrong to devote resources to future generations if they are wealthierthan current generations?

A. Three reasons suggest themselves. First, of course, many welfare economistswho subscribe to (1) will appeal to the principle of diminishing marginal utility.32

That is to say, they will start with a commitment to utilitarianism and then add thatthe marginal utility of each extra unit of wealth decreases the wealthier a personis. It follows from these two assumptions that, if future generations will bewealthier than current generations, then it is wrong to devote resources to

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future generations. Therefore, current generations can discount the resources to bedevoted to future generations.

However, this argument is vulnerable to an obvious objection, namely that itfails to disaggregate within generations and hence tolerates outcomes in whichsome lead appalling lives.33 It succeeds only if we consider each future generationas an aggregate and if we do not distinguish, for example, between the futureAfricans and future Americans who are members of the same generation. Thuseven if a future generation at t2 is very wealthy and much wealthier than thegeneration alive at t1 that can hide the fact that some are very badly off at t2 (andindeed are worse off than some of the poorest at t1). Once disaggregated in thisway, the case for devoting resources to the present (which in this context meansnot pursuing mitigation on behalf of future generations) diminishes because bydoing so we will be bringing into existence a state of affairs in the future in whichsome, perhaps many, are needlessly unable to enjoy the fundamental rights speci-fied by the Rights Principle.

There are, however, more sophisticated arguments for (1) which avoid thisproblem. Consider, for example, the following two arguments:

The Ability to Pay Argument: This holds that justice requires that those with the mostability to pay should bear the burden of combating social ills. It follows from this that iffuture generations are wealthier then they should foot the bill for combating climatechange. In virtue of their wealth, they can bear the burden more easily than currentgenerations.

The Cost-Effectiveness Argument: This holds that we should distribute resources in themost cost-effective manner. If future generations are wealthier then they have a greaterability to save lives than do current generations. Therefore, they, rather than currentgenerations, should pay because by doing so they can achieve more good.34

These arguments are subtly different. The Cost-Effectiveness Argument is con-cerned with the number of lives saved and says that deferring the effort to combatclimate change to later generations would be desirable because by doing so we cansave more lives. The Ability to Pay Argument, by contrast, is not committed to theclaim that deferring the effort until later saves more lives. It claims that it is fairerto any would-be duty-bearers to postpone efforts till later.35 Its focus is on theputative duty-bearers (it is wrong to burden X if Y is wealthier); whereas the focusof the Cost-Effectiveness Argument is on the recipients of any program designedto combat climate change, and more generally secure people’s rights (it is wrongfor humanity to try to help group (A) now when humanity could help group(A+100) later).

Both the Ability to Pay Argument and the Cost-Effectiveness Argument arebetter arguments than the preceding utilitarian one because, unlike it, they are notnecessarily indifferent to the protection of human rights, including those rightsspecified by the Rights Principle. Proponents of both can be concerned withensuring that everyone has a guaranteed decent standard of living. Both arenonetheless unconvincing.


B. Consider first the Ability to Pay Principle Argument. This encounters severalproblems. First, as I have argued at greater length elsewhere, the problem withrelying on this principle to attribute responsibilities is simply that it conflictswith a very deep conviction that polluters should generally pay for their acts ofpollution.36 If, for example, I leave rubbish in the street then, ceteris paribus, Ihave primary responsibility to clear it up—not some other actor who happens tohave more wealth than me. Similarly, if my firm releases toxic waste into a riverthereby harming others, we have a strong conviction that my firm should beheld accountable for this—and not another firm that is wealthier. The view thatthe polluter should pay is one that is deeply rooted in our moral convictions andit follows from the principle that agents should be held responsible for theirends.

Suppose, though, that we accord some role to the Ability to Pay Principle, asecond complication with the argument is that accepting the Ability to PayPrinciple does not entail that we should allocate all of the burden associated withthis role to future generations. Even if future people are, as an aggregate, wealthierthan the current generation, there are, no doubt, some who are currently alive whoare much wealthier than many future people will be. So an Ability to Pay Principlewould require them to bear a burden in proportion to their wealth. Rather thanallocate all responsibilities to future generations, it would endorse a scheme inwhich some wealthy current people pay and some poor future people do not.(Note, of course, that this second response cannot show that all growth discount-ing is impermissible. It simply establishes that the responsibility cannot be at-tributed entirely to future generations—but, for all that it says, it is compatiblewith thinking that some of it should be borne by contemporaries. As such, itis compatible with the current generation attributing some priority to [some]contemporaries.)

There are, however, deeper problems with the Ability to Pay Argument.That many future people will be wealthier than many of those who are currentlyalive does not entail postponing the effort to combat climate change later fortwo further reasons. First, obviously the cost of tackling the problem may—indeed almost certainly, will—increase and might increase by more than theincrease in wealth. It is a nonsequitur to affirm that since a generation at t2 iswealthier than a generation at t1, it follows that the t2 generation should addressthe problem. Furthermore, the economic evidence strongly suggests that the rateof growth of the cost will exceed the rate of growth of global GDP. The appealof an Ability to Pay Principle is that by allocating the tasks to the most advan-taged it both enables a task to be performed and ensures that the duty-bearersare more able to pursue their own ends and goals. If, however, the costs of thetask increase at a greater rate than the level of wealth increases, then the ratio-nale of the Ability to Pay criterion is not served. If one is concerned that duty-bearers have a space to pursue their own projects, then it may be better toallocate the task to those with less wealth if the cost of the task to them iscommensurately lower.

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A final limitation in the Ability to Pay Argument is that it is incomplete. It isconcerned only with what one might term the “duty-bearer perspective”—andwith ensuring that the correct potential duty-bearer is allocated the responsibility.As such, it alone is unable to show that the duty should be allocated to futuregenerations. For we also need to know whether they will do the job effectively.Suppose that if the job were done at t1 it would be done more effectively than itwould be if it were done at t2. This would give us a reason to tackle it sooner ratherthan later and therefore to burden earlier generations rather than later ones. Thepoint is simply that being fair to the duty-bearers is not the only relevantconsideration—being fair to the recipients of the policy also matters. This leads usto the third argument for premise (1).

C. For consider, now, the Cost-Effectiveness Argument. Does this give us reasonto devote our resources to current generations in preference to future ones? Thereare four reasons to resist this conclusion. First, the argument overlooks theobvious fact that tackling a problem earlier can be much cheaper than tackling itlater. So even if future people have more wealth that does not mean it is right todefer tackling the problem to them because that advantage might be outweighedby the fact that the cost of “solving the problem” may cost even more. The SternReview makes precisely this argument in support of its claim that currentresources should be dedicated to combating climate change now.37

There is, moreover, a particular problem with postponing action on climatechange that merits attention. Climate scientists have argued that greenhouse gasemissions may set in train irreversible processes that subsequently impact onfuture generations. Humanity may reach a “tipping point,” and after this it will notbe possible to avert dangerous climate change. This arises because climate changemay generate positive feedbacks which bring about additional climate change.Climate change becomes a self-reinforcing process. A recent review by DavidFrame and Myles Allen, climate modelers based at Oxford University, helpfullyidentifies six possible positive feedbacks. These include: (1) the release ofmethane from hydrates in the oceans (sometimes referred to as the “cathrate gunhypothesis”); (2) the release of methane from permafrost as the latter melts; (3) theloss of tropical forests, and in particular, the Amazon (and therefore the loss oftheir capacity to serve as carbon sinks); (4) an increase in ocean acidificationwhich in turn destroys phytoplankton and thereby undermines the ability ofoceans to absorb carbon dioxide; (5) the slowing down of the Atlantic Thermo-haline Circulation (ATC); and (6) increases in water vapor which augment thewarming effect.38 To attribute the responsibility to later generations may then to beto leave it until it is too late.

A further weakness in the Cost-Effectiveness Argument is that its focus issolely on the capacity of future generations to achieve more. However, before we,the current generation, create a situation in which there will be winners and losersin the future, we also need to know whether those who will be very wealthy in thefuture will use that capacity to protect the most vulnerable from dangerous climate


change and uphold their fundamental rights. We need, that is, to know what theywill be disposed to do as well as what they can do. Moreover, given the historicalrecord, we can hardly be confident that in creating a world with a very wealthygroup we will be creating a group who are properly motivated to protect thefundamental human rights of all, including the most vulnerable. In light of this, itwould, I think, be irresponsible of powerful decision-makers in one generation notto mitigate climate change in the hope that the world they create will be onein which a wealthy component secures the fundamental rights of all from thethreats of climate change. Anyone motivated by a commitment to fundamentalhuman rights would not gamble in this way with the plight of those alive in thefuture.

A fourth, and final, point should now also be duly noted. I argued above thatthe Ability to Pay Argument is incomplete. For a parallel reason, the same is trueof the Cost-Effectiveness Argument. Suppose that we show that future generationsare more effective at solving problems. This does not entail that the futuregenerations ought to address the problem for we need also to consider the duty-bearer perspective. If, for example, justice requires that those responsible forcausing a problem should pay, then contemporary polluters should pay and it isunfair on later generations to attribute this duty to them. It is important not onlythat people’s entitlements are protected but also that the burden of protecting theseentitlements is fairly distributed.

In short, none of the three arguments support premise (1) of Argument 2. Eachfails, in different ways, to protect the fundamental rights that are jeopardizedby anthropogenic climate change. The Diminishing Marginal Utility argumentfocuses exclusively on aggregate outcomes and is therefore quite compatible withpermitting policies which threaten the fundamental rights of some; the Ability toPay Argument is focused solely on who should bear the duty of combating climatechange and therefore it too ignores the question of whether allocating this duty tofuture generations will result in the protection of persons’ fundamental rights fromthe threats posed by climate change; and the Cost-Effectiveness Argument ismotivated by a concern to protect the rights of the vulnerable, but it overlooks thetremendous costs involved in postponing action until later.

D. Let us suppose that the concerns raised in section C are all met. Suppose thatwe know that future people will be much wealthier (they can pay); suppose thatthe Ability to Pay Principle is correct and it is right to allocate the responsibilityto combat climate change to them (they ought to pay); and suppose, finally, thatwe know that the wealthy people in the future will be disposed to protect thefundamental rights of all from the threats posed by climate change (they will pay).Even so, Argument 2 fails because it makes the questionable assumption thatgreater wealth can counterbalance the threats posed by the worsening climate thatwe the current generation help to produce.

Why should we accept this assumption? One might give two arguments forit.39 The first contends that greater economic wealth enables people to adapt and

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thereby avert the ill-effects of climate change. Let us term this the AdaptationResponse. The second reason one might think that economic growth counterbal-ances a deterioration in the climate is that one thinks that people might be unableto adapt to the change but that the money can serve as compensation for the loss.Let us call this the Compensation Response.40

Both arguments for why economic growth matters fail. The problem with thefirst is that it is unduly sanguine about the effectiveness of adaptation. It assumesthat if money is available and deployed to further adaptation then the rights ofthose threatened by climate change are secure. This overlooks several criticalproblems. First, although climate scientists understand the general processes ofclimate change, they are often unable to specify what changes will happen towhich specific areas. Preparing for adaptation is therefore very much an imperfectscience. Furthermore, adaptation requires not simply resources but accountablegovernance structures, ones in which political elites are responsive to people’sneed for protection from environmental threats, and greater wealth on its owncannot bring this about. Consider in this light those living in authoritarian andcorrupt political systems—there can be no assurance that financial support willreach the vulnerable areas. In addition to this, even if we know where climate-related threats will occur and even if political elites are responsive to the needs oftheir people, adaptation policies (such as building dykes, having better drainagesystems, and so on) are not fool-proof and thus cannot be relied upon to preventany harms arising from climate change. The Adaptation Response fails.

Consider now the Compensation Response. This accepts that adaptation maynot suffice and hence that climate change may violate certain key rights. But itadds that this is acceptable if the victims of the violation of these rights arecompensated in monetary terms.

This argument also fails. Rights entail duties on others not to violate them andif others do violate them then, other things being equal, they are under a duty tocompensate those wronged. What is generally impermissible is deliberately toviolate a right with a view to compensating people for it. One cannot assaultsomeone and then make it up to them by paying for their hospital bills and fullycovering all aspects of their recovery. The point is that one should not inflict thatwrong in the first place: it is impermissible to inflict the bad with a view to creatinga good to make up for this.41 It misunderstands the nature of a right to choose toviolate it when one has the option of not doing so.42 There are, of course,exceptional cases where this is permissible, but the point is that these arise inemergencies. In normal policy-making rights are not to be violated, and certainlynot when there are other morally acceptable courses of action available.43

Thus, neither the Adaptation Response nor the Compensation Response canshow that economic growth can offset the threats posed by climate change.Argument 2’s claim that current generations should not mitigate climate changeon the grounds that future generations will enjoy higher average wealth and thatthis economic growth counterbalances the resulting dangerous climate is thusfurther undermined.


IV. Risk, Uncertainty, and Discounting

Let us now consider a third reason for discounting. One argument often givenin defense of discounting the amount of resources to be devoted to a problem isthat the projected harms may not materialize or that we are uncertain about theirlikelihood. As was noted earlier, the projected changes to the Earth’s climateinvolve both risks and uncertainties. The IPCC, for example, lists various impactsand then assigns rough probabilities to each. In addition, some phenomena aremore accurately described as uncertainties (that is, we cannot formulate a reliableprobability for them).44 These risks and uncertainties lead then to the followingargument:

Argument 3: Since climate change is projected to result in risks (i.e., outcomes with aprobability of less than one) and/or uncertainties (i.e., outcomes whose probability cannotbe ascertained), current generations should discount future impacts and should, therefore,devote current resources to their contemporary problems rather than to future ones.

A. Argument 3 would be advanced by advocates of Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA).On this view, we should multiply the cost or benefit of an outcome by theprobability of its occurring. Any probability less than 1 is a form of discounting.This approach does have intuitive appeal. If we cannot be sure whether a bad eventwill occur, or if we know that the probability of it occurring is less than one, thenit seems natural to devote less resources to combating that problem than we wouldif we knew that the bad event would definitely occur.

In what follows I shall argue, however, that we should reject Argument 3. Imaintain that the fact that statements about the harmful effects of climate changerefer to risks and uncertainties, rather than definitely known impacts, does notjustify paying less of a cost. A sound response to the current climate change, Isuggest, would prescribe exactly the same course of action (in terms of the moneyspent) to mitigating climate change as would be appropriate if it were known thatthe malign effects would definitely occur. To put it another way round, I shalldefend a precautionary approach to climatic risks and uncertainties. However,rather than appeal to a version of the precautionary principle in the premises thatfollow, I shall adduce four considerations which are jointly sufficient to entail aprecautionary conclusion.45

First, though, let us consider CBA. Applying CBA to climate change isproblematic for two reasons. The first is that CBA requires probabilistic assess-ments in order to calculate the expected utility for any event, but it is at a loss whenwe face uncertainties. And, as many have observed, it is extremely hard to ascertainwith any precision or confidence the probabilities of many of the specific impactscaused by climate change.46 Second, and more fundamentally, this way of thinkingabout risk seems inappropriate in this context. CBA may be applicable in thecontext of one person’s life. If I am considering taking a grave risk and I alone willbear its potential burden then it might seem appropriate for me to consider the issue

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simply in terms of the expected costs and expected benefits to me. However, it isinappropriate to adopt this model when we are considering cases where some (highemitters who are affluent) are exposing others to grave risks and jeopardizing theirrights. The interpersonal context makes all the world of difference. The principlesapplicable within the context of one life are not the same as those applicable acrosslives.47

Under what conditions, if any, is it fair for one group to expose anothergroup to risks? Two different kinds of approach are available, both of whichinvoke rights. One answer takes a procedural form. It holds that exposing someto risks can be just if the risk-bearers have a genuine choice (for example, theyhave the right to veto the proposal and can do so without inappropriate reper-cussions) and they consent to being exposed to risk. They might, for example,accept the risk if they can share in the benefits of the risky activity and/or if theyare guaranteed adequate compensation if the possible hazards materialize. Thisprocedural route is, however, not available to us given that some of the risk-bearers have yet to be born and some are but infants now. So we have reason toconsider a second type of approach—a substantive approach that focuses onwhether the distribution of burdens and benefits is fair according to some sub-stantive criteria.

In light of this one might seek to develop a comprehensive theory of whenexposing others to risks is just and then apply that to climate change. Such a theorywould provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for imposing risks onothers, and by doing so would develop a theory of “fair risk” that is applicable forall situations. That would be a very ambitious project. It is also unnecessary forour purposes—which are to examine whether it is justified to discount the impactsof climate change because of the uncertain nature of climate projections. In whatfollows I shall therefore pursue a more modest task, and will identify severalconditions which both apply specifically to the current changes to the climate andprovide guidance on the legitimacy of discounting.

B. The following line of reasoning will, I believe, show that it is unjust for theworld’s highest per capita emitters to expose others to the risks associated withdangerous climate change. Moreover, they should not discount the projectedill-effects on the grounds that they are merely risks and uncertainties.Why should we adopt such a cautious approach to global climate change? Thefollowing four rights-centered considerations, I think, provide a conclusiveanswer.

(R1) The changes to the climate involve both (a) a high probability of severe threats to largenumbers of persons’ fundamental human rights and (b) a possibility of even more cata-strophic threats to fundamental human rights.

First, note that the IPPC’s reports differentiate between seven different categoriesof probability—ranging from “virtually certain” (>99%), “very likely” (90–99%),


and “likely” (66–90%) at one end of the spectrum to “very unlikely” (1–10%) and“exceptionally unlikely” (<1%) at the other.48 They maintain that many of thedangerous changes to the Earth’s climate are “likely” or “very likely.” The FourthAssessment Report, for example, concludes that in the twenty-first-centurydroughts, more frequent intense cyclones and extreme sea-level rises are “likely”;that heatwaves and extreme precipitation are “very likely”; and that increasedtemperatures are “virtually certain.”49 If we turn now to the projected impacts onhuman rights, the IPCC reports maintain that climate change will lead to loss oflife, exposure to disease and malnutrition. It distinguishes between different levelsof confidence, ranging from “very high confidence” (“at least 9 out of 10 chanceof being correct”) and “high confidence” (“about 8 out of 10 chance”) to “very lowconfidence” (“less than a 1 out of 10 chance”).50 And many of its projections ofdangerous threats to fundamental human interests are ones which it categorizes as“high confidence.” To take one example, the IPCC’s chapter on human health has“high confidence” that climate change will lead to (1) “increased malnutrition”;(2) an increase in “the number of people suffering from death, disease and injuryfrom heatwaves, floods, storms, fires and droughts”; and (3) increased “cardio-respiratory morbidity and mortality.”51

Consider now (b). In addition to the prospects of drought, flooding, sea-levelrise, and freak weather events, there are possible effects which, if they occurred,would be catastrophic, but the probability of them occurring is very low. Threephenomena in particular are worth mentioning here. First, there is a possibilitythat the Greenland Ice Sheet will melt, thereby raising sea levels by sevenmeters.52 Second, it is also possible that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt.According to Michael Oppenheimer and R. B. Alley, this alone would increase sealevels by approximately five meters.53 Both of these would be calamitous: Theywould devastate the rights to life, health, and subsistence of inhabitants of small-island states and all those who live or work on the coast. A third possibility whichis related to, but distinct from the preceding two, is the slowdown or collapse ofthe ATC. This too is unlikely but if it occurred it would have considerable impact,including reducing temperatures in Europe.54 According to Michael Vellinga andRichard Wood, both scientists at the Metereological Office in London, the collapseof the ATC may lead to a drop in temperatures in Europe of between 1 and 3°C.55

These three phenomena illustrate then the possibility of abrupt nonlinear climatechange.56

Note, however, that in itself (R1) is insufficient to ground a policy of precau-tion. That one course of action has grave—even catastrophic—risks attached to itdoes not entail that one should eschew it, for the other options available might alsohave equally grave risks.57 This leads to my second point. For the second step inmy argument is that:

(R2) Affluent members of the world can abstain from emitting high levels of greenhousegases, and thereby exposing others to risk, without loss of their own human rights.

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(R2) is supported by two considerations. First, many affluent people expendenergy on activities which might have value but are not needed for the realizationof people’s human rights, and can therefore be foregone without sacrificing theirrights. Consider, in this context, the emissions stemming from driving cars, takingplane flights, poorly insulated housing, and inefficient energy use. Cuts from all ofthese are needed to avoid dangerous climate change, but the loss involved cannotbe said to compromise any human rights. Second, affluent people in the industri-alized world are also able to engage in some activities to which they have a humanright, without employing the fossil fuels that they currently use. For many the rightto a decent minimum standard of living (which entails rights to heating) can bemet without exposing others to risk—if, for example, they use renewable energysources rather than fossil fuels. For both of these reasons affluent members of theworld can abstain from exposing others to risks without the loss of their ownhuman rights. It might be true that mitigating climate change and fundingadaptation will be costly (though we should bear in mind the statistic quotedearlier from the Stern Review [p. 3]), but these costs do not involve a loss ofhuman rights and, as such, cannot compete with the priority to protecting people’shuman rights articulated by (R1).

These two considerations alone might be thought sufficient to ground aprecautionary approach.58 In case there is any doubt, two additional supplemen-tary considerations further consolidate the case for holding that the high emissionsof the affluent is unjust. Consider now:

(R3) The risks of dangerous climate change will fall disproportionately on those whosehuman rights are already violated.

There is consensus among climate scientists and environmental economists thatanthropogenic climate change will have particularly severe effects on people whoalready lack fundamental human rights. Disease, malnutrition, and poverty arealready rife in Africa and climate change risks making it even worse. Furthermore,sea-level rise will impact heavily on the members of Bangladesh—who currentlylack fundamental subsistence and health rights. For affluent persons and corpo-rations to engage in a Business as Usual approach would therefore be for them togamble with the condition of those who already lack fundamental rights protec-tion, threatening to render them even worse off.59

The case for affluent emitters to cut their emissions so as not to expose othersto grave risks is strengthened further if we note one additional feature of thecurrent situation:

(R4) The benefits that arise when the affluent of the world emit high levels of greenhousegases falls almost entirely to them, and not to those most at risk from climate change.

It is arguable that for some to expose others to risk can be morally acceptable if therisk-taking is part of an equitable scheme. To use a familiar example, one might


think that it is permissible for some to drive motor vehicles even though they posea fatal threat to some because the risky activity is part of an equitable schemewhich is generally beneficial, including to the risk-bearers. Even nondrivers mightvalue the practice of driving—it means that their friends and family can visit,goods can get transported promptly from one end of the country to another, foodgets delivered to shops still fresh, business and personal correspondence can arriveswiftly, and so on.60 Now the point of (4) is simply to add that no such argumentcan be made in defense of the current emissions of the world’s wealthy—becausethe benefits redound almost entirely to the risk-takers and not the risk-bearers.

In short, the preceding argument holds that it is wrong for some to engage inactivities which are likely to violate the human rights of others (and might lead toa catastrophic outcome) in situations where the risk-takers need not engage in therisky behavior and can avert it without forfeiting their own human rights, whenthe risk-bearers already lack fundamental human rights, and when the benefits ofthe risky behavior fall to the risk-takers and not the risk-bearers.

C. What does this mean for the social discount rate? I think the answer here is thatit is wrong to discount potential harms to others on the grounds that the likelihoodof their impact is either less than one or it is unknown. The implication of theargument given previously is that the affluent should simply abstain from the riskybehavior in cases where (R1)–(R4) apply. It is not that they should carry on withthe reckless activity but do it less often. They should desist entirely. They shouldact in exactly the same way and bear exactly the same cost (the opportunity costof not engaging in the risky behavior) as if it were known beyond doubt that theharmful impacts would materialize. If, however, this is the case the upshot is thatthere should be zero discounting for risk. It makes no difference to the assessmentif the probability is one hundred or eighty-five percent, say.61

D. Three further points bear noting. First, note that the argument presentedpreviously—like the arguments in sections II and III—is grounded in a commit-ment to human rights. Human rights are invoked in three places. (R1) invokes thefact that there is a threat to people’s human rights; (R2) states that the cost of notviolating people’s human rights does not itself involve a loss of rights; and (R3)draws attention to the fact that many of those most vulnerable to the riskyactivities already lack fundamental rights. Second, note that my claim is that(R1)–(R4) are sufficient to ground a no-discounting conclusion. To assert this isnot to claim that some other conditions (maybe weaker versions of (R1)–(R4) ormaybe some other combination) may not also be sufficient to ground this conclu-sion. Maybe they are. My point is simply that the factual conditions are thosedescribed by (R1)–(R4) and that given these we should accept the conclusion Iurge. Note too that my argument does not claim that (R1)–(R4) are necessary toground the no-discounting conclusion. Third, in the preceding analysis I havedeliberately focused on the responsibilities of affluent emitters. One interestingand important implication of the argument relying on (R1)–(R4) is that it does not

180 Simon Caney

show that all agents should observe the “precautionary” principle. The reason forthis stems from (R2), which focuses on the advantaged and argues that they canavoid the risky behavior without suffering an undue loss. However, many of thecitizens of countries like China and India are in a different position. It is not trueof them that can they abstain from exposing others to risk without loss of theirhuman rights. For them to adopt a precautionary approach would be for thempotentially to jeopardize their fundamental rights. As such, it is arguable that theyare entitled to engage in the emissions necessary to their fundamental rights evenif by doing so they contribute to dangerous climate change.62 If the choice theyface is between not surviving and acting in such a way that exposes others tosevere risks, then they have a case for emitting the greenhouse gases necessary toachieve a basic minimum (though this might, of course, depend on the numbersinvolved).63

V. Conclusion

Climate change jeopardizes fundamental human rights. I have argued thatseeing climate change in this way helps us to address the intergenerational chal-lenges posed by climate change. In particular, I have

1. rejected a uniform positive pure time discount rate and defended a distinctiveapproach to pure time discounting, arguing that a zero pure time discount rateshould be applied to the Rights Principle but it need not be applied to othervalues;

2. rejected the argument that we may discount the interests of future generationsbecause they will be wealthier, and argued that this does not respect thefundamental rights of future people; and

3. rejected the argument that risk and uncertainty justify discounting. When webear in mind the interpersonal nature of the situation and the rights of therisk-bearers, we should conclude that the advantaged should not expose thevulnerable to the possibility of further rights violations.

A human rights-oriented approach can thus provide guidance on how to thinkabout the social discount rate. Furthermore, it gives us good reason to reject“time” discounting, “growth” discounting, and “risk and uncertainty” discounting.As such, it strengthens the case for an aggressive policy of mitigation and adap-tation dedicated to preventing rights-jeopardizing climate change.

This paper was presented at the “Justice and Boundaries” Conference, UniversityCollege Dublin (May 2, 2008), the Conference on “Human Rights and GlobalLaw,” University of Palermo (June 3–8, 2008), the CSSJ seminar (October 27,2008), and the political theory seminar at the University of Gothenburg (Novem-ber 29, 2008). Parts of the paper draw on a paper given at Amsterdam University


(March 22–23, 2007), University of Washington (May 3–4, 2007), and Universityof Oslo (June 21–24, 2007). I thank the participants for their questions andobjections. I am particularly grateful to John Barry and Göran Duus-Otterström(my respondents at Dublin and Gothenburg, respectively), and to Paul Baer, AlanCarter, Steve Gardiner, Tim Hayward, David Miller, Dominic Roser, and IsabelTrujillo for helpful comments and discussion. The first draft of this paper waswritten during my tenure of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and work on it wascompleted during my tenure of an ESRC Climate Change Leadership Fellowship.I thank the Leverhulme Trust and the ESRC for their support.

Notes

1 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 [1739–40]), bk. III, pt. II,sec. VII, p. 590.

2 Susan Solomon, Dahe Qin, and Martin Manning, “Technical Summary,” in Climate Change 2007:The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report ofthe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Susan Solomon et al. (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2007), 70. It is important to bear in mind that the sea-level projectionsexclude “future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow.”

3 See Simon Caney, “Human Rights, Responsibilities and Climate Change,” in Global Basic Rights, ed.Charles Beitz and Robert Goodin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 227–47; and SimonCaney, “Climate Change, Human Rights and Moral Thresholds,” in Human Rights and ClimateChange, ed. Stephen Humphrey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2009).See also Tim Hayward, Constitutional Environmental Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2005) for a defense of a “human right to an adequate environment” (especially chapter 1).

4 Sir John Houghton, Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004), 30–31.

5 Bjørn Lomborg has famously argued that the resources devoted to mitigating climate change could bebetter spent elsewhere. See Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the RealState of the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 322–24; and also the views ofthe panel of experts reported in Bjørn Lomborg, ed., Global Crises, Global Solutions (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2004), 605–44.

6 The social discount rate has been widely ignored by philosophers. For a rare example, see theilluminating discussion of discounting by Derek Parfit in Reasons and Persons (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986), 480–86.

7 See Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, 8th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1961 [1920]), bk. III,chap. V, sec. 3–4, pp. 119–23; A. C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, 4th ed. (London: Mac-millan, 1946), 24–30; Frank Ramsey, “A Mathematical Theory of Saving,” Economic Journal 38,no. 152 (1928): 543–59; and Sir Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The SternReview (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. 35–37 and 50–60.

8 In what follows I shall refer frequently to “future generations.” Note, of course, that a social discountrate has a bearing not simply on those who have not been born but also on those who are currentlyalive who will remain alive for several years to come. It bears on what resources we devote topeople’s interests in the future where that includes people who are already alive and those who willbe born by then. It would be cumbersome to make this point repeatedly and so for simplicity’s sakeI will refer to future generations.

9 Stern, The Economics of Climate Change, 239.10 Eric Neumayer, “A Missed Opportunity: The Stern Review on Climate Change Fails to Tackle the

Issue of Non-substitutable Loss of Natural Capital,” Global Environmental Change 17, nos. 3–4(2007): 300.

182 Simon Caney

11 Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, 24–30; Ramsey, “A Mathematical Theory of Saving,” 543; andStern, The Economics of Climate Change, 35.

12 R. F. Harrod, “The Supply of Saving,” in Towards a Dynamic Economics: Some Recent Develop-ments of Economic Theory and Their Application to Policy (London: Macmillan, 1949), 40.

13 Ibid., 37.14 Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company,

1981 [1907]), bk. IV, chap. 1, sec. 2, p. 414.15 Stern, The Economics of Climate Change, 53 and 663.16 Even if humanity dies out one might have other very considerable reasons to avert dangerous climate

change. One might have moral reasons stemming from a concern for the natural world and thelives of nonhuman animals. I endorse these other reasons but want to focus here on the impact ofclimate change on human beings.

17 I here follow Frank Knight’s seminal discussion in Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (Boston and NewYork: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1921), esp. 19–20 and 197–232.

18 For excellent empirical data on the impacts of climate change, see Martin Parry, Osvaldo Canziani,Jean Palutikof, Paul van der Linden, and Clair Hanson, eds., Climate Change 2007: Impacts,Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Reportof the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2007); and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley,and Gary Yohe, eds., Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2006).

19 Some, of course, deny that future people have rights. For an argument defending the ascription ofrights to future persons, see Caney, “Human Rights, Responsibilities and Climate Change,” sec. I.

20 For an argument to this effect, see Caney, “Climate Change, Human Rights and Moral Thresholds.”My account is indebted to Raz’s articulation of the interest theory of rights. See Joseph Raz, TheMorality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), chap. 7 in general and p. 166 in particular.

21 Note there are other different kinds of Scope Restricted View. See, for example, that defended byAvner de-Shalit, Why Posterity Matters: Environmental Policies and Future Generations(London: Routledge, 1995), 13–14, 54–55, and 62–65.

22 William Stanley Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970[1879]), chap. III, p. 124.

23 Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, 25; cf. also pp. 25–26.24 Rawls, “The Independence of Moral Theory,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philo-

sophical Association 48 (1974–75): 17. The point is also made in “Reply to Alexander andMusgrave,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 88, no. 4 (1974): 645.

25 Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 414.26 See note 20.27 I have argued elsewhere that this Scope Restricted View is also not vulnerable to various objections

leveled against zero pure time discount rates: Simon Caney, “Climate Change, Human Rights andDiscounting,” Environmental Politics 17, no. 4 (2008): 548–50.

28 For this viewpoint see Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist, 314; William Nordhaus, “Dis-counting in Economics and Climate Change,” Climatic Change 37, no. 2 (1997): 317; WilliamNordhaus, “The Question of Global Warming: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books 55,no. 14 (September 25, 2008): 93.

29 Robert M. Solow gives voice to this thought when he writes: “In social decision-making, however,there is no excuse for treating generations unequally, and the time-horizon is, or should be, verylong. In solemn conclave assembled, so to speak, we ought to act as if the social rate of timepreference were zero (though we would simultaneously discount future consumption if we expectthe future to be richer than the present).” See Robert M. Solow, “The Economics of Resources orthe Resources of Economics,” American Economic Review 64, no. 2 (1974): 9.

30 Nordhaus, “Discounting in Economics and Climate Change,” 317.31 Issues of risk and uncertainty are addressed in the next section.


32 See, for example, Harrod, “The Supply of Saving,” 38ff.33 For instructive discussions of the importance of disaggregating groups when considering discount

rates, see Thomas Schelling, “Intergenerational Discounting,” Energy Policy 23, nos. 4/5 (1995):398–400; and Thomas Schelling, “Intergenerational and International Discounting,” Risk Analysis20, no. 6 (2000): 835–36.

34 For a similar type of argument, see Dan Moller, “Should We Let People Starve—For Now?” Analysis66, no. 291 (2006): 240–47. His argument is not concerned with climate change but with the casefor poverty relief but does have a similar (but nonidentical) structure.

35 I am assuming that if we require future generations to bear the burden of combating climate change,then the policies employed to combat climate change will, correspondingly, take place in thefuture. That is, I am ruling out the possibility that the policy enacted to combat climate change isimplemented in t1 and the bill for doing so is somehow picked up by future people at time t100,say. I am grateful to Vijay Joshi and Andrew Williams for comments on a quite different paperwhich drew attention to this issue.

36 There are, of course, exceptions to this. For example, I think it is unfair to make polluters pay ifmaking them do so pushes them beneath a decent minimum standard of living and thus I affirm apoverty-sensitive Polluter Pays Principle. For further discussion, see Simon Caney, “ClimateChange, Justice and the Duties of the Advantaged,” Critical Review of International Social andPolitical Philosophy 12, no. 2 (forthcoming 2009); and Caney, “Human Rights, Responsibilitiesand Climate Change.” I argue there that Ability to Pay considerations should play a subsidiary role.

37 Stern, The Economics of Climate Change.38 See David Frame and Myles R. Allen, “Climate Change and Global Risk,” in Global Catastrophic

Risk, ed. Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 273–75.John Houghton also discusses positive and negative feedbacks in Global Warming: The CompleteBriefing, 35, 39–40, 90–95, and 186. Edward A. G. Schuur and his coauthors have also argued thatthe melting of permafrost will result in the release of billions of tons of carbon into the atmo-sphere: see Edward A. G. Schuur et al., “Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change:Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle,” Bioscience 58, no. 8 (2008): 701–14.

39 There is a longstanding debate about whether economic growth can offset the loss of environmentalnatural capital. For an important account, see Andrew Dobson’s discussion of different concep-tions of sustainability in Justice and the Environment: Conceptions of Environmental Sustainabil-ity and Dimensions of Social Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

40 There is, of course, a third response, namely that the economic growth counterbalances the threatsto some caused by climate change because the evils suffered by some can be outweighed by thebenefits to others. Given my affirmation of the Rights Principle, I set aside this utilitarian kind ofresponse.

41 This point has been persuasively made by Henry Shue, “Bequeathing Hazards: Security Rights andProperty Rights of Future Humans,” in Global Environmental Economics: Equity and the Limitsto Markets, ed. Mohammed H. I. Dore and Timothy D. Mount (Malden, MA and Oxford:Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 40–42; and by Clive Spash, Greenhouse Economics: Value andEthics (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), chap. 9, esp. pp. 231–36. Shue grounds hisargument on the assumption that the rights in question are inalienable. In contrast to this, I holdthat (1) it is not necessary to appeal to inalienable rights to ground this conclusion; and (2) therights Shue posits (like the right to physical security) are not in fact inalienable (people mayconsent to others inflicting physical pain on them).

42 There is also the obvious but nonetheless important point that some (e.g., those who lose their lifebecause of climate change) cannot be compensated.

43 A similar kind of point is sometimes made about natural phenomena of great value (e.g., glaciers orrainforests or coral reefs). The thought is that these goods are irreplaceable and their loss isirreversible. On this basis, one might argue that it is wrong to act in such a way that these placesof great beauty are destroyed. For pertinent discussion, see Robert E. Goodin, GreenPolitical Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), 57–61; Eric Neumayer, Weak versus Strong

184 Simon Caney

Sustainability: Exploring the Limits of Two Opposing Paradigms, 2nd ed. (Cheltenham: EdwardElgar, 2003); and Neumayer, “A Missed Opportunity,” 299–301.

44 Moreover, as was noted in the previous section, there is also uncertainty about future economicgrowth and uncertainty about the motivations of the wealthy in the future.

45 There are many different versions of the precautionary principle. For some influential formulationsof the precautionary principle, see Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment andDevelopment (http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm) and Article3.3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf). For an instructive analysis, see Jonathan B. Weiner, “Precaution,” inThe Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law, ed. Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée,and Ellen Hey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 597–612.

46 This point is emphasized by Stephen Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” Ethics 114, no.3 (2004): 571–72.

47 My remarks here draw, of course, on Rawls’s well-known claim that utilitarianism “does not takeseriously the distinction between persons” (A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. [Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1999], 24). See also Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell,1974), 33.

48 Martin Parry, Osvaldo Canziani, and Jean Palutikof, “Technical Summary,” in Climate Change 2007:Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assess-ment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Martin Parry, OsvaldoCanziani, Jean Palutikof, Paul van der Linden, and Clair Hanson (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2007), 27.

49 Solomon et al., “Technical Summary,” 52.50 Parry et al., “Technical Summary,” 27.51 Ulisses Confalonieri and Bettina Menne, “Human Health,” in Climate Change 2007: Impacts,

Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Reportof the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Martin Parry, Osvaldo Canziani, JeanPalutikof, Paul van der Linden, and Clair Hanson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2007), 393.

52 Jason A. Lowe, Jonathan M. Gregory, Jeff Ridley, Philippe Huybrechts, Robert J. Nicholls, andMatthew Collins, “The Role of Sea-Level Rise and the Greenland Ice Sheet in Dangerous ClimateChange: Implications for the Stabilisation of Climate,” in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change,ed. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley, and GaryYohe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 30.

53 Michael Oppenheimer and R. B. Alley, “The West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Long TermClimate Policy,” Climatic Change 64, nos. 1–2 (2004): 2. For discussion of the West AntarcticIce Sheet, see also Chris Rapley, “The Antarctic Ice Sheet and Sea Level Rise,” in AvoidingDangerous Climate Change, ed. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, NebojsaNakicenovic, Tom Wigley, and Gary Yohe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),25–27.

54 For discussion of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation, see Michael Vellinga and Richard A. Wood,“Global Climatic Impacts of a Collapse of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation,” ClimaticChange 54, no. 3 (2002): 251–67. See also Michael E. Schlesinger, Jianjun Yin, Gary Yohe,Natalia G. Andronova, Sergey Malyshev, and Bin Li, “Assessing the Risk of a Collapse ofthe Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation,” in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, ed. HansJoachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley, and Gary Yohe(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 37–47; and Richard Wood, Matthew Collins,Jonathan Gregory, Glen Harris, and Michael Vellinga, “Towards a Risk Assessment for Shutdownof the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation,” in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, ed. HansJoachim Schellnhuber, Wolfgang Cramer, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Tom Wigley, and Gary Yohe(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 49–54.

55 Vellinga and Wood, “Global Climatic Impacts,” 255.


http://www.un.org/documents/ga/conf151/aconf15126-1annex1.htm

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf

56 For further pertinent discussion see Michael Oppenheimer and R. B. Alley, “Ice Sheets, GlobalWarming, and Article 2 of the UNFCCC,” Climatic Change 68, no. 3 (2005): 257–67; StefanRahmstorf and Kirsten Zickfeld, “Thermohaline Circulation Changes: A Question of Risk Assess-ment,” Climatic Change 68, nos. 1–2 (2005): 241–47; Stephen H. Schneider, “Abrupt Non-linearClimate Change, Irreversibility and Surprise,” Global Environmental Change 14, no. 3 (2004):245–58; and the report of the Committee on Abrupt Climate Change—Abrupt Climate Change:Inevitable Surprises (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 2002).

57 This is a point stressed by Cass Sunstein in Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 26–34.

58 My invocation of R1 and R2 in support of a precautionary policy is broadly in line with StephenGardiner’s analysis of the precautionary principle and his application of it to global climate changein Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” 577–78. See also his excellent treatment in “ACore Precautionary Principle,” Journal of Political Philosophy 14, no. 1 (2006): 33–60. Gardinerdraws on Rawls’s maximin principle to construct what he terms the “Rawlsian Core PrecautionaryPrinciple” (p. 48). The latter holds that precaution is appropriate when (i) there is uncertainty; (ii)people do not particularly value increases above the kind of minimum guaranteed by the maximinprinciple; and (iii) people strongly object to falling below the minimum standard guaranteed bymaximin (p. 47). As he says, this interpretation of the precautionary principle entails that weshould adopt a precautionary approach to global climate change (p. 55). Gardiner’s treatment in“A Core Precautionary Principle” is slightly different to his earlier treatment in “Ethics and GlobalClimate Change” for whereas the former applies the precautionary principle only to cases ofuncertainty, the latter applies it to cases where there is a “high” probability of severe effects andan “unknown” probability of catastrophe (see “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” 577). Myaccount is closer to this second account, though, by contrast with Gardiner’s account, the conceptof rights plays a crucial role in my argument.

59 Stern, The Economics of Climate Change, chap. 4, esp. pp. 106–14. See also Parry et al., “TechnicalSummary,” 64; and Michel Boko, Isabelle Niang, Anthony Nyong, and Coleen Vogel, “Africa,” inClimate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group IIto the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. MartinParry, Osvaldo Canziani, Jean Palutikof, Paul van der Linden, and Clair Hanson (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. p. 435.

60 For an excellent discussion see Sven Ove Hansson, “Ethical Criteria of Risk Acceptance,” Erkenntnis59, no. 3 (2003): 291–309, esp. 305. The example of driving comes from p. 298. I disagree withHansson’s proposal but will not pursue that here.

61 On this point, I am in full agreement with Henry Shue’s analysis in “Deadly Delays, SavingOpportunities: Creating a More Dangerous World?” in Energy and Responsibility, ed. DenisArnold (forthcoming), 16. Shue relies on something like my D1 and D2, though he does not couchhis arguments in terms of human rights. Shue also eschews any appeal to the possibility ofcatastrophic climate change (that referred to by (b) in my D2) on the grounds that the probabilityis not high enough (see “Deadly Delays,” 12–13).

62 I am relying here on the assumption that persons are entitled to emit subsistence emissions. SeeHenry Shue, “Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions,” Law and Policy 15, no. 1 (1993):39–59.

63 Even if one rejects the claim that they can be justified in emitting subsistence emissions in suchcircumstances, one might hold that their behavior is excusable. For a canonical statement of thisdistinction see J. L. Austin, “A Plea for Excuses,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 57(1956–1957): 1–30.

186 Simon Caney

Runaway Climate Change: A Justice-Based Casefor Precautions

Catriona McKinnon

[T]he existing estimates of [the] social cost [of climate change] are based on IPCC studiesthat so far have not included many . . . irreversible positive feedbacks. . . . So nobody hasyet even asked what price should be attached to a century-long drought in the AmericanWest, or an enfeebled Asian monsoon, or a permanent El Niño in the Pacific, or a methanebelch from the ocean depths, or a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, or sea levelsrising by half a yard in a decade. Though, on reflection, these are perhaps questions not bestanswered by accountants.1

1. Introduction: Catastrophes and Tipping Points

The basic science of climate change (CC)—our understanding of the way inwhich greenhouse gases (GHGs) warm the planet—is well established and under-stood. However, experts still have limited understanding of the nature and signifi-cance of various positive and negative feedback effects that could respectivelyaccelerate or slow CC, and there is much disagreement among them about theaccuracy and reliability of the models positing these effects, and/or the existenceof data sets adequate to support their prediction. In particular, the possibility ofpowerful positive feedbacks is increasingly being taken by many experts to under-mine the “gradualist paradigm” in thinking about CC, most notably as adopted bythe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).2 According to this para-digm, the changes constitutive of CC are cumulative, smooth, and incremental,which makes them easier to predict and plan for. However, challenges to thisparadigm have it that CC might happen through a combination of gradual changesand some very abrupt shifts, as we pass various “tipping points.” These events arepoints of no return, beyond which positive feedbacks causing runaway CC createa world not represented in any IPCC scenarios, and beyond the scope of muchscientific imagination to date. The possibility of passing tipping points on the wayto CC catastrophe (CCC) has led some normally cautious scientists to adopt thelanguage of Armageddon in their attempts to get these possibilities into the publicdebate about CC; for example, NASA scientist James Hansen describes thecurrent state of affairs as “a planetary emergency.”3josp_1446 187..203

There are numerous significant tipping points, and new ones are emerging allthe time.4 To provide focus, I shall limit discussion to a set of frightening positivefeedbacks that scientists have awakened to only recently. Fifty-five million yearsago the Earth experienced a period of extreme and accelerated warming called the


Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), which triggered the largest massextinction event since the “Great Dying” 251 million years ago (in which ninety-five percent of species went extinct). Many scientists believe that the PETM waslargely caused by the release of trillions of tons of methane from beneath theoceans. This methane had been trapped in frozen, honeycombed sediments called“clathrates,” and was released as a result of global warming (probably caused bysolar activity). At present, one to ten trillion tons of methane clathrates existbeneath the world’s oceans, and could be destabilized by the rapidly warmingoceans. The release of even a fraction of this methane could be catastrophic in atleast two ways. First, it could cause massive underwater landslides that wouldcreate tsunamis comparable in size with, or larger than, the one that started in theIndian Ocean on December 26, 2004. Indeed, scientists now believe that the“Storegga slip” eight thousand years ago—which occurred off the coast ofNorway and caused a tsunami of forty feet in Norway, twenty feet in Scotland, andsixty feet in the Shetlands—was caused by the explosive release of methane froma destabilized clathrate. Second, the release of methane on this scale could causerunaway CC from which it would be impossible to recover, given existing levelsof anthropogenic warming;5 it is not science fiction to claim that in these condi-tions temperature increases could exceed 6°C (see section 4 for more detail). Inthis scenario the majority of life on Earth, perhaps including homo sapiens, couldgo extinct.6 Call this scenario “Methane Nightmare.”

I shall argue that a precautionary approach ought to be adopted by policy-makers addressing CC in virtue of the possibility that CC could cause us to passkey tipping points beyond which positive feedbacks are activated that could causerunaway and catastrophic CC. I shall present arguments for the PrecautionaryPrinciple (PP) as the approach to CCCs that should be adopted by policy-makersconcerned (as they should be) with intergenerational justice, and I shall under-stand intergenerational justice in broadly Rawlsian egalitarian terms. What I meanby this is that it is appropriate to adopt Rawls’s conceit of the original positionwhen thinking about intergenerational justice. The impartiality modeled by thismethod for choosing principles of justice is required not only between members ofthe same generation, but also across members of different generations. Rawlsincorporates this commitment into his hypothetical social contract by stipulatingthat intergenerational justice is to be governed by his “Just Savings” principle.7

Parties behind the veil of ignorance are to be thought of as contemporaries: theybelong to the same generation (and know this), but they do not know whichgeneration this is. He calls this the “present time of entry” interpretation of theoriginal position.8 In this situation, parties would adopt a “maximin” rule togovern their choices between different sets of principles and, for Rawls, this holdswith respect to intergenerational as well as intragenerational justice.9

Of course, there are few, if any, policy-makers whose decisions conform to,or whose reasoning reflects, Rawls’s conception of intergenerational justice. Buteven if the non-ideal world of non-compliance with principles of justice enduresforever, it still matters that we recognize the ways in which the world is unjust and

188 Catriona McKinnon

could be made better. The defense of the PP offered herein is a (small) part of thatendeavor as applied to the worst effects of CC on human social and politicalorganization, with particular reference to its intergenerational aspect. In this paper,I shall distinguish between two Rawlsian arguments for taking precautionaryaction against the worst outcomes of CC. I shall show that although both argu-ments provide compelling grounds for taking such action, the argument makingreference to the “strains of commitment” is more powerful than the argumentmaking reference to the unjust distribution of advantage across generations thatcould be caused by failing to take precautions against CCCs.

2. The Precautionary Principle

One feature of CCCs that makes policy making with respect to them sodifficult is that they are uncertain. In one basic sense, the meaning of “uncertainty”is clear: that which is uncertain is not certain. Given that nothing in the future iscertain, and given that all policy is future-oriented, uncertainty (in this basic sense)is integral to the context of every policy decision. Uncertainty in this sense doesnot pose a special problem for policy-makers because it is consistent with a futureevent being uncertain that it is assigned a probability of happening (indeed,probability is a way of expressing uncertainty), and once a policy-maker has thisinformation she can perform a standard risk assessment to guide her thinkingabout the event by multiplying its probability by its costs or impact.

This is not the sense in which CCCs are uncertain. Rather, although CCCs areknown to be possible (often because they have happened in the past), the processesthat cause them are so poorly understood that it is not possible to assign a precisenumerical probability to them, and thus a risk assessment cannot be made.10 CliveSpash’s typology of uncertainty as “weak” and “strong” is helpful here.11 Weakuncertainty exists when outcomes and their probabilities (understood either asobjective features of the world, or as subjective insofar as derived from persons’preferences) are known. The context for much policy making is weak uncertainty,and the dominant approach to policy making in this context is risk assessment.Strong uncertainty exists when outcomes are unknown and/or unpredictable,either because the outcomes are indeterminate, or because the state of knowledgewith respect to these outcomes precludes the assignment of a probability to them.

The strong uncertainty of CCCs renders them an elephant in the room in CCpolicy debates. Of course, some GHG reduction targets—for example, the UK’scommitment to cut CO2 by sixty percent by 2050—can be read as addressed toCCCs just in virtue of the fact that any reduction in GHGs can be seen as an attemptto mitigate CC, CCCs included. But such policies are certainly not justifiedby direct reference to mitigating CCCs; and a cut of sixty percent (let alone thepaltry Kyoto targets) is unlikely to do the job. Furthermore, as already noted, thebibles of policy-makers addressing CC—the IPCC Reports—do not include CCCsin their scenario analyses, and work largely within the gradualist paradigm.

Runaway Climate Change 189

The unavailability of risk assessment as a method for policy making withrespect to strongly uncertain CCCs has led an increasing number of thinkers (eventhose generally sympathetic to cost–benefit analysis, of which risk assessment isan example)12 to give serious consideration to the PP as a guide to policy makingfor such events.13

The PP is sometimes presented as equivalent to, or derived from, the principle“better safe than sorry.” So presented, it is hard to refute: Who would rather besorry than safe? However, these presentations are inaccurate to the PP as it appearsin policy documents.14 Rather, the PP removes constraints on reasons for action inpolicy making where scientific expertise is indispensable: It states that stronguncertainty about harm need, or must, not stand as a reason for inaction withrespect to policy making that would adequately protect people from these harms.The principle has a weak and a strong formulation.

The weak PP: When evidence or information is insufficient to establish thenature and/or probability of harms caused by an activity, policy-makers are permitted to act in order adequately to protect peopleand other entities from these possible harms.

The strong PP: When evidence or information is insufficient to establish thenature and/or probability of harms caused by an activity, policy-makers are required to act in order adequately to protect peopleand other entities from these possible harms.

The weak PP (WPP) is a permissive principle: It states the reasons on whichit is acceptable for policy-makers to act. The WPP permits policy-makers to takepreventive action for reasons other than certainty that the action is necessary toprevent a harm. The strong PP (SPP) is a categorical principle. It states the reasonsupon which policy-makers must act; that is, in order to protect people and otherentities from possible harms, even when the nature and/or probability of theseharms is not known. Given this uncertainty, reasons given in justification of actiontaken in the name of the SPP must appeal to considerations other than those ofevidence- or model-based support for the belief that the action is necessary toprevent a harm. It is relatively rare to find examples of the SPP in policy literature;far more common are varieties of the WPP.15

The WPP is impotent as a constraint on the decisions of policy-makers becauseit is satisfied even if decision making on every policy issue in its scope is postponeduntil the relevant evidence and information is certain; that is, even if no policy-maker ever actually takes precautionary measures as set out in the WPP. When onedoes not do P despite having permission to do P, one acts consistently with thatpermission. Including the WPP in policy documents need have no impact at all onany commitments appearing elsewhere in them, or in any other documents.16

For this reason I shall focus instead on the SPP. This is a steely principle: Itcompels policy-makers to act in the face of strong uncertainty even though theiraction may in fact turn out to be an unnecessary precaution against a non-existent,or vanishingly unlikely, harm. Because such action is almost always expensive


(in literal sterling terms), and costly (in terms of the intrusiveness, disruptiveness,and unpopularity of legislation to satisfy the principle, and its impact on otherpolicy commitments), the SPP is generally dismissed as an unworkable and naïveproposal made by those in the grip of an ideology or suffering from distortedperceptions of risk.

One way of arguing for the SPP with respect to CCCs is with the claim thatthe SPP ought to be adopted by policy-makers in general when framing legislationfor processes that create uncertain risks of harm. It is clear that this sweepingclaim is a non-starter: As Sunstein puts it, “[t]he regulation that the principlerequires always gives rise to risks of its own . . . hence the principle bans what itsimultaneously mandates.”17 Applied at this level of generality, the SPP is literallyincoherent: each course of action it requires of policy-makers it simultaneouslyprohibits.18

Although the SPP is indefensible as a general principle for policy-makers,it is nevertheless defensible with respect to CCCs, against the background of acommitment to deliver justice to future generations. In the next section I lay outa Rawlsian argument that makes this case, and I comment on its limitations. Insection 4 I develop a second (and new) Rawlsian argument which is not subject tothese limitations, and which delivers a more potent justification of the SPP withrespect to CCCs.

3. The Playing Safe Argument

Famously, Rawls offers an interpretation of equality as maximin: to treatpeople as equals means (among other things) to ensure a distribution of (dis)ad-vantage among them that makes the worst-off group as well off as possible. Inaddition, Rawls conceives of justice as intergenerational in scope, governingrelations across generations as well as within them. These commitments can bemade to work to justify the SPP with respect to CCCs as follows.

The SPP is justified with respect to CCCs because the worst consequencesof not taking precautionary action are worse than the worst consequences oftaking precautionary action, and choosing the former course of action is notconsistent with treating present and future people as equals when we cannot assigna probability to each outcome, that is, when we are strongly uncertain of eachoutcome, as is the case with respect to CCCs. We can see this by adopting theRawlsian conceit of the original position, and by imagining what parties choosingprinciples therein would say in justification of their choices to those whoseinterests they represent. What such persons could not do is to take a bet on theprobability of the worst consequences of no precautions being lower than theprobability of the worst consequences of precautions, given the nature of theseconsequences. Call this the “playing safe” argument; in order to make it in full Ineed to specify in more detail the nature of the consequences in question.19

The worst consequences of taking precautions against CCCs are that the costsof adapting to CC turn out to be lower than the costs of taking precautions. The


consequences of CC may turn out to be nowhere near as dire as experts’ worstfears, and it may be that tipping points and their CCCs exist only in nightmaresand Hollywood movies, or are extremely distant in time, giving us more oppor-tunity for cheaper precautionary action at a later date. It may be that the Earth isfar more insensitive to our activities than we think. In this scenario, we spend a lotof money and time—with all the associated opportunity costs this creates—intaking precautions against consequences now that are in fact not necessary. Esti-mates of how much it would cost to implement adequate precautions vary widely;for example, Bjorn Lomborg puts the figure at $37.632 trillion, whereas theEuropean Commission (working with a generous stabilization target of 550 ppmto be met by 2100) chooses $1–8 trillion,20 and the Stern Review estimates the costat one percent of the world GDP in 2050, or $1 trillion.21 These figures are hotlydisputed, but to make the case against precautions as powerful as possible I shalladopt the Lomborg estimate. Call this outcome “Unnecessary Expenditure.”

The worst outcome of not taking precautions is that the worst predictions ofthe IPCC turn out to be very conservative,22 that the gradualist paradigm is false,and that we are on the verge of various tipping points, with everything this entails.The worst outcome of a decision not to take precautionary measures with respectto CC is catastrophic ala Methane Nightmare.

With these outcomes identified, the playing safe argument from maximin forthe SPP with respect to CC is prima facie powerful: Because Methane Nightmareis so much worse than Unnecessary Expenditure, we ought not to act as if theworst case scenario of taking precautions is more probable than this worst casescenario of not taking precautions, and thus we ought to take precautions againstCCCs. Acting as if the worst consequences of taking precautions are more prob-able than the worst consequences of not taking precautions is ruled out because theharms that would be caused to present and future people by policy made on thisassumption, if it turns out to be false, are much greater than the harms that wouldbe caused by policy made on the first assumption, if this turns out to be false. Andtreating people as equals makes it impermissible to gamble with their interests inthis way.

Stephen Gardiner’s elaboration (following Rawls) of the conditions underwhich Rawlsian maximin reasoning delivers the requirement to take precautions ishelpful.23 These are when (i) decision makers are in a state of strong uncertaintywith respect to the probability of the events in question; (ii) decision makers areindifferent to gains above the minimum that a maximin strategy would guarantee;and (iii) the alternatives to a decision guided by maximin are unacceptable.24

We have seen that (i) is true of CCCs (I shall consider objections to this claim insection 5). Conditions (ii) and (iii) are questioned when it is claimed that it isrational or reasonable to gamble on the probability of Unnecessary Expenditurebeing higher than Methane Nightmare—and so not to take precautions—becauseif this gamble pays off the gains are so much higher than if the bet is not placedat all, or is placed on the probability of Methane Nightmare being higher thanUnnecessary Expenditure.25 Call this the “skeptical stance.”


There are two comments on the skeptical stance. First, it does not takeseriously the possibility that even if the bet at its heart were to turn out to be good,we may still have reason not to make it in virtue of how taking precautions againstCCCs could have all sorts of other benefits that would make this choice attractiveeven if any CCC turns out to be highly improbable. This is the so-called “noregrets” strategy: the requirement to take precautionary measures against CCCscould stimulate technological innovation, efficiency measures, and new formsof political interaction that could greatly enhance the quality of our lives even ifthe precautions turn out to have been redundant with respect to CCCs. In otherwords, the opportunity costs created by not taking precautions might make italways less costly to take precautions, even taking into account the possibility thatthe probability of any CCC is tiny. Although the “no regrets” strategy is not partof Rawlsian maximin and so, strictly speaking, not part of the playing safeargument, it is certainly not inconsistent with it; indeed, it could be proposed as aninterpretation of condition (iii) above: not taking precautions is an unacceptablealternative not only because of the possibility of CCCs, but also because of thepossible gains associated with precautionary measures. Of course, whether takingprecautionary action against CC is a no regrets strategy is highly controversial.Hence, if there is an alternative, or complementary, way to undermine the skep-tical stance, then all to the better.

This brings me to my second comment, which relates to the type of justiceto which the playing safe argument as it stands appeals. The argument is that CCpolicy-makers concerned to treat persons (always remembering that this includesfuture generations) as equals should be guided by the maximin rule to takeprecautions against CCCs, because Methane Nightmare is much worse thanUnnecessary Expenditure. In what ways, exactly, is Methane Nightmare worsethan Unnecessary Expenditure? Clearly, there are all kinds of losses—in biodi-versity, to ecosystems, of habitats—that would occur under Methane Nightmarebut not under Unnecessary Expenditure. Let me put these to one side in orderto focus on a harm people in Methane Nightmare would suffer that people inUnnecessary Expenditure would not. In Unnecessary Expenditure we wasteresources that could have been used to improve the position of the worst off in thecurrent generation or, indeed, that could have been saved for the benefit of theworst off in future generations. These are considerations of distributive justice,and in line with the impartiality at the heart of the Rawlsian approach to justice,duties of distributive justice are intergenerational in scope.26 If we have a duty toensure that the worst off—understood in intergenerational terms—are as well offas possible, and if Unnecessary Expenditure conflicts with this duty, then we havea reason to reject courses of action leading to it, and should avoid it, all else beingequal.

The playing safe argument as presented so far can be read as claiming that allelse is not equal: the distributive injustice that would be created by MethaneNightmare is worse than that created by Unnecessary Expenditure, and we mustchoose between courses of action to which Unnecessary Expenditure and


Methane Nightmare attach as worst outcomes, in which case we should aim toavoid the worst worse outcome—that is, Methane Nightmare—by taking precau-tions. Any disadvantage that accrues to the worst off as a result of this choice isjustifiable to them in the name of equality: Given the badness of Methane Night-mare, choosing not to take precautions—given our uncertainty—would be togamble with their interests by betting on the probability of Methane Nightmarebeing lower than that of Unnecessary Expenditure.

However, as we have seen, making the argument in terms of distributivejustice leaves it vulnerable to the skeptical stance, as follows. This version of theargument turns on the requirement to ensure that the worst-off generation is aswell off as possible in terms of tangible goods, which includes generations in thefuture who may suffer huge disadvantage if we do not take precautions againstCCCs. It can then be objected that tangible goods can be priced, and that the costof taking precautions now will make these goods unaffordable for future genera-tions. People who take the skeptical stance characteristically specify why it isrational or reasonable to gamble on the probability of Unnecessary Expenditurebeing higher than Methane Nightmare (and so not to take precautions) in terms ofmonetary gains and losses: crudely, we will be richer, and make future generationsricher, if we do not take precautions. Of course, most people who take this tackalso insist that monetary gains and losses matter because we can do things withmoney, such as improving human health.27 However, as has been observed fre-quently, there are things we value (or ought to value) which cannot be comparedin value to other valuable things, and so are not amenable to being priced.Consequently, such incommensurably valuable things do not appear in the calcu-lations that inform rejection of precautionary approaches such as this.28 One ofthese things is intergenerational justice.29

The playing safe argument as made so far is limited to a conception ofintergenerational justice in distributive terms. However, there is another way tomake the playing safe argument that articulates the impermissible gamble at itsheart in terms of a more fundamental vision of what intergenerational justicerequires, and evades the skeptical stance. I make that argument in the next section.

4. The Unbearable Strains of Commitment

There is something bad about Methane Nightmare that is related to justice,but is not well captured in terms of distributive justice, and which is absent inUnnecessary Expenditure. Highlighting this feature of Methane Nightmare makesavailable to us an extra reason for taking precautions against CC that justifies thischoice not just in virtue of an egalitarian commitment not to gamble with theinterests of the worst off in accumulating as many tangible goods as possible, butalso in virtue of a commitment to making it possible for future people to committhemselves to justice at all. This additional badness turns on the fact that MethaneNightmare would create unbearable strains of commitment for those living


through and after it: it would make unreasonable any mutual expectations amongfuture generations that they should propose and abide by fair principles of jus-tice.30 If this would be true of future generations in Methane Nightmare, thenwe—the current generation—cannot adopt principles for action on CC that couldhave this outcome.

The strains of commitment are related to the idea of making an agreement ingood faith; in Rawls’s words, “not only with the full intention to honour it but alsowith a reasonable conviction that one will be able to do so.”31 Rawls claims thatexcessive strains of commitment cause people to withhold affirmation of prin-ciples of justice in two ways. First, people “become sullen and resentful . . . readyas the occasion arises to take violent action in protest against [their] condition”;and second, people “grow distant from political society . . . withdrawn and cynical[they] cannot affirm the principles of justice in . . . thought and conduct over acomplete life.”32

Any attempt to implement principles of justice in Methane Nightmare—andmany other CCCs—would probably have these effects on people. An indication ofthe temperature rises that might be experienced in Methane Nightmare is availableby looking back at the PETM, to which it is thought that the collapse of methaneclathrates greatly contributed.33 In this period, average temperatures increased by5–10°C.34 One of the few models that address the effect of a global temperaturerises of 5°C predicts severe desertification in already arid regions35—decimatingmost of the world’s breadbaskets—combined with huge increases in precipitationat higher latitudes, making floods and storms more frequent.36 The net resultof a 5°C increase would be worldwide famine, severe conflict over water in theworld’s desertified regions, and extreme territorial insecurity for those living inthe dwindling inhabitable areas as an archipelago of refuges is put under increas-ing pressure by hungry and desperate people.37

At a 6°C increase, however, things likely become very much worse. MarkLynas suggests that the best reference point for this amount of warming is not thePETM, but rather the end of the Permian era 251 million years ago, when the“Great Dying” extinction event, which wiped out ninety-five percent of the plan-et’s species, occurred as a result of a temperature increase of 6°C.38 At thePermian-Triassic boundary, the oceans heated drastically and became devoid ofoxygen, and so unable to support life, and also spawned superhurricanes whichdistributed heat to the poles (a further positive feedback).39 Destabilized methaneclathrates beneath the oceans released huge quantities of CH4 which, if ignited,would have generated explosive, lethal blast waves traveling at two kilometers persecond, and killing everything in their path.40 The rotting carcasses of animals, anddecaying vegetation, in the oceans released large amounts of hydrogen sulphide,obliterating any remaining life there,41 killing most remaining land animals whenreleased into the atmosphere,42 and destroying the ozone layer. For temperaturerises beyond 6°C, predicting the effects is guesswork, but looking to conditions onVenus gives some indication. It is crucial to note that the temperature increasesthat caused the Great Dying probably took ten thousand years to effect, whereas—


even on the conservative estimates of the IPCC—we could achieve such warmingin one hundred years. As Lynas puts it, “[i]f we had wanted to destroy as much oflife on Earth as possible, there would have been no better way of doing it than todig up and burn as much fossil hydrocarbon as we possibly could.”43

The extreme scarcity of resources and almost unimaginable conditions inMethane Nightmare would make the joint pursuit of justice impossible.44 Whenthere is not enough for each to have even the bare minimum for survival, to askanyone to do anything other than pursue their self-preservation and perhaps that oftheir family—such as to act according to the demands of justice—is to ask themto accept death so that others can live. In normal circumstances, the sacrifices inself-interest required by justice are not unreasonable and, all else being equal, donot impose unbearable strains of commitment on those on whom they fall. But incircumstances as desperate as Methane Nightmare, where self-preservation domi-nates all other motivations, any justice-based request for self-sacrifice will at leastendanger a person’s chances of survival, if not actually require their death. Whatmakes this request an unbearable strain of commitment is not just the content ofthe request in itself; rather, it is that this request be accepted as a requirement ofjustice, that is, as a measure against which those upon whom it falls can make nojustified complaint.45 If future generations know that precautions could have beentaken by their ancestors that would have averted Methane Nightmare, and wouldhave made the request unnecessary, then sullenness, resentment, alienation fromprinciples from which the request is derived, and violent protest against therequest, are the least we can expect from them.46

If social cooperation is possible in such circumstances, it is not according toprinciples of justice. In contrast, the badness of Unnecessary Expenditure is notrelated to any unbearable strains of commitment it would create.47 The putativereason for avoiding it is not that it destroys the possibility of justice, but thatavoiding unnecessary expenditure allows for a more just distribution of goods bymaking more goods available for redistribution and/or saving now. That futuregenerations are made less well off than they could have been because the currentgeneration takes precautions against the CCCs that its activities could inflict onfuture generations is not obviously unjust (indeed, I have claimed that there aregood reasons of justice for taking precisely this course of action). And thatmembers of future generations know that they could have been made better off hadthe current generation not taken precautions does not create a strain of commit-ment for them that makes their joint pursuit of justice impossible. That futuregenerations have fewer goods than they would have had had precautions not beentaken is not in itself a reason for them to reject any requirements made of them byprinciples of justice in such reduced circumstances, especially given their knowl-edge that the decision of the current generation to save less in order to takeprecautions was made in conditions of strong uncertainty, and in the name ofdelivering justice to their descendants.

If not taking precautions against CCCs could impose conditions on futuregenerations that would make the joint pursuit of justice by them impossible, then


we—the current generation—cannot decide not to take such precautions. Whenthinking through our decisions from the point of view of justice we are requiredto adopt the standpoint of impartiality, which in part requires that we should notchoose principles of social cooperation that could impose on future generationsconditions which we ourselves could not agree to. To choose not to take precau-tions against CCCs such as Methane Nightmare violates this fundamental require-ment of impartiality.48

5. Some Problems

The SPP is a highly controversial principle, and the science of tipping pointsand CCCs is young: bringing the two together delivers an approach open to manyobjections. I shall consider just two of these here. The first questions the fitnessof the SPP as a principle for policy-makers in conditions of strong uncertainty,and the second addresses the scope of the SPP.

The first objection focuses on the SPP’s requirement that precautions mustprovide adequate protection against uncertain harms.49 With respect to specifyingwhat counts as adequate protection, there are two basic options:

(a) that we devote all of our resources and efforts to taking precautions; and

(b) that we devote less than all of our resources and efforts to taking precautions.

Prima facie, (a) is implausibly demanding because it would leave noresources for the pursuit of other important social goals. However, (b) is wildlyvague, and gives no useful guidance to policy-makers. But being more preciseabout exactly how many, and what, resources are sufficient for adequate pro-tection against a harm requires that we specify the probability of the harm:without this specification, the notion of what is adequate loses its anchor, andwe must rely on guesswork. This fact about specifying what is adequate createsthe following problem. Either we can specify the probability of harmful eventsto which the SPP applies, or we cannot. If we cannot, then the SPP provides noguidance with respect to making policy for those events. Given that we cannotspecify the probability of CCCs, the SPP provides no guidance to policy-makersconcerned with this aspect of CC. There is a way of making the same objectionthat comes at it from the other end, so to speak, as follows. We must know thatany given CCC putatively governed by the SPP is not bound to happen—that is,that its probability is not one hundred percent—otherwise, we would not botherto think about taking precautions against it (they would be futile, given ourcertainty that it is inevitable) and would perhaps just throw a big party instead.50

In that case, we are not in a state of strong uncertainty with respect to the CCCsI have claimed fall within the scope of the SPP. In sum, the problem can beposed as a dilemma: Either our genuine strong uncertainty about CCCs makesthe SPP inappropriate as a principle for policy-makers addressing them, or our


application of the SPP to CCCs shows that we are not in a state of stronguncertainty about them.

In response, I think it is possible to specify two limiting cases to our stronguncertainty about CCCs that do not undermine the strength and nature of thisuncertainty.51 These are that we know the probability of CCCs is not zero, and isnot 100. That is, we know CCCs are not certain not to happen, and are not certainto happen, which means that we know that it is possible that precautions couldmake a difference, and that enacting them is not necessarily futile. Nevertheless,we remain strongly uncertain of the probability of these catastrophes within therange of anything more than zero, and anything less than 100. And given thecatastrophic nature of the events, any probability in this range justifies precau-tions. This does not, however, mean that we are necessarily committed to devotingall our resources and efforts to precautions. If the SPP is, sensibly, qualified with“all else being equal,” then it is possible to claim that all else is not, in fact, equalbecause there are other important and urgent demands of justice that requireresources to be achieved. In the face of strong uncertainty, it is these demands thatset constraints on what counts as adequate for protection, and not any further,more precise, specification of the probability of various CCCs. The question ofwhat other demands of justice there are that are sufficiently important and urgentto play this role is, however, properly a political question, to be debated bymembers of the demos, and to be decided using appropriate procedures fordemocratic decision making. Although experts can provide valuable informationnecessary to preserve the quality of such decision making, the decisions them-selves are ultimately up to us.52

This relates to the second objection. There are various future events that arecatastrophic to the same degree, uncertain in the same way, and would createsimilarly unbearable strains of commitment for future generations, as CCCs, butwhich are not related to CC and so would remain untouched by any precautionarypolicy adopted to mitigate CCCs; for example, comet collision. The Chicxulubcrater in Mexico is the remnant of a ten-kilometer-wide asteroid that strucksixty-five million years ago, and is widely believed to have caused the extinctionof the dinosaurs.53 Given that such a collision would no doubt do the same to us,should we be developing missile programs to defend ourselves against this pos-sible future harm? If so, what about supervolcanic eruptions? Or invasions ofmalevolent aliens? Why should we devote our attention and limited resources totaking precautions against CCCs as opposed to other possible global catastrophes?Call this the “priorities” problem.54

The priorities problem can be addressed by reflection on the following point.First, the CCCs to which the SPP applies are anthropogenically caused, and thisdistinguishes them from comet collisions, supervolcanic explosions, and so on.The fact that we are doing things that could be (quickly) moving us closer tovarious tipping points gives us a reason for taking precautions against its cata-strophic effects that we do not have with respect to other non-anthropogenicallycaused catastrophes: That we are, or could be, causing the problem prima facie


renders us liable for finding the solution,55 and gives us a reason to prioritizefinding a solution to that problem over others we are not, or could not be, causing(such as comet collision).

The existence of this reason in part alleviates the priorities problem, butpossibly varies in its potency across two cases marking either end of a spectrum.In the first case our status as the cause of possible CCCs is bad option luck forus, the current generation: In the full knowledge that increasing GHG emissionscould move us closer to tipping points leading to CCCs, we are taking our chancesand increasing our GHG emissions anyway. The correct analogy here is withthe drunken driver who knowingly imbibes and then knocks down and kills aninnocent child: The driver is fully morally responsible, and legally liable, for thedeath. Just as the driver either ought not to drink, or if it is too late and she isdrunk, ought to take a cab, so we ought to enact precautions to protect futuregenerations (the exact analogy for our circumstances vis-à-vis GHG emissions isprobably the case of taking a cab). Note that if the problem of CC were notintergenerational in nature the drunk driver analogy would be incorrect. Instead, itwould be open to us to claim that knowingly and intentionally increasing our GHGemissions creates risks of harm for no-one other than us and that—invokingsomething like Mill’s harm principle56—we are thus under no obligation to abstainfrom, or mitigate the effects of, our risky activities. An accurate analogy wouldinstead be of someone with no dependents or other special obligations to otherswho chooses to take heroin knowing the risks. But brute facts about the atmo-spheric life of CO2, and the speed at which the CC it causes occurs, mean thatvulnerable future generations cannot be written out of the picture: They stand tous as the innocent child stands to the drunken driver.

The second case, lying at the other end of the spectrum, makes less headwaywith respect to the priorities problem. This is when being the cause of a (possible)harm carries no implications for blameworthiness and is nothing but a piece of badbrute luck for the agent. The analogy here is of a sober and careful driver who killsan innocent child through no fault of her own. That we think the agent’s causalefficacy has some moral significance in cases such as these is shown by the factthat we would judge any such driver who experienced no regret at having killed achild—who simply shrugged it off as “one of those things”—as seriously morallydeficient.57 However, explaining the significance of the agent’s causal efficacy formoral responsibility, and (perhaps) legal liability, in such cases is far fromstraightforward.58 If the current generation stands to future generations as theblameless driver stands to the innocent child she kills, then it is less clear whatdifference it makes to the priorities problem that the CCCs under consideration areanthropogenically caused in contrast to other catastrophes which are not.

However, in my view, and in the view of most experts, we are in fact closer tothe “bad option luck” than “bad brute luck” end of the spectrum—if not, in fact,at it—in which case the priorities problem is more tractable than at first blush. Butnote that even if we were closer to—if not at—the “bad brute luck” end of thespectrum, the priorities problem does not stymie the approach proposed in this


paper, once we attend to what the problem actually is. The additional work that thepriorities problem asks for is required to justify not extending the SPP to non-anthropogenically caused catastrophes. This lacuna in the account of the overallscope of the SPP does not affect the argument that it extends at least as far as CCCs.Thus, we do not need to wait for these further refinements before starting to thinkseriously about how to formulate and implement precautionary policies for CCCs.

6. Conclusion

In conclusion, I have distinguished between two Rawlsian arguments for theSPP with respect to CCCs. Although both are persuasive, ultimately the “unbear-able strains” argument provides the most powerful categorical grounds for takingprecautionary action against CCCs. Overall, I have argued that the nature of CCCsrequires us to take drastic precautions against further CC that could lead us to passthe tipping points that cause them. This is the case notwithstanding the fact that weare in a state of strong uncertainty with respect to these events; indeed, our stronguncertainty with respect to them—given their nature—makes the case for action toprevent them even more persuasive, from the point of view of justice. Some peopletranslate the strong uncertainty of CCCs into weak uncertainty in order to justifytaking precautionary action using risk assessment.59 My argument is complemen-tary to theirs. If divergent approaches to the uncertainty of CCCs neverthelessconverge on the PP, then we have what Cass Sunstein calls an “incompletelytheorized agreement” on a policy, that is, an agreement to which parties divided byoften deep theoretical differences can nevertheless give their assent,60 which isall to the good from a political point of view. In the specific case of CC and itspossible catastrophes, the fact that such an agreement has emerged provides asliver of hope in the face of the increasingly dismal prospects for the planetuncovered by CC science as it progresses. At the level of principle, we are agreed,whatever justificatory reasons we advance. What is needed now—in the immedi-ate present—is policy to promote our principles, and the political will to enact it.

I would like to thank Gillian Brock, Nigel Pleasants, Jurgen de Wispelaere, JoWolff, and the audience at the Priority in Practice Workshop, University CollegeLondon, April 25, 2007, for very useful comments, suggestions, and discussion.Work on this paper was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship(Grant No. RFG/2006/0303), for which I am very grateful.

Notes

1 Fred Pearce, With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change(Boston: Beacon Press, 2007).

2 I borrow this term from the excellent discussion in Stephen Gardiner, “Saved by Disaster? AbruptClimate Change, Political Inertia and the Possibility of an Intergenerational Arms Race,” Journalof Social Philosophy 40, no. 2 (2009): 140–62 (this issue).


3 James Hansen, “Tipping Point: Perspective of a Climatologist: Abstract.” Available at http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/inpress/Hansen_1.html (accessed July 5, 2007).

4 See Pearce, With Speed and Violence.5 Ibid., 90–98.6 See Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (London: HarperCollins, 2007),

207–62.7 See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 251–58.8 Ibid., 121.9 Rawls argues that “maximin” is the decision rule that would be adopted by parties in the original

position: it directs them to choose principles that govern a distribution of advantages wherein theworst-off group is made as well off as possible.

10 Cf. Kristian S. Ekeli, “Environmental Risks, Uncertainty and Intergenerational Ethics,” Environmen-tal Values 13, no. 4 (2004): 426–27.

11 See Clive Spash, Greenhouse Economics: Value and Ethics (London: Routledge, 2002), 122.12 See, for example, Richard Posner, Catastrophe: Risk and Response (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2004), 148; and Cass Sunstein, “The Catastrophic Harm Precautionary Principle,” Issuesin Legal Scholarship 7 (2007): Article 3, available at http://www.bepress.com/ils/iss10/art3(accessed July 1, 2007).

13 For example, see Sven Ove Hansson, “The Limits of Precaution,” Foundations of Science 2, no. 2(1997): 293–306; Per Sandin, “The Precautionary Principle and the Concept of Precaution,”Environmental Values 13 (2004): 461–75; European Environment Agency, The PrecautionaryPrinciple in the 20th Century (London: Earthscan, 2002); Derek Turner and Lauren Hartzell, “TheLack of Clarity in the Precautionary Principle,” Environmental Values 13 (2004): 449–60; andRadoslav S. Dimitrov, “Precaution in Global Environmental Politics,” International Journal ofGlobal Environmental Issues 5, no. 1 (2005): 96–113.

14 Such as the Maastricht Treaty Article 130r, or the Rio Declaration on Environment and DevelopmentPrinciple 15. For a comprehensive list of international legal documents in which the WeakPrecautionary Principle (WPP) and the Strong Precautionary Principle (SPP) appear, see EuropeanEnvironment Agency, The Precautionary Principle, 6.

15 For more on the WPP see Edward Soule, “Assessing the Precautionary Principle,” Public AffairsQuarterly 14, no. 4 (2000): 309–28.

16 This could be either a consequence of the nature of the principle (it is non-categorical), or aconsequence of the unprincipled nature of policy-makers, or both. I take no stand here on thequestion of whether a principle must be categorical to count as such, or to qualify as adequate. Asfor policy-makers, it is almost certainly the case that they are often motivated by reasons notjustified by good principles.

17 Cass Sunstein, Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 2005), 14.

18 Note, though, that Sunstein does defend a Precautionary Principle for uncertain catastrophes, theparadigm of which he takes to be climate change catastrophes (CCCs). See Sunstein, “TheCatastrophic Harm Precautionary Principle.”

19 Note that this argument does not turn on the controversial claim that maximin is the principle ofrational choice in all circumstances of uncertainty. Rather, it is (a) limited to CCCs, and (b) it isan argument from egalitarian justice, which I do not take to be justified by reference to principlesof rational choice.

20 Both figures given in George Monbiot, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning (London: Allen Lane,2006), 51.

21 With a range of -1% to +3.5%. The Stern Review, Executive Summary (2006), 13–16, available athttp://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/media/8AC/F7/Executive_Summary.pdf (accessed February 21,2007).

22 It is worth noting that the content of IPCC Reports is decided by consensus among the authors. Giventheir often deep divergences of scientific opinion, the net effect of this method is to produce


http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/inpress/Hansen_1.html

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/inpress/Hansen_1.html

http://www.bepress.com/ils/iss10/art3

http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/media/8AC/F7/Executive_Summary.pdf

conservative statements—the lowest common denominator of scientific opinion to which allauthors can agree.

23 Note that Gardiner refers to this principle as the “Rawlsian Core Precautionary Principle.” SeeStephen Gardiner, “A Core Precautionary Principle,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 14, no.1 (2006): 33–60, at 47–48.

24 Ibid., 47. Gardiner also adds a criterion that specifies that the threats addressed by any PrecautionaryPrinciple must be “realistic” (p. 51), for example, not science fiction, purely imagined, paranoid,purely religiously inspired, and so on. Note that the science that informs Methane Nightmare issound.

25 For discussion see Gardiner, “A Core Precautionary Principle,” 56–57.26 Note, however, that Rawls himself does not conceive of his principle of intergenerational justice (the

Just Savings Principle) as a principle of distributive justice. It is debatable whether he is wise inthis approach. For an alternative interpretation of the Just Savings Principle, see Frederic Gaspartand Axel Gosseries, “Are Generational Savings Unjust?” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 6(2007): 193–217.

27 See, for example, Bjørn Lomborg, “Climate Change Can Wait. World Health Can’t,” The Observer,July 2, 2006.

28 See, for example, Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling, Priceless: On Knowing the Price ofEverything and the Value of Nothing (New York: The New Press, 1994); and Elizabeth Anderson,Value in Ethics and Economics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

29 Of course, economists and utilitarians—for whom all values are commensurable—will vigorouslyobject at this point. Classic defenses of the existence of incommensurable values fit to meet theseobjection can be found in, for example, Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” The CrookedTimber of Humanity (London: John Murray, 1990); and Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

30 Again, economists and utilitarians committed to denying the existence of incommensurable valueswill not be moved by such an argument, as they will reject the incommensurable value ofintergenerational justice that lies at its heart. However, it is important to note that, in this case,all roads could lead to Rome. Economists and consequentialists can make alternative argumentsfor the SPP with respect to CCCs that do not depend on the incommensurable value of doingintergenerational justice. See, for example, Posner, Catastrophe, chap. 3; and Sunstein, “TheCatastrophic Harm Precautionary Principle.”

31 John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001),102.

32 Ibid., 128.33 See Gerald Dickens, “The Blast in the Past,” Nature 401 (1999): 752–55.34 Scott L. Wing, Guy J. Harrington, Francesca A. Smith, Jonathan I. Bloch, Douglas M. Boyer, and

Katherine H. Freeman, “Transient Floral Change and Rapid Global Warming at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary,” Science 310 (2005): 333–36.

35 See Syukuro Manabe, Richard T. Wetherald, Christopher Milly, Thomas L. Delworth, and Ronald J.Stouffer, “Century-Scale Change in Water Availability: CO2 Quadrupling Experiment,” ClimaticChange 64 (2004): 59–76.

36 Chris Huntingford, Rhiannon L. Jones, Christel Prudhomme, Richard C. Lamb, John H.C. Gash, andDavid A. Jones, “Regional Climate-Model Predictions of Extreme Rainfall for a ChangingClimate,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 129 (2003): 1607–21.

37 See Lynas, Six Degrees, 223–30.38 Ibid., 233ff.39 See David Kidder and Thomas Worsley, “Causes and Consequences of Extreme Permo-Triassic

Warming to Globally Equitable Climate and Relation to the Permo-Triassic Extinction andRecovery,” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 203, nos. 3–4 (2004): 207–37.

40 See Gregory Ryskin, “Methane-Driven Oceanic Eruptions and Mass Extinctions,” Geology 31, no. 9(2003): 741–44.


41 See Jesper K. Nielsen andYanan Shen, “Evidence for Sulphidic Deep Water During the Late Permianin the East Greenland Basin,” Geology 32, no. 12 (2004): 1037–40.

42 See Lee R. Kump et al., “Massive Release of Hydrogen Sulfide to the Surface Ocean and Atmo-sphere During Intervals of Ocean Anoxia,” Geology 33, no. 5 (2005): 367–400.

43 Lynas, Six Degrees, 254; emphasis in original.44 Note that this is not to say that there could be no justice between people in such circumstances,

or between us and them; rather, it is to say that they would be in no position to achieve justice.See Brian Barry, “Circumstances of Justice and Future Generations,” in Obligations to FutureGenerations, ed. R. I. Sikora and Brian Barry (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press,1978), 204–48.

45 For reflections bearing on this point, see John M. Taurek, “Should the Numbers Count?” Philosophyand Public Affairs 6, no. 4 (1977): 293–316.

46 For more on this question, see my “Getting Motivated in the Last Chance Saloon,” Critical Reviewof Social and Political Philosophy (in press).

47 I grant that this claim does not hold in all possible worlds. For example, when the costs of precautionsare one hundred percent of GDP every year, then the harms of Unnecessary Expenditure couldexceed the harms of Methane Nightmare. However, this is not the case, even according to thehighest estimates of the costs of precautions. That the claim is true in the actual world is goodenough for me.

48 For discussion of whether placing the strains of commitment at the heart of political justification inthis way is consistent with a contractualist approach, see Jean Hampton, “Contracts and Choices:Does Rawls Have a Social Contract Theory?” The Journal of Philosophy 77, no. 6 (1980): 315–38.

49 Thanks are due to Jo Wolff for pressing this objection with me.50 Mike Otsuka made the point to me in this way, although I think the addition of a big party is mine.51 I am grateful to Jurgen de Wispelaere for suggesting this way forward to me.52 Note that there may also be further categorical principles relevant to CC justice which, like the SPP,

ought to frame the political debate but are not themselves justified by reference to the deliberationsof the demos. One such set of principles relates to corrective justice, whereby (roughly) compen-sation is owed by an agent of harm to those she harms. See my “Corrective Justice and ClimateChange,” Annual Review of Law and Ethics (in press).

53 See Posner, Catastrophe, 24–29.54 Perhaps the SPP would be insulated to some degree against the priorities problem by incorporating

into the account Gardiner’s “realistic outcomes” criterion (see note 27). This would, for example,probably rule out alien invasions as events against which CCCs compete for resources necessaryfor precautionary action. However, it would not rule out everything. Comet collisions and super-volcanic explosions are very real possibilities.

55 Note that I do not limit liability with the requirement that an agent of harm is in fact the cause of thatharm; I think that risk creation, where harms have not yet in fact been caused, can create liabilityin some cases. See my “Corrective Justice and Climate Change.”

56 This principle states that a person ought to be free from interference by the state and by others unlessher actions affect the interests of others and cause them harm. See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chap. 1.

57 For a classic discussion, see Bernard Williams, “Moral Luck,” in Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1981), 20–40.

58 For discussions that bear on this hard question, see Judith Jarvis Thomson, “Remarks on Causationand Liability,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13, no. 2 (1984): 101–33.

59 See, for example, Posner, Catastrophe, chap. 3; and Sunstein, “The Catastrophic Harm PrecautionaryPrinciple.”

60 See Sunstein, Laws of Fear, 2.


Justice and the Assignment of the Intergenerational Costs ofClimate Change

Darrel Moellendorf

I

Matters of intergenerational justice are fundamental to discussions of justiceand climate change. This is the case for several reasons. We are confident that ouremissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are having an effect on the global climatesystem. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) six differentclimate models in their Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) predict global meantemperature increases ranging from 1.8°C to 4.0°C during this century.1 This isprojected to increase global mean sea levels by 0.18 to 0.59 meters.2 The attendantweather changes are less certain, as is how they will vary from region to region.But some of the effects that AR4 predicts as very likely include hotter hightemperatures, more frequent heat waves, and greater precipitation in high lati-tudes. Effects that it estimates as likely include decreased precipitation in thesubtropics and increased intensity of tropical cyclones.3 The Third AssessmentReport (TAR) warns of a weakening of the thermohaline circulation and itspossible abrupt shutdown after 2100.4 Unlike TAR, however, AR4 does notdiscuss the probabilities of severe or catastrophic adverse effects. But this absenceis the subject of controversy among climate scientists, some of whom charge thatpolitically motivated redactions to AR4 occurred.5josp_1447 204..224

The effects of anthropogenic climate change will produce costs for personsin the future who will have to adapt to the changes. Crops will need to bechanged or farmers will have to move. For many people food security will bethreatened; some will go hungry as a result; other will starve. Homes and com-munities will need to be moved as sea levels rise. Some houses will be wipedout by sudden extreme storms. TAR stresses the disproportionate costs of adap-tation for lower-income populations and the risks to populations in low-lyingcoastal regions and small islands. In general it predicts that, “[t]he impacts ofclimate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and thepoor persons within all countries, and thereby exacerbate inequities in healthstatus and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources.”6 A recentstudy indicates that more than six hundred million people (ten percent of theworld’s population) live in low lying areas at higher risk to sea-level rises, andthis amount is expected to increase as the urbanization of the global populationcontinues.7


The effects of climate change and the costs of adapting to it can be mitigatedby our policy choices. Such choices will produce mitigation costs for us as theywill require significantly different energy production and use policies. Cleanersources of energy are more expensive. The relative costs of the alternative sourcesof energy can be brought down by increasing the costs of using fossil fuels. But anincrease in the absolute costs of energy is then guaranteed. It is highly unlikelythat there will be significant mitigation without incurring such increased costs.The costs of adaptation and mitigation apply to a number of activities satisfyingvery important human interests, such as transportation, heating and cooling,shelter, food cultivation and production, security, income, government, and rec-reation. The assignment of the costs of mitigation and adaptation then is animportant matter of justice.

The matter of justice is between generations. It takes time to reduce globalCO2 emissions. We have no experience of doing so yet. But even if we beginreducing, the IPCC projects that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere willcontinue to increase in the absence of very large emissions reductions.8 TARholds that “[s]tabilization of CO2 concentrations at any level requires the even-tual reduction of global CO2 net emissions to a small fraction of the currentlevel.”9 The level at which CO2 concentrations are stabilized will establish theassignment of costs, a higher level will involve fewer mitigation costs but higheradaption costs. In any case, even after stabilizing atmospheric concentrations ofCO2, surface air temperature will continue to rise by a few tenths of a degree percentury for a century or more, and sea levels will continue to rise for manycenturies.10

The matters of intergenerational justice canvassed above are fundamental toan account of justice and climate change because in the absence of an account ofduties to future generations any global regulatory scheme for sharing the mitiga-tion costs of climate change intra-generationally, a scheme such as that which theinternational community must devise as a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, will bemorally blind. It would be like agreeing on the relative proportions that membersof a criminal ring must pay back their victims without setting an overall amount.There would be no assurance that the regulatory scheme was just unless it wasdirected toward fulfilling duties to future generations. Taking a position on thisquestion of intergenerational justice, by, say, setting an atmospheric CO2 concen-tration target, is, however, unavoidable in the establishment of a post-Kyotoinstitutional framework.

In this paper, I shall examine proposals for the distribution of the intergen-erational costs of climate change. Settling on the appropriate principle is a com-plicated task for several reasons. The difficulties include, among others, how todeliberate impartially with respect to intergenerational principles and how to takeaccount of the interaction between the distributions of inter- and intra-generationalcosts. By means of arguments that I hope are appropriately sensitive to thesecomplexities, I shall offer a qualified defense of a principle that assigns propor-tionally equal intergenerational costs.

Climate Change and Intergenerational Justice 205

II

In discussing proposals for the intergenerational assignment of the costs ofclimate change, it is important to keep in mind that CO2 emissions are associ-ated not only with costs—the cost of adapting to or mitigating climate change—but also with benefits—the benefits of industrial activity, transportation, modernfarming, recreation, heating, and cooling. Although we will have to implementmeans for deriving these goods that involve far fewer CO2 emissions, it is none-theless the case that ever since the industrial revolution the activities that havegenerated CO2 have also produced important benefits, capital, and consumergoods that we continue to enjoy and that future generations will enjoy. Anyreduction in costs for future generations will incur costs for the present and nearfuture, and therefore predictably a reduction in certain benefits for the presentand future. This is important for two reasons. One is that it is unreasonable toconsider only the costs that future generations will incur from emitting activi-ties; one has also to consider the gains in wealth that accrue to them due to ourindustrial activity. The second is that in the absence of a significant change inthe global institutional structure, the future poor can be expected to sufferheavily in the payment of adaptation costs; and unless we construct our regu-latory institutions to avoid it, the opportunity costs of mitigation will likely beespecially costly to those who are presently poor. In the end one cannot reallyget a moral grip on the intergenerational alternatives that we face without somediscussion of the intra-generational assignment of the costs and benefits of adap-tation and mitigation.

The realization that the intra-generational assignment of the costs of mitiga-tion and adaptation are also matters of justice significantly complicates anydiscussion of the assignment of the intergenerational costs of climate change. Inorder to attempt headway, I discuss these matters under three different scenarios.One scenario, which I call Continued Deep Inequality or CDI, assumes thatalthough very modest gains will be made in addressing absolute poverty, along thelines of the First Millennium Development Goal, global inequalities and attendantsevere poverty will continue for the rest of the century. My second scenario,Global Justice or GJ, assumes that global inequalities and attendant severepoverty are permanently eradicated in the very near future, in the time that itwould take to arrive at a new international agreement on climate change and toestablish the institutions for governing it. Thus, at the inception of the new CO2

emissions reduction regime the global order is substantially just. The third sce-nario, which I call Progressive Inequality Reduction or PIR, assumes long-terminstitutional change, producing significant decreases in inequality and attendantpoverty, such that by the end of this century the global economy is significantlymore just than it is now.

I consider the following three principles for the assignment of the intergen-erational costs of climate change:

206 Darrel Moellendorf

(1) Future Optimality: Present energy policy should produce an optimal sum ofthe foreseeable future costs and benefits of CO2 emissions.

(2) Future Sufficiency: Present energy policy should produce a sum of foresee-able future costs and benefits of CO2 emissions that at least ensures themaintenance of just political and legal institutions.

(3) Intergenerational Equality: Present energy policy should produce foresee-able future (adaptation) costs of CO2 emissions whose proportion to overallfuture economic output is equal to the proportion of (mitigation) costs tooutput of the present generation.

By equalizing the proportions of costs to economic output, IntergenerationalEquality allows that future persons might have more absolute costs than presentpersons. This would be permissible if the economic growth that our policiesproduced contributed to greater wealth in the future. By focusing on proportionalequality and not absolute equality, then the principle can take into account thebenefits of economic growth, which might be the result of polluting activity.

Future Optimality could be understood in either aggregate or per capita form.One reason to take it in the per capita form is to control for population growth.Another way to control for this is to limit its aggregate application to cases inwhich the population is the same size. Derek Parfit calls such a version of FutureOptimality The Same Number Quality Claim or simply Q: “If in either of twooutcomes the same number of people would ever live, it would be bad if those wholive are worse-off, or have a lower quality of life, than those who would havelived.”11 Parfit’s principle is, of course, of limited value precisely because of theunrealistic constraint that the comparison sets must contain the same populationsize. But it is nonetheless the most discussed version of Future Optimality in theliterature on intergenerational justice.

James Woodward has criticized Q because of its demandingness on membersof the present generation.12 This concern is directly applicable to Future Optimal-ity in either its aggregate or per capita form because both require present sacrificesto improve maximally the well-being of future persons. They repeat, and amplifyas moral principle, a general historical trend that philosophers in earlier timesviewed as deeply problematic, even to the extent of requiring a theodicy if aprovidential understanding of history were to be salvaged. Immanuel Kant worriesthat “earlier generations seem to perform their laborious tasks only for the sake oflater ones . . . and . . . that only the later generations will in fact have the goodfortune to inhabit the building on which a whole series of their forefathers . . . hadworked.”13 G. W. F. Hegel more vividly imagines the costs that the providentialaccount has to justify when observing that history resembles “the slaughter-benchat which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and virtue of individualshave been victimized.”14

One need not assume that God is directing history to be bothered by FutureOptimality. It is morally troublesome because it seems incompatible with


impartiality with respect to generational membership. It takes the interest of futurepersons as counting for everything, and those of the present for nothing. Privileg-ing the interests of future persons over the present is especially problematicaccording the PIR scenario (stated previously) in which poor people in the futureare assumed to be less poor both absolutely and relatively than those who arepresently poor.

The problem with Future Optimality is that it runs afoul of our intuitionsregarding impartiality. It is, however, easier to identify cases in which our intui-tions about impartiality are violated than it is to understand clearly what impar-tiality requires. In most of the remainder of this essay this will be my concern.

III

John Rawls’s employment of the original position argument is a contractualisteffort at modeling deliberative impartiality. It seeks an impartial outcome bymeans of procedural impartiality, in particular by the parties’ absence of knowl-edge about various aspects of themselves—their location behind the veil of igno-rance. Criticisms of contractualist approaches to intergenerational justice call intoquestion whether there is such an approach that can advance our understanding ofthe requirements of impartiality in the context of intergenerational justice andeven whether impartiality is a desideratum of intergenerational justice.15 In thissection I distinguish three versions of a broadly Rawlsian approach and argue thatone is useful for present purposes.

To begin with, consider the requirements for fairness in the deliberation aboutprinciples of justice for the distribution of the costs of climate change. The pointof an argument based upon hypothetical consent, in contrast to actual consent, isto insulate the outcome from the manner in which real-life privileges can distortthe deliberative process. Given the global scope of climate change, an appropriateoriginal position—if there is such—employed to justify duties of justice withrespect to the costs of CO2 emissions necessarily would be cosmopolitan inseeking to prevent parties from bargaining on the basis of their citizenship status.Moreover, due to the intergenerational nature of the problem of climate change,the original position also would have to prevent strategic bargaining on behalf ofone’s own generation.

Controversy, however, surrounds the manner of construction of an originalposition that could prevent distortions resulting from bargaining on behalf of one’sgeneration. Because different constructions of the original position could lead todifferent principles being agreed upon, the controversy is material to understand-ing what intergenerational justice requires. Consider then the following threepossibilities for constructing an original position for intergenerational justice:

1. Intergenerational veil of ignorance and all possible persons. Parties in theoriginal position are (or represent) all actual persons from the present


generation and all possible persons from all future generations. They aresubject to a deliberative constraint of a generational veil of ignorance thatrenders each of them ignorant of which generation is theirs.16

2. Intergenerational veil of ignorance and all actual persons. Parties in theoriginal position are (or represent) all actual persons from the present and allfuture generations. They are subject to a deliberative constraint of a genera-tional veil of ignorance that renders each of them ignorant of which genera-tion is theirs.17

3. Present time of entry. Parties in the original position are (or represent) allactual persons from the present generation. They are subject to a deliberativeconstraint of a generational veil of ignorance that renders them ignorant of theplace of the generation, of which they are all members, in history. They arealso subject to the constraint that they must choose only a principle that theycould endorse past generations as having chosen.18

The general idea of the original position is to model deliberative fairness so thatthe outcome of the deliberation is distinct and can be endorsed by everyone whoaccepts the moral importance of fair terms of deliberation. Different versions ofthe original position might be appropriate for different considerations of justice.In seeking to determine which version—if any—is appropriate, we ask our-selves not only which considerations ought not to influence deliberation, butalso what manner of constraint can be put on deliberation to remove theunwanted influence. In actual deliberation we approximate impartiality when werule out appealing reasons that could not be appealed to in the original positionsdue to its constraints. Each of the three proposals above seeks to prevent onefrom rejecting principles simply because they do not favor members of one’sown generation. In order to determine which principle of intergenerationaljustice would be selected once such influences were removed, we must deter-mine the most sensible manner of preventing the rejection of principles that donot favor one’s own generation.

Consider the first proposal. In this proposal parties are ignorant of whetherthey are (or represent) actual or merely possible persons. Parfit claims that onecannot deliberate on the assumption that one might not exist. “We can imagine adifferent possible history, in which we never existed. But we cannot assume that,in the actual history of the world, it might be true that we never exist. We thereforecannot ask what, on this assumption, it would be rational to choose.”19 Parfit’spoint is not, I think, meant to be a psychological one, such as the problems thatsome people encounter when trying to reason as if they did not know their gender.Nor, if we look at the second sentence of the quotation, is the problem only one ofpractical deliberation. It seems rather to be an epistemic or logical problem. Wecannot assume about the actual world that we never existed. If this is correct, thenmerely possible persons gain no representation in the original position.

Parfit does not elaborate on the point. So, consider two possible lines ofreasoning in support of the view. The first is Cartesian: One’s activity of imagining


the world commits one logically to one’s actual existence. This puts a constrainton how the actual world can be imagined. Although one might imagine oneself asdeliberating about principles to apply in other worlds in which one does not exist,one cannot imagine not existing in the actual world. The second is based upon theidea that justice is meant to apply to the actual world and the claim that a necessarycondition of the actual world is that all and only actual persons exist in it. If anyactual person’s existence is a necessary condition of the actual world, and if onecannot imagine what is logically impossible, then one cannot imagine actualpersons not existing in the actual world. I do not know which of these lines ofreasoning—if either—Parfit would endorse. Both, however, seem plausibleenough to create doubts about the first version of the original position. So,whatever the demands of impartiality are, I suppose that they cannot require us totreat similarly the interests of actual and possible persons.

I turn then to the second manner of constructing the original position. Thisconstruction avoids the problem of the first by including (or representing) onlyactual persons, present and future. But there seems to be no non-question-beggingway to arrive at principles on this construction.20 Different principles will guidedifferent institutional schemes of regulating energy production and consumption.Within the histories of these different institutional schemes different people willmeet, have sex, and rear children—for the reasons that Parfit rehearses. We cannotinclude actual future persons, then, unless we already assume an institutionalscheme. But any scheme is in question so long as the principles that wouldregulate it are up for deliberation. Insofar as the constraints of the original positionare meant to model our deliberations about justice, the upshot of the question-begging charge is that in our thinking about how to act in order to fulfill our dutiesto future generations, it makes no sense to suppose that persons who will existare somehow fixed. Hence, whatever deliberative impartiality requires, it cannotrange over both persons now living and persons who certainly will live.

Jeffrey Reiman, however, endorses what appears to be this second version ofthe original position. “Because they do not know their generation, the parties inthe original position, in effect, represent all and only those people who, from thismoment on, will ever exist: people who are currently living, and future people whodo not yet exist but who one day will.”21 He distinguishes between the propertiesof persons and particular persons. “Normally, which particular one is will deter-mine which properties one has. However, we can distinguish these two, and saythat a person’s fate (whether her life turns out to be good or bad) depends on herproperties and not on which particular she is as such, that is, as distinct from whichproperties she has.”22 Reiman maintains that future persons’ rights can be violatedif our actions or institutions assign them properties (such as being impoverished)that are contrary to their rights. His account allows that the particular person iscontingent on the principles adopted, but that persons’ interests are not contingent.

From a future person’s standpoint, it makes sense to think that it is in his or her interest tobe born with certain properties rather than others, but it is not in his or her interest to be born


this particular one rather than that particular one independent of differences in properties.Thus a future person’s properties may be morally relevant now, but which particular afuture person is beyond the difference in properties is not.23

In response to the question-begging charge, suppose that Reiman claimed thatin our deliberations about what we owe future generations we can distinguishbetween our lack of knowledge about who in particular will exist—which dependson the principles chosen—and the interests that persons who will exist will have.

Reiman’s view would certainly be attractive if it managed to be a version ofthe original position that was free of the problems canvassed above. But this doesnot seem to be the case. For either the original position includes only actual(particular) persons or not. If it does not then, then it includes possible futurepersons. It therefore has the problems of the first version of the original position.If it includes only actual persons from all generations, then it is a question-beggingaccount since the existence of persons regardless of their severability from theirinterests is dependent in part on which principles are selected. Reiman mightcounter that it is not persons, but interests that are represented in the originalposition. But unless we attach persons to these interests there will be no delib-eration; and we do not then have a model for the impartial selection of principles.

There does not seem to be a deliberative constraint that will, as it were, letfuture generations speak for themselves in regards to what we owe them. Giventhe problems associated with the first two versions of the original position, Rawlsseems to have been correct in Justice as Fairness to devise the original positionalong the lines of the third version for matters of intergenerational justice. Similarto the other two, the third constrains deliberation so as to establish impartiality, butunlike the other two the third does not involve representing parties from futuregenerations. It therefore does not contain the problem of either including possiblefuture persons deliberating or of begging the question about principles by includ-ing only actual future persons. In the present time of entry version, although theparties are ignorant of their generation’s place in history, they know each other tobe from the same generation; and an acceptable principle is constrained by therequirement that parties can endorse its selection by previous generations. Theimportant lesson of this version is that we achieve impartiality in our deliberationsabout intergenerational justice in part by binding ourselves only to principles thatwe would find it acceptable for previous generations to have bound themselves.

IV

With an account of how to model deliberative intergenerational impartiality inhand, I return now to the discussion of the principles of justice for the assignmentof climate change-related costs. In discussing choice within an original positionthe constraints on the parties are decisive. According to the present time of entryinterpretation, the parties—all members of the same generation—are subject tofour important conditions:


(1) They do not know the place of their generation in history.

(2) They must choose only a principle that they would affirm as having bound allprevious generations as well.

(3) They are indifferent to the well-being of members of other generations.

(4) They seek maximal avoidance of costs for themselves (or for those whomthey represent).

Just as the veil of ignorance constrains the rational pursuit of the primarygoods in the intra-generational original position, so conditions (1) and (2) con-strain condition (4). Rawls argues that in the intra-generational original positionthere would be agreement on a benchmark of equality, but that deviations fromthis to affirm the difference principle would be rational given the circumstances.24

In the present case, conditions (3) and (4) would incline parties to favor their owngeneration maximally. Condition (2), however, constrains that choice. How dothese constraints play out in considering the principles of Future Sufficiency andIntergenerational Equality? Would they lead to reasonably determinate results as,arguably, does the veil of ignorance in the case of intra-generational justice?

In deliberating about these principles I suppose that Intergenerational Equal-ity guarantees Future Sufficiency, in other words that by Intergenerational Equal-ity future generations do at least as well as they do by Future Sufficiency. So,Future Sufficiency might permit the present generation to assume fewer costs ofmitigation than does Intergenerational Equality. The choice between the principleswhen looking forward can be seen as a choice between assuming more mitigationcosts now to equalize costs between generations or allowing the possible assump-tion of fewer costs now so as only to ensure that just institutions are possible in thefuture. But when looking backward it is a choice between assuming fewer adap-tation costs now because earlier generations chose to equalize or assuming greateradaptation costs now because previous generations only mitigated enough topreserve just institutions.

An argument that the parties would select Intergenerational Equality overFuture Sufficiency goes as follows:

1. The parties would prefer previous generations to have maximally mitigatedtheir climate change adaptation costs.

2. The parties would prefer to minimize the costs of mitigating future climatechange.

3. All other things being equal, Intergenerational Equality best satisfies thepreference stated in the first premise.

4. Future Sufficiency best satisfies the preference stated in the second premise.

5. The parties are constrained to choose only the principle that they would preferearlier generations to have followed.

6. The parties are constrained to select Intergenerational Equality.


I call this the equality argument. Premises two and four are logically irrelevant tothe argument, but they serve to illustrate the merits of the competing principle. Ifpremise five were not there, there would be no rational grounds for choosingIntergenerational Equality over Future Sufficiency. A deliberative impasse wouldresult. So, premise five has the virtue not only of modeling impartiality but also ofproducing a determinate outcome.

I take the equality argument to be a pro tanto warrant for IntergenerationalEquality. In effect, it amounts to claiming that if we adopt an impartial attitudetoward generational membership, and thereby exclude reasons that serve only tofavor one generation over another, there is good reason to endorse the principleof Intergenerational Equality, which requires not imposing climate changeadaptation costs on future generations that are a greater percentage of the overalleconomic output than the percentage of the mitigation costs for the presentgeneration. In the next two sections I further defend this principle by addressingobjections to it.

V

One might object to the equality argument on grounds that the deliberativeconstraint that parties must select only the principle that they would prefer earliergenerations to have chosen (condition (2) above) favors Future Optimality sinceany generation would prefer that the previous ones maximally benefit it. In sectionII, I maintained that intuitively Future Optimality seems inappropriate because theburden that it places on those now alive does not conform to our intuitions aboutthe requirements of intergenerational impartiality. The present objection contendsthat condition (2) does not in fact support our intuitions about intergenerationalimpartiality.

This objection, however, fails to appreciate that the original position consistsof practical deliberation about a principle to guide the (unspecified) presentgeneration in relation to future generations, not a hypothetical deduction of whatpresent persons would have liked past persons to have done. So, although condi-tion (2) would not rule out Future Optimality if the parties were not deliberatingabout a principle to bind themselves, Future Optimality is ruled out by the parties’rational self-interest (condition (4)) and indifference to other generations (condi-tion (3)), since as I discussed in section II Future Optimality would imposeextremely heavy costs on members of the present generation for the sake of futuregenerations.

The answer above would not be adequate if the parties knew themselves to beat the end of history with no future generations for whom they must assume costs.In that case, looking only backward with no concern about the future, they wouldselect Future Optimality because, once again, this is what they would endorsepast generations as having chosen. But when we deliberate about principles ofintergenerational justice we assume that we are not at the end of history. If wesomehow knew that, there would be nothing for us to deliberate about and no


reason to use the original position argument in any case. In effect, the parties’ lackof knowledge of the place of their generation in history (condition (1)) modelsthis. It also rules out saving nothing on grounds that they know that there were noprevious generations, which knowledge would render condition (2) nugatory.

It is important to recognize that conditions (1), (3), and (4) do not functionindependently of condition (2). This is already made evident by the discussion ofthe equality argument. I noted that premises two and four of the argument arelogically irrelevant to the conclusion, but that in the absence of the generalconstraint expressed in premise five, which is what I am referring to here ascondition (2), a deliberative impasse would result. So appealing to conditions (1),(3), and (4) above to rule out Future Optimality should be understood merely asmodeling the context for the parties in which deliberation constrained by condi-tion (2) occurs, not as providing reasons for principle selection that are determi-native independently of condition (2).

To recapitulate, the equality argument is a straightforward way of rankingIntergenerational Equality over Future Sufficiency. The possibility of selectingFuture Optimality can be ruled out by the deliberative context, in which weassume that there will be future generations, and the parties cannot assume thatthere will not be, so that it makes sense to consider how we should act to limit theadaptation costs that we pass on to future generations.

VI

Future Optimality was rejected in section II on grounds that it failed to satisfyan intuitive requirement of intergenerational impartiality. In the previous section Ioffered an original position argument against it as well. Neither of these argumentsaddresses what might be the most important claim in favor of Future Optimality,namely that it is the only principle that makes sense in light of the non-identityproblem. In this section I defend Intergenerational Equality against the charge thatit is undermined by the non-identity problem.

As I noted in section II, a version of Future Optimality is what Parfit calls Q:if in either of two possible outcomes the same number of people would live, itwould be worse if those who live are worse off, or have a lower quality of life, thanthose who would have lived.25 This principle requires us to optimize futureoutcomes, when the number of persons in the various possibilities is assumedto be the same. Now Q, Parfit notes, is not an instance of what he calls ThePerson-Affecting View, or simply V, that “[i]t is bad if people are affected for theworse.”26 Presumably, he is using worse here as he uses worse-off, which he takesto refer “either to someone’s level of happiness, or more narrowly to his standardof living, or more broadly, to the quality of his life.”27 To claim that a person isaffected for the worse as in V requires a comparison of the person’s well-being intwo different circumstances, the condition of the person as affected and hercondition if the policy had been otherwise. Q does not rely on such comparisons;


instead it compares the condition of different people, those who live and thosewould have lived.

Parfit argues that it is a virtue of Q that it is not an instance of V. Employmentof V is limited to cases in which the requisite comparison can be made. Butchanges in some institutional frameworks—including especially those regulatingenergy production and use—affect who will live in the future. Parfit claims thatperson-affecting views cannot account for what is wrong with arrangements insuch cases. For these arrangements do not render actual future persons (whoselives are worth living) worse off since without such policies these persons wouldnot have existed.28 Call that the no worse-off argument.29

Now Q avoids the no worse-off argument because it does not require com-paring the conditions of particular persons in different arrangements. Q can, ofcourse, only be a provisional account because its application is limited (unrealis-tically in the context of energy policy) only to cases in which two policies wouldresult in the same number of people being affected. It is not the limitations of Qthat concern me, however. Rather the important question for present purposes iswhether the principle of Intergenerational Equality is undermined by the reasonsthat Parfit offers to reject V.

Perhaps one could avoid the problem of person-affecting accounts of duties innon-identity cases by claiming that original position type arguments establishfuture-oriented duties that are owed to past persons.30 We generally recognize thatwe can have a duty to preserve a certain artifact or natural area on the basis of anexplicit promise to a person. So, perhaps we have a duty to mitigate the costs ofclimate change adaptation for persons in future generations on the basis of somekind of implied promise or promissory relation to persons in past generations. Thisaccount treats duties to future persons in a manner analogous to Kant’s treatmentof duties to animals.31 Duties to future persons are indirect duties that are oweddirectly to our ancestors.

It would be a misunderstanding of the original position argument, however, toclaim that it justified an implied promissory account of justice to future genera-tions. The original position argument is meant to justify principles because of thefairness of the hypothetical procedure that generates the agreement, not because ofan implied agreement between actual people. More generally, it does not seemreasonable to infer that members of the present generation have made any prom-ises to past generations in virtue of, say, having enjoyed the fruits of their labor.Such enjoyment provides no reason to believe that members of the present gen-eration have undertaken to save some of the fruits to pass on to future genera-tions.32 But perhaps the claim is that we have a duty to make such a promise, andhaving made it we then have a duty to keep it. But then the promissory duty alonedoes not justify the duty, it merely reinforces it. The view lacks what it is supposedto provide, namely an account of why we have a duty to make such a promise inthe first place. The force of Parfit’s criticisms cannot be avoided by taking dutiesto future generations as indirect duties directly owed to past generations in virtueof a promissory relation to them.


It is necessary then to consider directly whether the limitations that apply toV undermine Intergenerational Equality. Is Intergenerational Equality a versionof V? If so, then apparently it is undermined by the non-identity problem. V holdsthat it is bad if people are affected for the worse. One way to read V is as makinga claim about states of affairs. It states the conditions in which states of affairs arebad: all other things being equal between two states of affairs, one contains morebadness than another if people’s well-being is worse in the one than the other.Now, the principle of Intergenerational Equality judges institutions or policies,and is therefore not person-affecting in this sense of V.

But surely it is more charitable to read V as applicable to actions. This can bedone by supposing that Parfit is assuming a premise in a teleological moral theory,namely that it is wrong to do what is bad. More simply we can read “it is bad” asequivalent to “an action is wrong.” So read, V says that an action is wrong if thestate of affairs that it produces makes persons worse off than an alternative action.Read this way, if not fully consequentialist, V is certainly at home in a largerconsequentialist account. Now, the principle of Intergenerational Equality is anon-consequentialist principle because it entails that an action can be right even ifit is not one that would produce the best state of affairs. This can easily be seen iffor a moment we assume away the non-identity problem. According to the prin-ciple, institutions that regulate the emissions of CO2 are just when future personshave been assigned an equal share (proportional to overall output) of the costs ofclimate change, even if the costs for these persons could have been lowered byanother set of institutions, such as those that Future Optimality would require.Hence, Intergenerational Equality does not hold that policies are wrong if personsare rendered worse off. It is not person-affecting in that sense.

Even if Intergenerational Equality is a non-consequentialist principle, thisdoes not ensure that it is not a problematic instance of V for it is not obviousthat V includes only consequentialist principles. But the principle of Intergen-erational Equality does not seem to possess the features that make V problem-atic in non-identity cases. The non-identity problem has purchase on V becauseit requires comparing the conditions of the same persons in two different cir-cumstances. But insofar as a principle for the evaluation of actions or institu-tions does not require a comparison between persons’ conditions as they are andas they might have been, it is not subject to the problems of V. The principle ofIntergenerational Equality does not require such a comparison because it iden-tifies present persons as wronged when their share of the costs of climatechange (in proportion to their overall output) is greater than that of the previousgeneration, not when greater or lesser than some other possible share that thesesame persons might have had. Prospectively, Intergenerational Equality providesus with a reason not to permit CO2 regulating institutions that would bring intoexistence persons whose proportional share of the costs of CO2 emissions isgreater than our own.33 The comparison in either case is to earlier costs ofdifferent persons, not the costs that the same persons would have, or would havehad, in some other future.


In response it might be objected that the problem with person-affecting views,namely that they require a comparison where none can be obtained, afflictsany meaningful principle that evaluates actions by their impact on individuals,either with respect to their well-being or with respect to what they are non-consequentially owed.34 Although Intergenerational Equality appears to avoidproblematic comparisons of the same persons, it either rests on them or is non-sensical. Consider the following argument:

1. To claim that persons are wronged requires, at least implicitly, a comparisonto a possible state of affairs in which these same persons would not have beenwronged, regardless of whether the wrong is understood as a comparativediminution of the person’s well-being or as a failure to act in accordance withnon-consequentialist standards.

2. Such comparisons are undermined by the non-identity problem.

3. Intergenerational Equality states a sufficient condition for claiming thatpersons are wronged by climate change related institutions.

4. Intergenerational Equality is undermined by the non-identity problem.

The first premise of this argument in effect broadens the class of person-affectingviews to include non-consequentialist principles. It is making a conceptual claimabout what wronged must mean. If wronged is sensibly employed, it must be thecase that there is an alternative action or practice in which the persons would notbe wronged. If true, this premise would either reject Intergenerational Equality asincoherent for not making the requisite comparison or bring it into the fold ofproblematic person-affecting views.

Premise one is, however, implausible. There are well-known and much con-tested accounts of wrongdoing or injustice that do not satisfy the requirement itstates. Although these accounts might be false, the debate that surrounds them isnormative, not conceptual. It seems implausible to think that they are false simplybecause they are incoherent. Consider, for example, Rawls’s Difference Principle.This principle requires that institutions maximize the expectations of the leastadvantaged members of society. Employing the Difference Principle necessarilyinvolves comparing institutional arrangements to assess in which the least advan-taged would be best-off. But the principle does not assume that the least advan-taged will be the same persons across comparisons. This is obvious when onereflects on how Rawls identifies the least advantaged. He takes three characteris-tics as salient: those who are most disadvantaged in terms of family fortune andclass origin; those whose natural endowments permit them to fare less well; andthose whose luck in life results in less happiness.35 It is significant that each ofthese three characteristics is basic-structure-dependent. In other words, whether aperson is characterized in any one of these ways depends upon how the socialinstitutions of society assign benefits and burdens. Under different institutions,different people would be least advantaged. So, if we were to compare an actual


society with its possible alternative that possessed very different institutions—forexample, the actual one being libertarian and the possible alternative beingegalitarian—different persons would be least advantaged. The Difference Prin-ciple directs us to compare the well-being of these different people, not the samepeople in different arrangements. Now, of course, the Difference Principle mightbe an invalid principle of justice. Certainly it is controversial. But it is significantthat the controversy that it has generated is normative; it concerns whether theprinciple’s requirements are appropriate. It is hard to understand how the Differ-ence Principle could generate such controversy if it were simply incoherent.

Premise one is implausible. But if premise one is implausible then an inter-generational principle need not compare different conditions of the same personsin order sensibly to assert that persons have been wronged by institutions regu-lating CO2 emissions. And the fact that Intergenerational Equality compares costsbetween different persons (intergenerationally) does not make it incoherent.If there is plausible criticism of Intergenerational Equality it is normative, notconceptual.

Parfit, however, has two arguments against invoking non-consequentialistprinciples to avoid the non-identity problem. In one he criticizes invoking rightsto solve the problem, but since Intergenerational Equality does not invoke rights,I do not concern myself with that criticism.36 He also contends that non-consequentialist accounts of wrongdoing must either rely on a failure to gainconsent from those affected by the action or the presence of regret among thoseaffected. In cases of institutional effects on future persons, consent cannot possi-bly be obtained. So, the institutions cannot be criticized on this basis. But it is alsonot the case that future persons whose lives are worth living, but who must paygreater proportional costs of climate change than we did, would necessarily regretour institutions. For they would not have existed but for these institutions.37

Parfit does not analyze the concept of regret in any detail; so it is somewhatdifficult to assess the criticism that because of the absence of regret (whereconsent is not possible) there is no non-consequentialist basis for criticizing theaction or policy. I start by noting that regret is an attitude, which either necessarilyinvolves a moral judgment or not. Either way, however, it seems doubtful thatpersons who owe their existence to institutions cannot regret them.

One might hold that to regret a past action or practice necessarily requires thejudgment that it was wrong and the belief that the course of history would havebeen morally better without it. Consider then the case of American slavery.Many—perhaps most—present citizens of the Unite States whose ancestors werein the country during the time of slavery would not have existed but for theinstitutions of slavery. This is plausible with respect to descendents of slaves, butalso, when we consider the scale of related events such as the Civil War, withrespect to very many of those whose ancestors were not slaves. The overwhelmingmajority of these people (whose ancestors were in the country at the time ofslavery) judge slavery to have been a gross injustice, even though they would notexist but for slavery. This is analogous to persons who judge that their share of


climate change-related costs is unjust. The fact that in the case of any given personshe would not exist but for this injustice does not stop her from judging it to havebeen an injustice, and from regretting it in that sense. Such moral judgments inthese cases do not seem to be irrational. The only grounds for thinking so wouldseem to be that one cannot make moral judgments that are contrary to one’sinterests, but that is far-fetched.

Perhaps the critic of Intergenerational Equality would say that the exampleof the descendents of slavery does not capture what is deficient with non-consequentialist accounts in non-identity circumstances because in the examplethe descendents are claiming an historical injustice, but not an injustice to them.Since the injustice is not to them, they can rationally regret it even though theywould not have existed but for the injustice. The problem arises in the case of aperson claiming not merely that a wrong has existed, but that she has beenwronged, when but for the allegedly wrong act she would not exist. But again, theresponse is more or less the same. There does not seem to be anything obviouslyirrational about a person judging that in some respects the world would have beena morally better place if the practice that allowed her to exist had not existed. If so,it does not seem to matter that one of the wrongs that would not have come to passis a wrong to her.

There might be another way in which regret poses a problem to non-consequentialist views. Not that regret contains a moral judgment about a practiceand that one cannot make a negative moral judgment if one would not exist butfor the practice, but sincere regret necessarily includes the sincere wish that thepractice had not existed. It is a virtue of an account of wrongdoing that it isconsistent with persons sincerely regretting the identified wrong. But if one’sexistence depends upon the practice, a self-respecting person cannot sincerelywish that the practice had not occurred. Hence, an account of wrongdoing thatidentifies such a practice as unjust is deficient.

If the above argument is the problem that regret poses to non-consequentialistviews in non-identity cases, it is not unique to such views. It is a problem forParfit’s Q as well. Imagine that in the future self-respecting persons are lesswell-off than the same number of other persons might have been if differentinstitutions had regulated CO2 emissions. Although these persons have beentaught Reasons and Persons in school, and are therefore able to identify thehistorical wrongness of regulatory institutions, according to the criticism theycannot sincerely regret the injustice. If there is a way out for Q it is by denying thata self-respecting person cannot sincerely wish the non-existence of institutionsupon which her existence depends. But, of course, this way out could be used byIntergenerational Equality as well.

Perhaps the point about regret is not that persons who would not exist butfor a putatively unjust practice cannot experience regret, but that they might not,and when they do not, there is no injustice. But it is difficult to see why theattitude of the putatively wronged person should be a necessary condition ofthere being an injustice. This is not a standard feature of non-consequentialist


accounts. According to Rawls, for example, the least advantaged do not need toresent the social institutions that have governed their fate in order for the insti-tutions to be unjust. Or consider the role of consent in constructivist accounts ofjustification. Typically these accounts do not hold that if one consents to theputative wrong it is less wrong. Part of the point of constructivist accounts,which take justification to be a function of some sort of idealized or hypotheti-cal consent, is that persons’ actual attitudes toward social practices might beunreasonably influenced by the benefit that they receive from the practice.Hence, a lack of regret among some of those identified as having been wrongdoes not seem undermining of a non-consequentialist principle that holds themto have been wronged.

In sum, because the principle of Intergenerational Equality does not requirecomparisons to other possible states of affairs in which the same persons wouldhave existed, it is not undermined by the no-worse-off argument. Moreover, it isnot obviously irrational for persons to judge that the institutional order to whichthey owe their existence is unjust. And even if we suppose that they cannot wishto have not existed, this does not provide a reason to favor a version of Q overIntergenerational Equality. Finally, it does not seem to be the case that theabsence of regret on the part of those who have allegedly been wronged rendersthe alleged wrongdoing not wrong. So, the non-identity problem does notwarrant the judgment that Future Optimality is superior to IntergenerationalEquality.

VII

The equality argument advanced in section IV does not take into consider-ation the three scenarios outlined in section II: CDI, GJ, and PIR. Would parties’knowledge of which of these scenarios is the case alter the outcome of theirdeliberations?

In the case of GJ there are no substantial distributive injustices that Intergen-erational Equality would aggravate. So, there is no reason to think that the parties’assumption that GJ is the case, would affect their deliberations in a manner thatwould cast doubt on Intergenerational Equality.

If we suppose that the parties operate on the assumption of CDI, they areaware that serious intra-generational injustices exist and can be expected tocontinue to exist regardless of which principle is selected. But IntergenerationalEquality places greater burdens on the present generation than does Future Suf-ficiency. These extra mitigation costs are not opportunity costs to global justice,however, because CDI assumes the continuation of injustice either way. But themitigation costs might compound existing injustices if they fall disproportionatelyon the poor. On the other hand, mitigating adaptation costs can also help to reducethe compounding of future injustices, which would occur if extra adaptation costswere assigned to the future poor. So, condition (2), requiring parties to choose asthey would want previous generations to have chosen, provides a reason to believe


that Intergenerational Equality would still be chosen since the lowered adaptationcosts in the present, brought about by greater mitigation costs in the past, willcompound present intra-generational injustice less.

PIR raises other considerations. Under PIR the intra-generational sharing ofthe costs of mitigation is likely to be unjust because the costs are assigned underconditions of injustice. The poor of the world are likely to suffer disproportion-ately to mitigate the future costs. Although this is likely to be the case in CDI aswell, the difference is that the distribution of future adaptation costs under PIRwill more closely approximate justice than will the distribution under CDI becauseof PIR’s progressive reduction of inequality. Hence, under PIR the percentage ofthe costs of mitigation that today’s severely impoverished will pay might be largerthan the percentage of the costs that the future impoverished will pay for adapta-tion, even if overall the costs are proportional. This is for two reasons. In the futurethere will be a smaller percentage of the world’s population that is severelyimpoverished; and the assignment of costs under a more just distributive regimemight be less likely to compound whatever injustices exist. Additionally, if weassume a commitment to reduce severe poverty, the matter of the opportunity costsof mitigation becomes morally salient. The expenditures on mitigation are fore-gone opportunities to reduce current severe poverty.

If the parties decided on the basis of PIR, would they nonetheless selectIntergenerational Equality over Future Sufficiency? One might think that con-dition (2) would unambiguously favor Intergenerational Equality in this circum-stance. For it would place equal proportional burdens on generations which haveunequal proportions of poor people. This would burden more heavily membersof past generations who were poorer than present persons in order to reducecosts for present persons. However, past generations would also incur opportu-nity costs since they are committed to the long-term reduction of inequality but,because of higher mitigations costs, they have fewer resources to devote to theproject. The problem is that such costs would produce greater past inequalitywith the likely consequence of greater present inequality, which the parties,deliberating under condition (2), would seek to avoid. Hence, it is by no meansclear that there is an answer to the question of which principle would be chosenon the assumption of PIR in the absence of more detailed information about thecontext. It would depend upon how the presently least advantaged were to fareby institutions that required more past mitigations and thereby reduced presentadaptation costs in comparison to institutions that would have mitigated less butallowed past poverty to be reduced more. This suggests that unlike the assump-tions of CDI and CG, PIR could affect the outcome of the original positiondeliberations. But we cannot be certain how without significantly more infor-mation about the circumstances.

If presently there were a serious global commitment to progressively reducingunjust inequalities over time, which commitment would be partially compromisedby diverting funds toward the mitigation of climate change, then there would besome reasons in favor of Future Sufficiency over Intergenerational Equality. In


such counterfactual circumstances, in which other institutions are already directedtoward improving the well-being of poor persons in the future, it might seemreasonable to require less with respect to the mitigation of the costs of climatechange.

VIII

I assume that a virtue of an account of justice is its practicality, the extentto which it can direct our efforts at institutional reform and construction. In thecase of each of the three principles for the distribution of the intergenerationalcosts of climate change, rational policy formation would require forecastingfuture costs. If we are to be guided by the principle of Intergenerational Equal-ity, we will have to develop reliable forecasts of the likely future costs andbenefits of various institutional frameworks in order to commit to the one whichseems most likely to equalize proportional costs. Such forecasts will doubtlessbe highly imperfect, and things would go better if they were less so. But thereis no reason to be so pessimistic as to think that forecasts will not provideimportant guidance.

There is moral satisfaction in knowing that our efforts at just institutionbuilding have been successful. But we are in an unfortunate epistemic circum-stance with respect to principles of intergenerational justice. We cannot knowwhether they will be satisfied. We cannot revise our attempts in light of ourfailures because these will never be known to our generation. We can, however,assess how policies and institutions have worked in the past; and we can learnmore about the properties of the climate system. We can, then, improve ourunderstanding of what the likely consequences of our institutions will be.Although we will be denied the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted justly,we can act with some confidence that we are doing as we ought to do, and hopethat one day there will be people who will be grateful for our efforts, if only wemake them.

Versions of this paper were discussed with the Philosophy Departments at RhodesUniversity and San Diego State University and with the graduate students in myGlobal Justice seminar at San Diego State University. I am indebted to theparticipants in all of those discussions for helping me to clarify my thoughts. I wasalso helped by the many comments that I received from Axel Schafer and theseveral conversations that we had on these matters. I began this paper while beinghosted by the International Office and the Philosophy Department at RhodesUniversity. I also worked on it while receiving support from the Deutscher Akad-mischer Austausch Dienst, enjoying the hospitality of the Institut für Interkul-turelle und Internationale Studien at Universtität Bremen. I completed it at thebeginning of a membership at the Institute for Advanced Studies, which wassupported by the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Studies. I am deeplygrateful to all of these organizations for their kind support.


Notes

1 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2007: The Physical ScienceBasis, Summary for Policy Makers, 13. Available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment.report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf (accessed April 3, 2009).

2 Ibid., 13.3 Ibid., 16.4 IPCC, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policy Makers, 15. Available at http://

www.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-2001/synthesis-spm-en.pdf (accessed April 3, 2009).5 See for example, Fred Pierce, “Climate report ‘was watered down’,” New Scientist (March 10–16,

2007): 10. In 2004 newspapers published stories on a secret Pentagon report discussing thepossibility of the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation and dwindling food, water, and energysupplies, with the result that “disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.” See MarkTownsend and Paul Harris, “Now the Pentagon Tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us,” TheObserver, February 22, 2004. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver (accessed April 3, 2009).

6 IPCC, Climate Change 2001, 15.7 Gordon McGranahan, Deborah Balk, and Bridget Anderson, “The Rising Tide: Assessing the Risks

of Climate Change and Human Settlements in Low Elevation Coastal Zones,” Environment andUrbanization 19 (2007): 17–37.

8 IPCC, Climate Change 2001, 89.9 Ibid., 90.10 Ibid., 89.11 Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 360.12 James Woodward, “The Non-identity Problem,” Ethics 96 ( July 1986): 820–21.13 Immanuel Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in Political Writings,

ed. Hans Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 44.14 G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover Publications Inc.,

1956), 21.15 See for example, Brian Barry, “Justice Between Generations,” in Law, Morality, and Society, ed. P.

M. S. Hacker and Joseph Raz (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 268–84; Edward A. Page, ClimateChange, Justice and Future Generation (Cheltennam: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006), 134–37;Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 391–93; and Woodward, “The Non-identity Problem,” 824–25.

16 Rawls rejects this construction in A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1999), 120. It is defended by Brent A. Singer, “An Extension of Rawls’ Theory of Justice,”Environmental Ethics 10 (Fall 1988): 221, and by David A. J. Richards, “Contractarian Theory andIntergenerational Justice,” in Energy and the Future, ed. Douglas MacLean and Peter G. Brown(Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1983), 131–50.

17 Jeffrey Reiman employs a version of this in his “Being Fair to Future People: The Non-identityProblem in the Original Position,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 35 (2007): 69–92.

18 John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999),160.

19 Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 392.20 Reiman, “Being Fair to Future People,” 79.21 Ibid., 83.22 Ibid., 84; emphasis in the original.23 Ibid.; emphasis in the original.24 Cf. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 130.25 Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 360.26 Ibid., 370.27 Ibid., 357–58.28 Ibid., 361–64.


http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment.report/ar4

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-2001/synthesis-spm-en.pdf

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/climate-changes-2001/synthesis-spm-en.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2004/feb/22

29 Following Woodward in “The Non-identity Problem,” 805.30 Marcel Wissenberg defends this view in “Extending Rawls’s Savings Principle,” in Fairness and

Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice, ed. Andrew Dobson (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1999), 191–92.

31 Cf. Immanuel Kant, Eine Vorlesung über Ethik, ed. Gerd Gerdhardt (Frankfurt am Main: FisherTaschenbuch Verlag, 1991), 256–58.

32 Cf. Page, Climate Change, 119–24 for a fuller discussion of related issues.33 Here I am following Woodward’s perspicacious analysis in “The Non-Identity Problem,” 821–27, in

which he compares the kind of reason a principle of intergenerational justice gives to not actcontrary to it to the kind of reasoning that valuing a promise gives to not knowing making promisesthat one cannot keep.

34 Page seems to take this view in Climate Change, 138–50.35 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 83.36 Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 364–66.37 Ibid., 373–74.


Mediated Responsibilities, Global Warming,and the Scope of Ethics

Robin Attfield

Introduction

In our times, the entire context of ethics has fundamentally changed. Soargued Hans Jonas in The Imperative of Responsibility, a 1984 translation oftwo German works of his from 1979 and 1981.1 When the classical texts ofethics from Plato to Kant were written, the impacts of human action were seenas affecting almost exclusively the human contemporaries of the agent, and anylong-term outcomes could be disregarded as serendipitous and unpredictableside effects, inessential for purposes of constructing adequate theories of virtueor duty. But now, because of technology, the impacts of a great deal of humanaction have to be recognized as affecting large swathes of the biosphere andfuture generations for many centuries to come. Preserving the conditions for thecontinuation of human life on our planet has become an ethical issue, as haveresponsibilities with regard to the rest of the biosphere, regarded by Jonas asneeding to be recognized as a sphere of human stewardship, to which anthro-pocentric approaches both in ethics and in metaphysics are inappropriate. Ingeneral, human responsibilities need to be reconceptualized to match this radi-cally new context, so that the scope of ethics corresponds to the range ofimpacts of human actions and omissions.josp_1448 225..236

While some might quarrel with details of this critique, and others mightquestion aspects of the revisionist Marxism presented as Jonas’s own new accountof ethics, the broad lines of this account of the context of ethics as it stands aresurely beyond dispute. For the development of technology in the period of thelives of many of us has significantly changed the range of foreseeable impacts ofhuman actions and policies, in ways that already affect nonhuman species andtheir habitats, and that are almost certain to affect coming generations both of thenear and of the more distant future, both human and nonhuman. In many casesthese have been welcome developments, allowing of increased life expectancy,greater leisure, enhanced appreciation of art and of the natural world, and effectivetreatments for many afflictions that used to have to be accepted as parts of thenatural order. But they also unquestionably raise ethical challenges, unlikely to beaddressed by mere repetition of long-standing theories whether of virtuous dis-positions and comportment, or of timeless moral rules, or of a dutiful respecttoward contemporary humanity. Indeed if we fail to reconceive the scope and


content of ethics so as to take the increased range of foreseeable impacts intoaccount, we are likely to find ourselves advocating by default an irresponsibledisregard for impacts upon most of the biosphere and most of the future. Thescope and content of ethics, then, must be reconceived so as to correspond to thefull range of the foreseeable impacts of human activities, and also of the foresee-able impacts of policies of nonintervention and inaction.

The task of overhauling ethical theory along these lines of course lies farbeyond the possible aims and thus beyond the scope of the current paper.2 What Iwant to consider is a small but significant fragment of these larger issues, and onewhich has a strong bearing on the ethics of global warming. This is the issue ofmediated responsibilities and their bearing on global warming, or rather someaspects of such responsibilities that have not often been brought together andjuxtaposed to the revised context of ethics as depicted by Jonas. If many of ourresponsibilities are mediated ones, ones where there is one or another kind ofdistance or gap between action and foreseeable impacts, and if this currentlyinvolves such impacts being disregarded or discounted, then we need to addressways in which the framework of action needs to be modified to cope with theseresponsibilities. For agents are often inclined to disregard (or at least discount tosome degree) mediated impacts of their action or inaction, whether good or bad.But even if this was once understandable, the changed context of ethics makes itirresponsible for such disregard to continue.

I am concerned here with responsibilities in both of two senses, causalresponsibility and moral responsibility, and shall be suggesting that both of theseapply to mediated responsibility in all its varieties. Where responsibility is notabrogated by the inability to act (or not to act) or mitigated by one or more of therelevant kinds of ignorance, my view is that, subject to certain qualifications suchas the distinction between empowering others to do things and making them dothings, agents are just as responsible when their responsibility is mediated as whenit is unmediated. But rather than argue this for all the varieties of mediatedresponsibility, I will instead focus on aspects relevant to global warming such asthe impacts of current action on the distant future, and the cumulative impacts ofapparently isolated actions, and on some of their implications for responsibilityand also for political decision making. This undertaking first involves a review ofvarious kinds of mediated responsibility, and then an application of relevant kindsto the contemporary world, and to its modes of decision making.

Mediated Responsibilities

Mediated responsibilities include cases where one agent,A, brings it about thatanother agent B (or other agents) act(s) or abstain(s) from action with foreseeableconsequences for which (on some views)Amay be held responsible, at least in part.Such cases are sometimes relevant to issues of global warming, as we shall later see,as when a set of consumers provides incentives to producers elsewhere to engagein pollutant activities. But there are many other kinds of case where mediated

226 Robin Attfield

responsibilities are also in question. For the impacts of action or inaction can besituated far away from the agent in space and/or in time, and this of itself can appearto agents to reduce their responsibility, however certain and predictable andotherwise unmediated the relation may be between action and impact.3 But thisappearance is illusory. Time bombs are clearly the responsibility of those who makethem and those who install them, even if their victims are unknown, and even if theydo not detonate for a hundred years. So are land mines and the cluster bombs thatland without exploding, thus becoming land mines for all practical purposes.

A full treatment of mediated responsibility would also consider cases wherethe impacts of action are less than certain, but retain some tangible probability.Here it may be claimed that what diminishes responsibility is the uncertainly thatindividual actions will have impacts at all. However, when types of actions, suchas dropping cluster bombs, carry a significant average probability of eventualimpacts, the plea that individual tokens of that type may well do no harm ismanifestly unacceptable. There are also cases where the risk of impacts is low, butthe magnitude of the impacts would be very great, and once again talk of mediatedresponsibility for those impacts could be in place. (What is right in such casesmight often depend on what the other options are, and this means that in somecases the responsibility for such risks could be a diminished responsibility.) Butthe ethics of risk is too complex a topic to tackle here. For yet further kinds ofmediated responsibility are going to prove more obviously relevant to the ethics ofglobal warming.

Besides mediation by spatial or temporal distance, by the agency of others, orby uncertainty, the mediated aspect of responsibility can relate to diffusion. Thus,impacts can themselves be widely diffused across billions of people and othercreatures, as when a canister-full of CFCs (chloro-fluorocarbons) released aspropellants in one place spreads out and minutely reduces the ozone layer over awhole continent, and thus the immunity of contemporary creatures living beneaththis layer to skin cancer. A thousand or so such canisters can together make a largecumulative difference, but each user of such a canister may try telling themselvesthat the difference they individually make is imperceptibly small, perhaps justbecause it will be a diffused one, and thus of no significance. The likely diffusionof impacts of itself makes this a case where responsibility is mediated. Causingdiffused impacts may truly be insignificant, as in cases where we speak of “a meredrop in the ocean,” which could be accurate if what is dropped is a single pinch ofsalt. But with CFCs, the atmosphere and its ozone layer, things are notoriouslydifferent.

The same example illustrates the counterpart of diffused impacts, namelydiffused or rather widely distributed causes. For as the CFC case shows, signifi-cant problems can be caused by large numbers of apparently insignificant actionshaving a joint, cumulative impact. But there is a difference between actions that donot belong to a set (whether simultaneous or distributed across time) likely to haveforeseeable significant joint impacts, and those that do; for the fact that an actionis a member of such a set is often discoverable and sometimes obvious, however

Mediated Impacts, Climate and the Scope of Ethics 227

slight its foreseeable individual impact. In this kind of case, mediated responsi-bility figures once again.

Derek Parfit on Imperceptible but Cumulative Impacts

Derek Parfit has supplied an intriguing sequence of thought-experimentsabout all this. Thus, according to Parfit one of the “mistakes of moral math-ematics” consists in ignoring the effects of sets of acts, and assuming that ifsome act is right or wrong because of its effects, the only relevant effects are theeffects of this particular act.4 Some of his examples are not directly relevanthere, and concern the overdetermination of someone’s death when severalkillers strike and one or more of them thus do the victim no distinctive harm,although their deed would otherwise have proved fatal. What is significant forpresent purposes, however, is the lesson that Parfit rightly endorses, namely:“Even if an act harms no one, this act may be wrong because it is one of a setof acts that together harm other people. Similarly, even if some act benefits noone, it can be what someone ought to do, because it is one of a set of acts thattogether benefit other people.” (This latter claim could, I suggest, be true ofparticipation in beneficial international agreements, because of the precedentsset by simply reaching such agreements, and the momentum generated forfurther ones. But that is not what Parfit had in mind.) Reasons why sets of actsmay jointly harm or benefit include the acts being ones that singly have imper-ceptible effects, but jointly make a significant difference.5 And this brings usback to effects whose causes are a scattering of apparently innocuous and insig-nificant acts, and thus to mediated responsibility.

The issue now becomes which are the relevant sets of acts that jointly harmor benefit, and how we can know that our act would be a member of such a set, andright or wrong as such. Here, Parfit cogently claims that “When some grouptogether harm or benefit other people, this group is the smallest group of whom itis true that, if they had all acted differently, the other people would not have beenharmed, or benefited.”6 This claim, if true, exonerates of responsibility agents whomight be added arbitrarily to the relevant group, but whose acts make no differ-ence to the joint or cumulative effect: unrelated bystanders and their conversa-tions, for example. (Similarly, we might add here among acts to be excluded actswhich contribute to global warming but are themselves unavoidable, like humanbreathing, and like the rearing of cattle, economically indispensable for many poorThird-World farmers, even though the cattle contribute to global warming throughemissions of methane.)

However, Parfit introduces and endorses a more elaborate claim both aboutethical wrongness and about when agents know enough to be subject to such aclaim. It goes like this: “When (1) the outcome would be worse if people suffermore, and (2) each of the members of some group could act in a certain way (heshould perhaps have said: ‘in a certain avoidable way’), and (3) they could cause

228 Robin Attfield

other people to suffer if enough of them act in this way, and (4) they would causethese people to suffer most if they all act in this way, and (5) each of them bothknows these facts and believes that enough of them will act in this way, then (6)each would be acting wrongly if he acts in this way.”7 This claim fits Parfit’sthought-experiment of The Harmless Torturers (p. 80), who each make someone’spain worse by an imperceptible amount. But importantly for current purposes, italso seems to fit avoidable contributions to global warming, at least where there isno strong ethical justification for them.

Parfit closes his chapter with a passage about the relation of social historyto ethics, in which he shows some awareness of the kind of themes advancedby Jonas, and also adds to them. Here is an extract, from the penultimateparagraph:

Until this century, most of mankind lived in small communities. What each did could affectonly a few others. But conditions have now changed. Each of us can now, in countless ways,affect countless other people. We can have real though small effects on thousands ormillions of people. When these effects are widely dispersed, they may be either trivial, orimperceptible. It now makes a great difference whether we continue to believe that wecannot have greatly harmed or benefited others unless there are people with grounds for aserious complaint, or for gratitude. . . . For the sake of small benefits to ourselves, or ourfamilies, we may deny others much greater total benefits, or impose on others much greatertotal harms. We may think this permissible because the effects on each of the others will beeither trivial or imperceptible. If this is what we think, what we do will often be much worsefor all of us.8

This passage is concerned with humanity alone, and apparently with the currentgeneration alone, and in these ways fails to take into account many impacts ofcurrent action and inaction, except insofar as current human interests require thefunctioning of the same ecosystems and weather systems as are vital to otherspecies and will be vital to future generations. (Later in Reasons and Persons,Parfit has much to say about future generations, and how their identity is currentlyindeterminate, but partially determined by current generations; hence it wouldbe unfair to represent him as neglectful of their good.) However, by stressing thefrequently cumulative character of trivial and of imperceptible effects, Parfitimportantly contributes to our grasp of mediated responsibility, and of how ethicshas ceased to concern mainly the interpersonal relations of contemporary humanindividuals living in face-to-face communities. Besides, as Jonas remarks, “thecumulative self-propagation of the technological change of the world constantlyovertakes the conditions of its contributing acts and moves through none butunprecedented situations, for which the lessons of experience are powerless.”9

Fortunately, there is nothing to prevent us extending Parfit’s message to impactsaffecting prospective generations or to impacts affecting nonhuman species irre-spective of impacts on human interests, and thus getting to grips with some of theunprecedented situations envisaged by Jonas. To both of these extensions, theimpacts of global warming are crucially relevant.


The Case of Global Warming

I should briefly clarify some of the ways in which trivial or imperceptibleimpacts contributing to global warming could jointly do serious harm. Not beinga climate scientist, I am taking for granted the overall findings of successive IPCCreports on global warming and of the scientific consensus that they embody. Thesesuggest that the cumulative impacts of small contributions to global warming arecontributing to the melting of the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, and that this islikely to generate a rise in sea levels sufficient to endanger low-lying citiesworldwide, and also low-lying islands (some of which may virtually disappearwithin a century). Another serious possibility is the danger that the Gulf Stream,which currently bestows a pleasant climate on countries such as Ireland, Britain,and Norway, will cease to flow, leaving Britain with a climate more like that ofNewfoundland; such a development is far from certain, but is a focus of seriouscurrent concern and could be irreversible, thus comprising a further example of acrucial threshold being crossed.

Again, global warming seems already to be causing the geographical rangeof tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue-fever to increase, as DonaldBrown relates.10 Further thresholds could be crossed, as we can learn fromBrown’s book American Heat, if the gradual polewards migration of wildspecies ascribable to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmo-sphere and the consequent global warming11 leaves stranded land species (e.g.,species of mammals and reptiles) unable to migrate any further north or south,and thus to their extinction. Humanity is already extinguishing numerousspecies, many of which have never even been identified, through overt activitiessuch as forest clearance, but this sorry process is liable to be intensified throughthe more covert process of anthropogenic climate change. Since species extinc-tions are in the nature of the case irreversible, further thresholds are liable to becrossed in this way, albeit silently. Yet a further kind of serious harm arisingfrom anthropogenic global warming is the displacement of human environmen-tal refugees, currently estimated at 25 million, and predicted to grow in numbersexponentially as decade succeeds to decade.12 In a world of more and morejealously guarded frontiers and overstretched resources, the creation of suchlarge and growing numbers of refugees is likely to cause great and widespreadanguish and suffering.

Correspondingly, great good could be achieved through an accumulation ofenvironment-friendly practices, not least but not only on the part of individualconsumers, an accumulation which could well become feasible if enough gov-ernments and NGOs encouraged the adoption of such practices, and if gov-ernments fostered them through schemes such as carbon trading andenvironmentally-friendly energy-generation. For example, wild species thatmight have become extinct could continue to flourish; communities that mighthave become processions of environmental refugees could continue to maketheir own contributions to cultural diversity and in some cases to sustainable

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lifestyles; and ice caps and ocean currents might continue to facilitate alargely benign global weather system. Thus, the topics of indirect impacts andmediated responsibilities need not be seen as simply one of duties to avoidmatters becoming worse. They can also concern ways in which life can beenhanced.

Ecological Debt

However, further light can be thrown on these topics by consideration ofwhat the economist Juan Martinez-Alier has called “ecological debt.”13

Martinez-Alier detects ecological debt in two conflicts between poor and richcountries. The first lies in the inadequate compensation paid for the raw mate-rials of relatively poor countries by richer ones. In view of the power of thelatter to determine or largely to determine world prices, there is probably muchin what he says, but the kind of debt involved seems less obviously ecologicalthan that of the second conflict that he brings to attention as follows: “Second,rich countries make a disproportionate use of environmental space or serviceswithout payment, and even without recognition of other people’s entitlements tosuch services (particularly, the disproportionate free use of carbon dioxide sinksand reservoirs).”14 Certainly if we hold that each person has an equal entitlementto access the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb greenhouse gas emissions,then countries using more than the total entitlements of their citizens or theirresident population are making use of the entitlements of others, and oftenwithout payment.

That each person has such an equal entitlement cannot be fully argued here,but could be supported either on consequentialist or on Kantian grounds, oralternatively on grounds of natural justice. Martinez-Alier thus has good groundsfor his clearest identification of a case of ecological debt. But if so, our actionshave the unlooked-for implication of depriving other peoples of recognition andpayment for their entitlements to atmospheric services, a kind of impact for whichresponsibility can reasonably be recognized, albeit on a mediated basis. Indeed,the concept of ecological debt has a well-established literature, as related byMartinez-Alier.15

Sometimes, indeed, the use of other countries’ environmental space andservices is more direct and overt. For there is an international trade in the dumpingof pollutant substances, such as dioxin-laden ash, often in exchange for paymentsthat are determined by the slender bargaining power of the receiving countries.James Sterba has written about this trade in Justice for Here and Now,16 and CarlTalbot has christened it “toxic imperialism.” Examples of it are also brieflydiscussed in my 2003 book Environmental Ethics.17 This trade seems itself toexemplify the generation of both of the kinds of ecological debt identified byMartinez-Alier. But there are other practices plausibly falling under this descrip-tion and more closely related to climate change.


Further Impacts of Forms of Trade

For Western consumer societies have become dependent on the cheap manu-facture of clothes and artefacts in Asian countries such as India and China, andmany of our apparently innocuous practices of retail sales and of shopping havecome to depend on such production. Yet, the practices on which we have come torely often embody very poor employment and environmental standards, some-times involving the exploitation of workers, and sometimes inefficient use ofenergy and the consequent pollution of the atmosphere; and the relevant pollutantsubstances will almost certainly include greenhouse gases, although if interna-tional agreements are being honored, they probably do not include CFCs.

In terms of quantity, these emissions probably do not compare with theemissions from traffic in Western cities. But when varieties of mediated respon-sibility are under consideration, they should not be forgotten. Those directlyresponsible for such emissions are agents in distant places. But the incentives forthem to initiate and develop these practices are the purchasing power of Westernconsumers, and in the absence of our behavior as consumers, these practices ofmanufacture would probably either not take place, or would adopt different formsbetter suited to local markets. So here we have a case where one set of agentsbrings it about that others engage in polluting activities. Responsibility is medi-ated through the actions of others, but cannot for that reason be declared nonex-istent. Besides the undeniable presence of causal responsibility, it is difficult todeny that those who participate in and benefit from this trade have a share in themoral responsibility for its range of impacts, including not only prosperity forentrepreneurs but also adverse impacts on the ecosystems and atmosphere of Asia.But the atmosphere of Asia is the same atmosphere as the global atmosphere,the one whose concentrations of greenhouse gases we should be seeking tominimize.18

Once this kind of mediated responsibility has been introduced, many otherkinds may well spring to mind. For example, most of us purchase and benefit fromproducts of long-distance transport, whether in the form of food, clothing, or othergoods. In so doing, we become complicit in the carbon emissions of trucks andlorries, and sometimes in the air miles or sea miles of the intercontinental freighttrade. In some cases, there would be no other way in which health-giving itemssuch as bananas could reach our local store; but frequently it is otherwise, and ourparticipation by association in such long-distance trading is a matter of voluntarychoice.

Such, perhaps, is life in a globalizing world; yet consumers retain somemeasure of discretion, and have on occasion made a difference at a distance,through the exercise of consumer power, as with the boycott of South Africanproducts during the apartheid epoque, and through the activities of NGOs suchas those mentioned at pages 82–84 of my book Environmental Ethics.19 Thus,where we continue purchasing, we often have both causal responsibility for theemissions just mentioned, and a measure of moral responsibility, given the

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capacity to find out about the impacts of our purchasing, and the ability to dootherwise. So even though others have causal and probably moral responsibilitytoo, we can hardly shrug off moral responsibility, once again of a mediatedkind. Nor do these responsibilities disappear simply because the world hasbecome very complicated, or because there is not enough time to think throughthe impacts of all our actions. Indeed the very technology that gives rise to theproblems has also made it possible for pressure groups like Friends of the Earthand others to disseminate information about current systems and effective cam-paigning, and thus for individuals to behave as responsible consumers ratherthan passive ones. On a similar basis, governments too must be regarded ashaving real mediated responsibilities.

Rethinking Decision-Making and International Collaboration

Nevertheless, many of the problems mentioned cannot be tackled adequatelywithout international agreements, as well as the full participation of nationalgovernments, and global warming is manifestly a case in point. But some of theaspects of our responsibilities already mentioned, for example for spatially andtemporally dispersed impacts, for probable impacts and for the likely but not quitecertain crossing of thresholds, make this difficult and stretch the recognized basisfor political decision making. It could be maintained that these aspects relate topolitical philosophy, and should be reserved for some different occasion. But partof my contention is that the very changed context of ethics requires us to rethinknot only our responsibilities and related ethical questions, but also how we shouldcollaborate to discharge responsibilities in a technological and interconnectedworld. Another part is that where significant good or harm can be achievedthrough an accumulation of tiny impacts of action, but it happens to be difficult tocoordinate actions simply by advocacy and example, we should employ publicinstitutions in order to publicize the problems, and public policy in order toencourage beneficent rather than harmful cumulative impacts. We already do thisin many ways, such as publicly sponsored health insurance schemes, amongothers.

To express the problems in another way, we need to discover ways in whichto take account of the impacts of current action on all the future generations likelyto be affected thereby, plus the impacts on contemporaries who are not fellow-citizens, and live on the far side of boundaries or oceans, plus the impacts onnonhuman creatures worldwide, both now and in the future. In the case of globalwarming, all these impacts of current action are relevant to policies and theirformation in the present. Fortunately, some legislators are capable of grasping thefar-reaching nature of the impacts of current action, and ethically enlightenedenough to recognize related responsibilities, and so the situation is not hopeless.But difficulties arise as soon as we focus on the very forums of decision makingdevised to facilitate shared decisions and formulate public policy.


For our constitutions require us to give special consideration to sovereignterritory and the national interest, while international law requires us to respectthe sovereign independence of the territory of others. Accordingly, the first dutyof each legislature is widely seen to be the upholding of national security and ofthe bolstering of the national economic interest over the immediate next fewyears. Yet molding current policy in ways devised to uphold the interests offuture people, nonhuman species or foreigners could well be seen as conflictingwith such a duty. I have even seen it suggested that having regard for the inter-ests of the distant future is actually unconstitutional in a republic whose con-stitution was drawn up to guarantee the independence of current citizens andlegislators from the demands of others, whether the others are speaking forthemselves or their near or distant successors. But if proposals from interna-tional bodies are to be rejected simply because they come from internationalbodies, there can be little hope that national governments will accede to inter-national agreements, however important their subject. If, however, the problemshave the international character described earlier, there is every reason to con-sider suggested forms of international collaboration as proposed at internationalgatherings such as those held at Rio (1992) and Kyoto (1997) and Montreal(2005), even if that might mean some voluntary abridgement of sovereignty inthe cause of making such collaboration effective.

I have also seen it suggested that heeding the long-term good of humanitywould be unconstitutional because undemocratic. Democracy, this line of argu-ment goes, presupposes that policy will be based on the interests of the electorate,who are entitled to deselect any government or officers who fail to act in theseinterests. So deeply is this presupposition ingrained in democratic constitutionsthat if public policy has any other basis the shared constitutional framework ofdemocratic polities is undermined. This argument, it seems to me, confuses aweakness of our democratic system, with respect to which governments are proneto slant their policies to what is likely to please the electorate at the next election,with how they ought to function, a weakness that also makes governments proneto disregard or at least partially discount longer-term considerations. For if theprotection of national security and the national interest is among the duties ofgovernment, it must be a duty to facilitate the conditions in which the continuedwell-being of the nation will remain in place for at least a number of decades, andthis involves concern for relevant weather systems and ecosystems, which arelikely to include those shared with other nations as well as ones specific to acountry’s own borders and territory. Since, further, continued national prosperitywould be affected by ecological disasters and pandemics initially situated else-where, there must be some kind of duty to adopt policies concerned for theecosystems and weather systems of other countries as well. If, for example, thehotter surface layers of tropical seas and oceans are generating hurricanes affect-ing United States territory, the aim of curtailing such climate change, probablythrough international collaboration, could well be a legitimate aspect of federalU.S. policy.

234 Robin Attfield

Decision-Making for the Longer Term

But even if democracy is compatible with policies concerned for interestsbeyond those of the current electorate, there remain problems about whetherpublic decision making is not going to be perennially prone to be skewed towardcurrent interests and away from broader interests and longer-term interests,however much ethics may recognize all these interests, and responsibilities in theirregard. (Even if many individual voters have broader horizons than this mightsuggest, there is also a danger that corporations may bring it about that publicdecisions are skewed in just such a way.) For governments, like citizens, cannotbut be seen as bearing mediated responsibilities for the far-flung impacts of theiractions and policies, and yet public decision making, like ethical theory, is alwaysin danger of seeing itself as having too narrow a scope, and not taking into accountthe full range of its impacts and its powers, granted the mediated responsibilitiesof governments as well as those of individual citizens.

To counteract such dangers, decision makers should consider whether toappoint advisers or even a few members of their legislature appointed to representunrepresented parties, such as future people, and perhaps those species mostaffected by that legislature’s decisions, with duties to consider relevant aspects ofproposed legislation, and entitlements to have their reports taken into account. Theissue of exactly how such representatives of the unrepresented would best beappointed would of course need to be tackled, but this is not the occasion todiscuss it. What is more important is to find ways (and better ways may well besuggested) in which the many parties affected by current actions and policies canbe taken into account when decisions are being taken. For if their interests areunheeded, then the scope of ethics, as delineated above, and the related range ofimpacts of current action and inaction, will remain unmatched in our attempts atpublic collaboration. But such are the scope of ethics and the range of ourresponsibilities (both as individuals and as nations) that we precisely need systemsof public collaboration enabling responsible decisions to be reached that take intoaccount this full scope and this full range.

We also need matching international collaboration, similarly informed aboutthe impacts of human action and inaction, as may at last be beginning to happensince the 2005 Montreal Conference. In any case, while sovereignty remainslegally with national governments, the prospects for adequate international col-laboration are bound to depend on the eventual willingness of national authoritiesto address not just the immediate and local consequences of action, but all themediated consequences also. And this clearly holds sway across the fields ofglobal warming and climate change.

Notes

1 Hans Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, trans.Hans Jonas and David Herr (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984); originally


published as Das Prinzip Verantwortung: Versuch einer Ethic für die technologische Zivilisation(Insel Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1979) and Macht oder Ohnmacht der Subjecktivität? DasLeib-Seele-Problem im Vorfeld des Prinzips Verantwortung (Insel Verlag: Frankfurt am Main,1981).

2 I have contributed to this undertaking in Robin Attfield, Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics (Amster-dam and Atlanta, GA: Éditions Rodopi, 1995), and in Robin Attfield, Environmental Ethics: AnOverview for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).

3 Barnabas Dickson, “The Ethicist Conception of Environmental Problems,” Environmental Values 9(2000): 127–52; Samuel Sheffler, “Individual Responsibility in a Global Age,” Social Philosophyand Policy 12 (1995): 219–36.

4 Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 70.5 Ibid., 78–82.6 Ibid., 71–72.7 Ibid., 81.8 Ibid., 86.9 Jonas, Imperative of Responsibility, 7.10 Donald Brown, American Heat: Ethical Problems with the United States’ Response to Global

Warming (Lanham, MD and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).11 Ibid.12 Molly Conisbee and Andrew Simms, Environmental Refugees: The Case for Recognition (London:

New Economics Foundation, 2003).13 Juan Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and

Valuation (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2002).14 Ibid., 213.15 Ibid.; Robin Attfield, The Ethics of the Global Environment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,

1999), 142.16 James Sterba, Justice for Here and Now (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,

1998).17 Attfield, Environmental Ethics, 116.18 Brown, American Heat.19 Attfield, Environmental Ethics, 82–84.

236 Robin Attfield

josp_1449 237..256

A Just Response to Climate Change: Personal CarbonAllowances and the Normal-Functioning Approach

Keith Hyams

One of the normative aspects of climate change that has received relativelylittle attention from philosophers is the proposal that states reduce their green-house gas emissions by issuing “personal carbon allowances” (PCAs)—alsosometimes called “domestic tradable quotas” (DTQs), or “tradable energy quotas”(TEQs)1—to each of their citizens. According to this proposal, citizens would berequired to surrender PCAs in order to engage in various greenhouse gas emittingactivities. The number of PCAs issued each year would decline, so as to ensurea year-on-year reduction in national greenhouse gas emissions. One version ofthe proposal holds that a supranational system of PCAs could provide a globalsolution to climate change, with everyone on the planet receiving PCAs equivalentto a per capita share of global emissions. While a supranational system of PCAscould provide a global solution to climate change, it would be extremely difficultto implement a supranational system of PCAs, and unrealistic to expect globalleaders to sign up to such a system.2 On the other hand, a domestic version of theproposal suggests an attractive way for states to share out emissions among theirown citizens, however emissions are to be shared out between states.

The proposal domestically to issue PCAs was first developed in the 1990s byMayer Hillman and David Fleming.3 More recently, the proposal has been furtherdeveloped by Richard Starkey and Kevin Anderson at the Tyndall Centre forClimate Change Research,4 and promoted in popular books by Mayer Hillman andTina Fawcett, and by George Monbiot.5 Support for the proposal to issue PCAshas been particularly strong among civil society groups, although the proposal isalso being taken seriously at government level.6 A recent survey showed PCAs tobe the most favored method for reducing national emissions among respondentsrandomly selected from the UK population.7 The Royal Society for the Artsproject CarbonLimited recently piloted the use of Internet-based models ofPCAs.8josp_1449 237..256

While PCAs could in theory be used by all countries to regulate their nationalemissions, the focus of the present paper will be on the fair implementation of ascheme of PCAs in the developed world, and most of the examples will be drawnfrom the developed world context. This is for two principal reasons. First, becausedeveloped countries already have in place most of the political, social, and eco-nomic institutions necessary for the effective functioning of a system of PCAs.Second, because the countries that are committed by the Kyoto Protocol to


making significant short-term cuts in their national greenhouse gas emissions—the so-called “Annex One countries”—are all developed countries.

1. Why Personal Carbon Allowances?

Three main considerations motivate the use of PCAs rather than alternativepolicy instruments such as tax or industrial quotas. First, an oft-cited benefit ofquota-based approaches in general (including both PCAs and industrial quotas) isthat quota-based approaches allow policymakers to ensure that greenhouse gasemissions will not exceed a particular cap.9 This consideration provides only alimited reason to prefer quota-based approaches, however, since a tax-basedapproach could also be configured in such a way so as to approximate a cap onemissions. For example, a cap could be approximated by having marginal tax ratesincrease as an agent’s emissions increase, such that emissions become progres-sively more expensive and eventually—provided that tax rates are high enough—prohibitively expensive.

Second, it is sometimes argued that PCAs, implemented in an appropriatemanner, will serve to motivate citizens to “do their bit” in the belief that they arecontributing fairly to a larger effort to combat climate change.10 The point here isnot merely that citizens will be motivated to reduce their emissions: This outcomecould be achieved just as well by a tax-based approach. Rather, the point is thatagents’ motivation to reduce their emissions is less likely under a system of PCAsto be entirely economic. The economic motivation would be supplemented by theadditional moral motivation accompanying the belief that one is contributingone’s fair share to the burden of discharging a collective responsibility. Neverthe-less, from the point of view of averting the worst that climate change threatens,one might reasonably respond that it does not especially matter whether themotivation to reduce emissions is provided by economic reasons or moral reasons:the important thing is simply that we do reduce our emissions.

The third and most persuasive reason to adopt PCAs over alternative schemesis that PCAs allow policymakers to be much more sensitive to issues of fairness.Alternative schemes like tax incentives and industrial quotas force consumers topay the costs of reducing emissions in direct proportion to their purchases ofemission-dependent goods, thereby linking access to emission-dependent goodssolely to ability to pay. A suitably designed system of PCAs, on the other hand,would allow policymakers to ensure that emission-dependent goods are distrib-uted not merely in accordance with ability to pay, but in a manner sensitive toissues of fairness. This consideration, it seems to me, provides the strongest casefor adopting a system of PCAs over alternative schemes.

One of the questions that I will consider in this paper is the question whetherPCAs should be tradable. In the light of what I have just said—that the strongestcase for PCAs over alternative schemes like industrial quotas and taxes is itsability to decouple access to emission-dependent goods from ability to pay—onemight think that I am already committed to the view that PCAs should not be

238 Keith Hyams

tradable. Surely if PCAs are tradable then access to emission-dependent goodswould be determined by ability to pay? Indeed it is true that, under a scheme oftradable PCAs, access to emission-dependent goods would be partly linked toability to pay. But—unlike industrial quotas and taxes—under a scheme of trad-able PCAs, access to emission-dependent goods would not be wholly determinedby ability to pay, since the initial allocation of PCAs would also play a role indetermining access to emission-dependent goods. An agent who has little moneybut who is allocated, at no cost, lots of PCAs, may have as much access toemission-dependent goods as an agent with lots of money who is allocated fewPCAs. The poorer agent may indeed sell some of his PCAs to the wealthier agent,but it is not at all obvious that the resulting distribution of access to emission-dependent goods would be unfair, since an agent who sells his PCAs would becompensated by that which he receives in return for his PCAs. It remains an openquestion, then, whether PCAs should be tradable. One may endorse PCAs becausethey permit sensitivity to fairness, without being committed to the view that PCAsshould not be tradable.

2. Implementing Personal Carbon Allowances

In designing a system of PCAs, fairness is not the only consideration to betaken into account, and for reasons of cost and practicality, most advocates ofPCAs, including Hillman, Fleming, Starkey, and Anderson (cited above), wouldrestrict their use only to household energy and personal transport (including, onsome models, aviation and public transport). Individual consumers would not berequired to use PCAs to purchase other goods, because the cost and difficulty ofcalculating their embodied emissions—emissions on which production of thegood relied—would be prohibitively high. In a concession to reality at the expenseof fairness, it is proposed that emissions involved in the production of these othergoods be regulated by other means, for example by the sale of emission permits tothe firms that manufacture or provide them (though with tighter emission capsthan those currently used in existing industrial permit schemes like the EU Emis-sions Trading Scheme (ETS), from which some firms have made windfall profitsas a result of excessive allocations). Nevertheless, in developed countries at least,household energy and personal transport account for a large share of nationalemissions, so even if the remaining emissions were constrained by other means,PCAs would still be a major feature of many of the world’s largest economies.11

Considerable work has been done on the technical aspects of implementing ascheme of PCAs, for example, on quantifying the emissions embodied in variousforms of transport. But there remains an urgent need for work to be done on thephilosophical aspects of PCAs. For despite the growing interest in PCAs, mostphilosophical discussions about greenhouse gas emissions continue to focus onthe justice of different proposals for distributing emissions between states. Suchdiscussion is important in itself and, as we will see, some of the normative appealsmade in the context of such discussions will also be relevant to the domestic

A Just Response to Climate Change 239

implementation of a system of PCAs. But there is nevertheless a significant gap,which this paper aims to fill, insofar as distributional aspects of an intranationalsystem of PCAs remain largely unaddressed. States have characteristics of poten-tial moral relevance that individuals do not have, and distributing emission rightsbetween them therefore raises philosophical issues unique from those raisedby the problem of distributing emission rights among individuals. States, forexample, unlike individuals, have populations of different and changing sizes,they have identities that span several generations with associated long historiesof benefiting (or not) from different emission levels, they have economies ofdiffering sizes and with differing characteristics. As such, although some of thenormative principles applicable to the international case may still be relevant todiscussion of the domestic case, we cannot assume that these principles willautomatically apply in identical fashion to both cases.

Philosophical questions about the distribution of PCAs can be divided intotwo types. First, there are questions about how to allocate PCAs to individuals.Second, there are questions about carbon accounting, about how to work out howmany PCAs an individual need surrender in order to purchase a particularemission-dependent good. Although the focus of this paper will be on the first setof questions, I nevertheless wish to make a few preliminary remarks about thesecond, in order to expose a thread in our intuitions about fairness that is relevantto both. In particular, I offer a few comments on the problem raised by the need todisaggregate individual agents’ responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissionsembodied in collective services. The problem is illustrated by the example offlying. If an agent takes a flight and the flight is only half full, should he berequired to surrender twice as many PCAs as he would have done had he been ona flight identical in all respects except that it was full? Should he be required tosurrender extra PCAs to carry more luggage on board? In these and similar cases,intuition suggests that we should be guided by the loosely stated principle that anagent should be required to surrender more PCAs for choosing to take a morecarbon-intensive option than a less carbon-intensive one, but not for being givena more carbon-intensive option for reasons beyond their control. That is, ourcalculations should be sensitive to choice but not to unchosen circumstance. So,for example, if an agent, purchasing a flight ticket, chooses a higher-class seat withmore leg room than an economy-class seat (thereby permitting less people to becarried on the flight), then it seems fair that he should be required to surrendermore PCAs for his ticket than an agent who purchases an economy-class seat. Butan agent who books himself on a flight which turns out, unbeknown to him at thetime of booking, to be half full, then he should not be required to surrender anymore PCAs than an agent who books himself on a flight identical in all relevantrespects except that the flight turns out to be full. Such an approach wouldmaximize both the intuitive moral appeal of a system of PCAs and the beneficialincentives created by the system—whenever an agent has a choice in the matter,PCAs provide an incentive to choose the least carbon-intensive option. Thesetentative comments are not, of course, intended to be conclusive. The principle

240 Keith Hyams

certainly needs further clarification and justification. But they will hopefully behelpful nevertheless, if only because, as we will see, they tie in with a widercommitment to choice-sensitivity and circumstance-insensitivity running throughour moral intuitions about how fairly to implement a system of PCAs.

Note that I will not address herein questions about how we should distributethe burden of compensating victims of climate change or of helping them to adaptto a changing climate. While it is possible to design a system of PCAs with the aimof raising funds to compensate the victims of climate change—for example, byauctioning PCAs and spending the proceeds on compensation or adaptation—itwould be inappropriate to do so. To the extent that we commit ourselves to raisingsuch funds through a system of PCAs, we commit ourselves to linking thedistribution of the burden of discharging our collective duty to reduce greenhousegas emissions to the distribution of the burden of discharging our collective dutyto compensate the victims of climate change. But we should not link these twodistributions, since different moral principles are likely to apply in each case. AsVanderheiden notes, equity-based principles are likely to play a stronger rolewhen allocating future emission shares, whereas responsibility-based principlesshould be more significant when allocating the costs of compensation andadaptation.12

In order to determine how we should allocate PCAs, we need to know why weshould be concerned about their distribution at all. I will argue that there are twovery different rationales that motivate a concern with the distribution of PCAs.Although appeals are often made to both rationales in popular discussion of PCAs,it is important that they be clearly distinguished, since they have quite differentimplications for the distribution of PCAs. The first rationale for a concern with thedistribution of PCAs is what I will call the rationing case. The rationing case isconcerned to ensure that all agents have an appropriate level of access to aparticular good or group of goods. The rationing case is not content to leave thedistribution of PCAs to the market. The second rationale for a concern with thedistribution of PCAs is what I will call the initial distribution case. The initialdistribution case is quite happy to leave the distribution of PCAs to the market, butis concerned to ensure that PCAs are introduced into the market in a fair way. Bothrationales appeal to principles underlying widely shared moral intuitions not onlyabout fair distributions of emission rights, but about fair distributions of goods insociety more generally. Insofar as these principles claim universal applicability, sotoo do the rationales for a concern with the distribution of PCAs.

3. The Rationing Case

The case for a regime of PCAs is often compared to the case for rationingessential supplies during World War II. Such a case appeals to the claim that,left to its own devices, the market would provide an unacceptable distributionof a particular good or group of goods. The distribution may be considered


unacceptable because it would allow some agents to evade their moral responsi-bilities, because it would result in the denial of some agents’ basic needs orprevent them from developing central capabilities,13 because it would be toounequal, or for other reasons. The concern that motivated rationing during WorldWar II, for example, was a desire to ensure that particular needs—for food andfuel and so on—were universally met during times of scarcity (hence expectantmothers and children were allowed more milk and eggs than others, reflectingtheir different nutritional needs). Although the motivations that may underlie acase for rationing PCAs are diverse, they have one important feature in common:They all insist on the moral importance of maintaining a particular patterneddistribution of some particular good across individuals in society—either PCAsthemselves or some other emission-dependent good or group of goods. As such,a central implication of the rationing case is that it requires that PCAs not betradable. PCAs must not be tradable in order to avoid creating a new market inPCAs that will determine the distribution of emissions, offering no guarantees thatthe moral concerns of those moved by the rationing case will be catered for.

Note that the rationing case does not necessarily require that we equalizePCAs, depending on the motivation that underlies the case. The basic needsmotivation, for example, requires only that everyone has sufficient PCAs to meettheir basic needs; if any extra PCAs beyond those required for sufficiency are leftwithin the overall limit, the basic needs motivation is neutral on how they oughtto be shared out. It is even possible to be motivated by equality without beingcommitted to equalizing PCAs, depending on what it is that we want to equalize.If one is concerned to equalize access to the rationed good itself, then one willindeed want to distribute PCAs equally. But it will often not be the rationed gooditself that is important, but some other good which the rationed good is instru-mental to promoting. One might, for example, think it important to equalizepeople’s ability to keep their houses warm, and on that basis ration PCAs un-equally, because it requires more energy to keep some houses warm than others.

How strong is the case for rationing? Many economists and politicians haveopposed non-tradable PCAs because, unlike tradable PCAs, they will not yieldemissions cuts in the most economically efficient manner. This is an importantconsideration, but it need not be the decisive one. If there are strong moral reasonsfor rationing, then we might decide that those reasons are ultimately more impor-tant than the economic considerations. So let me restate the question of presentinterest: how strong is the moral case for rationing non-tradable PCAs? There is,of course, no one general answer to this question. The strength of the case forrationing depends on the strength of the arguments in its favor, and we mustconsider the merits of each such argument individually.

3.1 A Duty to Reduce One’s Own Emissions

First, one argument for rationing non-tradable PCAs says that everyone has aduty significantly to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and not merely to

242 Keith Hyams

buy their way out of such reductions. This mirrors a case against trading at theinternational level put by Sandel, who writes that “turning pollution into a com-modity to be bought and sold removes the moral stigma that is properly associatedwith it.”14 The argument seems to me implausible. Why should we account foragents’ shares of the collective burden to address climate change in terms ofgreenhouse gas emissions rather than in terms that allow agents to discharge theirshare of the collective burden in whatever manner they would most prefer to doso? Agents who would buy extra PCAs if given the opportunity to do so would stillbe making a sacrifice as a result of the cap on emissions imposed by the system ofPCAs. Their sacrifice would be paid for in monetary terms rather than greenhousegas emissions, but the disvalue of the burden shouldered would be identical—inmarket terms—to the disvalue of forgoing the quantity of emissions permitted bythe purchased PCAs. Sandel compares buying emission permits to paying a feein order to throw a beer can into the Grand Canyon. But the analogy is flawed,since the emissions of an agent who buys extra permits remain within the overalllimit of permissible collective emissions, whereas any beer cans thrown into theGrand Canyon exceed the number of beer cans—none—which can be permissiblythrown into the Grand Canyon.15

3.2 Basic Needs and Central Capabilities

A second argument for rationing non-tradable PCAs is that a trade in PCAscould result in some agents being unable to satisfy basic needs, or to developcentral capabilities, because they have insufficient access to emission-dependentgoods. Shue endorses a position along these lines, justifying the rationing ofemission rights by reference to what he calls subsistence rights.16 The problemwith this argument is that a trade in PCAs would not, provided that PCAs areinitially allocated in an appropriate manner, prevent agents from satisfying theirbasic needs, or developing their central capabilities, unless they chose to tradeaway their PCAs. So this argument requires a commitment to the claim thatemission-dependent needs or capabilities should be satisfied even if the agentwould prefer to satisfy alternative desires instead. Again, I find this claim highlyimplausible. At best such paternalism is unnecessary, and at worst it can bepositively harmful. If the relevant needs or capabilities really are so important,then they will be given priority among an agent’s own preferences anyway. And ifthey are not so important, then why should we enforce our own view about whatis best for an agent over their own?

Shue argues that minimum emission rights necessary for subsistence shouldnot be tradable by analogy with food stamps.17 “Decent societies,” he writes, “donot in fact market all their food but, instead, reserve significant amounts of it to bedistributed by way of food stamps, or their functional equivalent, which are notthemselves supposed to be marketed but distributed according to need.” But ifgiving out food stamps is a mark of a decent society, then that is becausegiving out food stamps ensures that agents who are unable to afford food will


nevertheless have access to food, and such provision does not depend upon thefood stamps that they receive not being tradable. Likewise, even if we agreed withShue that society ought to ensure that all agents have sufficient access to emission-dependent goods for subsistence (I will discuss in the final section of this paperwhether or not society does have such an obligation), then this would only entailthat society ought to give a minimum quantity of PCAs to agents, and not thatthose PCAs should not be tradable. We should not confuse a needs- or capabilities-based argument for doing something for an agent (like giving her PCAs), with aneeds- or capabilities-based argument for requiring an agent to do something forherself (like not allowing her to sell her PCAs). It is one thing to argue that,morally, A should do j for B so that B’s basic needs can be met, or so that B’scentral capabilities can be developed; but it is quite a different thing to argue—much less plausibly—that, morally, A should do j for A, so that her own basicneeds can be met or central capabilities satisfied.

Note that at the international level, considerations along the lines of those justdiscussed provided the major rationale for a provision in the Marrakesh round ofclimate negotiations that rich countries should not be able to buy, nor poorcountries be able to sell, more than a certain percentage of national emissions.Such a limit on trade seems to me more justifiable at the international level thanat the individual level. For in the international case, the consequences of agovernment’s decision to sell emission quotas fall not only on the governmentitself, but also on the individual citizens whom it governs. Since there is a greaterlikelihood that governments of poor countries will make decisions about sellingnational emission quotas that harm their citizens, than the likelihood that indi-viduals will make decisions about selling their own PCAs that harm themselves,a limit on trading intended to protect citizens of poor countries against theconsequences of bad decisions by their government might well be justifiable. Thatis, we should not limit trading in order to protect individuals against themselves,but perhaps we should limit trading in order to protect individuals against theirgovernments.

3.3 Worsening Existing Injustices

Finally, a third reason for opposing a trade in PCAs appeals to the claim thatsuch a trade will worsen existing social injustices. We would not, according to thisview, be concerned about a trade in PCAs if we lived in a just society. But giventhat we do not live in a just society—because distributions of goods in society arethe result of historical injustices, or because they do not satisfy wider egalitarianprinciples of justice—we ought not to allow a trade in PCAs. Rather, we ought todistribute PCAs in a just manner and insulate that distribution against the unequal-izing effects of the market.

In what sense would a trade in PCAs worsen existing injustices? Not in thesense of giving the rich more overall or the poor less overall. When a rich agentbuys a PCA from a poor agent, the value of each agent’s overall holdings remains

244 Keith Hyams

unchanged, since the value of the PCA is equal to the value of the moneytransferred. The only sense in which a trade in PCAs would worsen existinginjustices is in the sense that the rich would, because of the injustice, have greateraccess than the poor to emission-dependent goods. But why arbitrarily pick outaccess to emission-dependent goods? The rich may have greater access toemission-dependent goods if PCAs are tradable than if they are not, but theywould also have less access to other goods (because they will have spent some oftheir money on PCAs), and the poor will have more access to other goods (becausethey have earned money by selling PCAs). The real problem is the underlyinginjustice, and that cannot be remedied simply by prohibiting a trade in PCAs. So,like the previous two arguments, I conclude that this third argument also fails toprovide a convincing case for rationing PCAs.

4. The Initial Distribution Case

The second rationale for a concern with the distribution of PCAs is a desireto ensure that PCAs are introduced into the market in a fair manner. The initialdistribution case, unlike the rationing case, has no objection to PCAs beingtradable. The task facing those who are moved by this rationale is to identify thenorm that should regulate the fair introduction of PCAs into the market. Theproposal that has received most attention is the proposal that everyone should begiven an equal share of available PCAs.18 But there are other proposals forintroducing PCAs into the market worth examining, and in particular we oughtto examine the normative merits of proposals that mirror methods already used,or widely supported, to regulate the distribution of emission rights to states orindustrial firms. Insofar as is possible, we should seek normative consistencyacross the board: if there is a case for using one distributional rule for states orindustrial firms then the normative appeals on which that case depends mayprovide a prima facie case for using the same distributional rule for PCAs. Ofcourse it might turn out that the force of the normative appeals does not extend toPCAs because of differences between individuals, states and firms, or that even inthe international or industrial case the adopted distributional rules are not in factjustifiable; but only by examining the normative merits of the proposals can wemake such a determination.

4.1 Auctioning PCAs

One proposal that is already used to distribute some emission permits toindustry under the EU ETS, and which is supported in some civil society groupsand think tanks as the best way to distribute permits to industry more widely,19 isthe proposal that governments auction permits. Should auctioning be used todistribute PCAs to individuals? One objection to auctioning PCAs to individualsis that it links access to emission-dependent goods to ability to pay, thereby failingto take advantage of the opportunity that PCAs afford to distribute access to


emission-dependent goods in a more egalitarian manner. A more fundamentalobjection to auctioning PCAs begins with the observation that, in order to sellsomething, however the proceeds of the sale are spent, one must enjoy rights to theitem sold. Auctioning assumes that governments enjoy such rights: if they do not,then governments can no more auction PCAs than can a thief auction his ill-gottengains. So do governments have rights to PCAs? Certainly, at the internationallevel, it is to governments that emission quotas are allocated. Why shouldn’tgovernments have rights to divide up these quotas and sell them? The importantpoint is that international negotiations are not about giving governments emissionquotas for their own use, but for the use of their citizens and industries. Govern-ments are, in this respect, in the position of trustees in charge of a bequest, or acharity in receipt of money intended to help the poor; they are not in the positionof the ultimate beneficiaries of the bequest or charitable donation. Quotas areassigned to governments so that they can distribute them fairly among the variousclaimants within their jurisdiction. They are not assigned to governments so thatthey can make money by selling them.

The preceding comments demonstrate that the fact that governments aregiven emission quotas at the international level does not mean that they have anyrights over those quotas of the sort that would justify their selling emission rightsto their own citizens in the form of PCAs. But the preceding comments do notanswer the more fundamental question, why should we treat individuals, but notstates, as entitled to a share of free emission rights to use or sell as they wish? Noeasy answer can be given to this question, since it is so closely linked to thefoundations of the liberal tradition (which is not to say that all non-liberal ide-ologies need oppose the free allocation of PCAs to individuals). In short, theliberal tradition begins with individual moral claims and capacities and worksupward from these to justify the moral claims and capacities of states. That is why,for example, liberals have invested so much time in trying to justify politicalauthority by reference to individuals’ moral capacities and duties.20 When pre-sented with the problem of allocating a new resource like greenhouse gas emissionrights, this fundamental liberal commitment requires that we treat individuals asthe primary recipients of the resource. Individuals automatically receive entitle-ments that they can choose to give or sell to the state, not vice versa.21 (Thisargument implies not only that individuals should be given PCAs, but also thatwhen a government sells emission permits to industry, it is in effect selling thatwhich belongs to its citizens and so should either give the proceeds of the sale toits citizens or require their agreement to do otherwise.)

4.2 Grandfathering

A second proposal, known as grandfathering, gives more emission permits tothose who have historically emitted more greenhouse gases. Grandfathering isused to regulate the allocation of most emission permits to industry under the EUETS, was adopted in modified form by the Kyoto Protocol (all nations were

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required by 2012 to reduce their emissions by an average of five percent from thatcountry’s 1990 baseline emissions), and continues to be prominently pushed bybig polluters in international negotiations. Although grandfathering is usuallyframed at the level of firms and countries, one might think that grandfatheringshould also operate at the level of individuals. The proposal would be that thoseindividuals who have historically benefited from higher greenhouse gas emissionsbe given more PCAs than those with lower historical emissions. Such a proposalwill strike many—and certainly those with egalitarian sympathies—as unjust, justas it may seem unjust in the international or industrial domain. But given thewidespread advocacy and adoption of grandfathering in the international andindustrial domains, it is important even for opponents of grandfathering that thearguments for grandfathering be accurately stated and dissected in order toprovide the strongest case against it.

One argument for grandfathering, made by Meyer and Roser, claims thatagents who have used a certain proportion of the earth’s atmosphere in the pasthave appropriated that proportion of the earth’s atmosphere.22 But this argumentdepends upon a serious misreading of the Lockean theory of appropriation, inwhich appropriation depends upon improving use rather than degrading use. Byemitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere one does not improve but degradesthe atmosphere. Such degradation does not, according to the Lockean theory(or any other plausible theory of appropriation), bestow ownership over thatproportion of the atmosphere.

A second argument for grandfathering justifies the practice not by directappeal to historical emissions, but by indirect appeal to historical emissions,insofar as they serve as evidence for the greater extent to which big emitters nowrequire higher greenhouse gas emissions to sustain their carbon-intensive life-styles. The reason that we should practice grandfathering, the argument goes, is toavoid imposing additional, unfair burdens on those with carbon-intensive life-styles, who would have to make radical changes to their lifestyles if they are notgiven more PCAs than other agents. Again, this argument for grandfatheringseems extremely implausible when we recall the reason that we need to restrictgreenhouse gas emissions at all. We do not need to restrict greenhouse gasemissions because they are becoming a scarce resource. Rather, we need to restrictgreenhouse gas emissions because we owe a collective duty to future generationsto minimize climatic changes. Past emissions already commit us to climaticchanges that will cause a great deal of harm, but if we do not drastically reduce ourgreenhouse gas emissions then the harm that we will cause will be all the greater.In the face of this, there are no good grounds for complaints by big emitters thatthey would no longer be able to do what they used to be able to do without extraPCAs. What big emitters used to be able to do (and, indeed, until such time as anappropriate regime of PCAs is implemented, are still able to do) was to enhancetheir lifestyles at the expense of the victims of climate change, disproportionatelycontributing to the harm caused by climate change by engaging in indulgentactivities. In distributing the burden of responding to our collective duty


drastically to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, it is quite fair that suchindulgences be curtailed first (or at least, that those who wish to continue suchenhancement be forced to buy extra PCAs in order to do so). This is the essenceof Shue’s widely quoted dictum, as applicable to the domestic case as to theinternational one, that “whatever justice may positively require, it does not permitthat poor nations be told to sell their blankets in order that rich nations may keeptheir jewellery.”23

4.3 Equal Allocations

The most prominent proposal for distributing PCAs is that everyone receivean equal allocation of PCAs. This is the proposal made by the main designers andadvocates of PCAs, including Anderson, Bottrill, Fawcett, Fleming, Hillman,Monbiot, and Starkey (cited above). The proposal is mirrored at the internationallevel in the widely supported (except among big polluters) proposal that theemissions of all states should converge on an equal per capita allowance for eachstate—what Aubrey Meyer calls “contraction and convergence.”24 (A variation onthis proposal takes into account historical emissions so that, in order to equalizeper capita emissions over time, including the past, historically high emitters aregiven lower future allowances.25)

That the equal allocation proposal has received so much support strikes me asan important finding in itself, because the proposal that all naturally occurringresources should have been divided up equally—and that compensation is payableby those who received more than their fair share—has never been widely sup-ported. While some egalitarians, most notably left libertarians such as HillelSteiner, have long advocated this position, the proposal has never been regarded asmainstream.26 But why should atmospheric emission rights be divided up differ-ently to any other naturally occurring resource? If atmospheric emission rightsshould be divided up equally, then shouldn’t other naturally occurring resourcesalso be divided up equally? Perhaps, then, we should now treat the more generalegalitarian proposal as mainstream: If so many people think it evident that atmo-spheric emission rights should initially be shared out equally, there seems to be astrong and widely held intuition in support of the more general egalitarianproposal.27

4.4 Grandmothering and the Normal-Functioning Approach

Despite the intuitive appeal of the equal allocations proposal, even several ofits main proponents recognize that the proposal doesn’t get it quite right.28 For theproposal seems unfair when we consider the situation of agents who, as a result ofcircumstances beyond their control, would require more PCAs than other agentsin order to function at some normal level. Where possible, governments mightaddress these sources of unfairness by subsidizing improvements in energy effi-ciency rather than by handing out extra PCAs: such an approach would be more

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sensible in the light of the overall goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Governments might, for example, pay for extra insulation to be installed inpoorly insulated homes, thereby enabling those with formerly poorly insulatedhomes to keep their homes warm without requiring extra PCAs. But it will notalways be possible for the government to address these sources of unfairness bysubsidizing improvements in energy efficiency. For example, an agent living in apart of the country with a particularly cold climate may need extra emission-dependent energy to keep her house warm, however well insulated the house is.(To qualify her for extra PCAs, let us suppose that her living in this location is theresult of unchosen circumstance rather than a deliberate choice.) I will use theterm grandmothering to denote the practice of giving extra PCAs to agents in suchsituations.

Some agents who might not be able to achieve a normal level of functioningwithout extra PCAs might be in a position to buy extra PCAs from those withexcess PCAs, in order to achieve a normal level of functioning. Should govern-ments give extra PCAs to these agents, or should they be required to buy theirown? Suppose, for example, that the agent who lives in the cold climatic zonecould afford to buy extra PCAs in order to keep her house warm, without therebyjeopardizing her ability to satisfy other basic needs or develop other centralcapabilities. There is no danger that her basic needs or capabilities will not besatisfied, but it will cost her substantially more to do so. The grandmotheringintuition suggests that we should indeed give the agent extra PCAs, so that she cankeep her house warm at a similar cost to other agents. It would be unfair to requirethe agent to buy extra PCAs for herself. So the intuition that justifies grandmoth-ering is not merely that agents should not be prevented by circumstances beyondtheir control from achieving a normal level of functioning, but that they should beable to achieve a normal level of functioning at a similar cost to other agents. (Theextra PCAs given to these agents need not, however, mean an increase in theoverall national cap, because the extra PCAs given to these agents could be offsetby giving slightly fewer PCAs to all other agents.)

The intuition that we should practice grandmothering suggests that the pro-posal to equalize PCAs does not quite do justice to our underlying moral com-mitments. But what are those underlying moral commitments? And how shouldwe clarify the meaning normal functioning? One way to interpret normal func-tioning would be by reference to an objective list of basic needs or capabilities. Iargued above that one version of a commitment to an objective list of basic needsor capabilities could require us to prohibit a trade in PCAs. But such a prohibitiononly follows if one’s commitment to satisfying needs or developing capabilitiesextends even to cases in which agents would rather pursue other desires at theexpense of their basic needs or capabilities. One might defend instead an alterna-tive version of the commitment to basic needs or capabilities, according to whichagents should have the option to satisfy their basic needs or develop their centralcapabilities, but need not be bound to do so. Such a commitment would not requireus to prohibit a trade in PCAs, but it would require us to ensure that agents either


have enough PCAs, or have the funds to buy enough PCAs, to ensure that they cansatisfy basic needs or develop central capabilities if they choose to do so.

One problem with the basic needs or capabilities approach is that theapproach provides no grounds for concern if an agent can satisfy basic needs ordevelop central capabilities, but only at a significantly greater cost than otheragents. Yet the grandmothering intuition required that agents should be able toachieve a normal level of functioning at a similar cost to other agents. The basicneeds or capabilities approach fails to account for this aspect of the intuition. Theapproach requires us only to ensure that agents can satisfy basic needs or developtheir central capabilities, but not to ensure that they can do so at the same cost asother agents.

The second reason that the basic needs or capabilities approach is unsatis-factory is that it cannot account for intuitions about how any additional PCAsshould be shared out, once those required for the satisfaction of basic needs or thedevelopment of central capabilities have already been shared out. Given the scaleof emission reductions required to avert the worst consequences of climatechange, one might think that governments should set national emissions caps at alevel that will ensure that no further PCAs will be available once those necessaryfor the satisfaction of basic needs or the development of central capabilities havebeen given out. But suppose that caps are set at a higher level, and that extra PCAsare available. The basic needs or capabilities approach has nothing to say abouthow the extra PCAs should be distributed. But it seems to me that we should stillcare about how these PCAs are distributed: They should be distributed fairly,according to some criterion of fairness not explained by the basic needs orcapabilities approach.

More plausible than the basic needs or capabilities interpretation of thenormal-functioning approach is a luck-egalitarian interpretation. Luck-egalitarianism requires us to equalize the effects of unchosen circumstance onagents’ opportunities for welfare.29 As such, it understands normal functioningnot in terms of an objective list, but by comparison with the situation of otheragents. According to the luck-egalitarian interpretation of the normal-functioningapproach, we should ensure that PCAs are distributed so that, insofar as ispossible, the distribution does not affect any agent’s opportunities for welfare anymore or less than other agents, as a result of circumstances beyond the agent’scontrol.30 In practice this would mean, roughly, that agents for whom activitiesimportant to their welfare are, as a result of unchosen circumstance, more carbonintensive, would need to receive more PCAs than agents for whom activitiesimportant to their welfare are less carbon intensive. These differences might arisebecause the same activity is differentially carbon intensive for two agents indifferent circumstances—keeping a house warm in a hot climate and a coldclimate for example. Or they might arise because different agents need to performdifferent activities or different levels of activity in order to achieve the same levelof welfare—a younger person, for example, might be able to get around town (togo to work, to visit friends and family) with a bicycle, whereas an older person

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might need access to some form of motorized transport.31 Clearly there aredifficulties in determining when an agent’s situation is the result of choice andwhen it is the result of unchosen circumstance. These difficulties are a matter forongoing discussion in the wider literature on luck-egalitarianism, and not diffi-culties that we can hope to address satisfactorily here. But while such difficultieswill need to be addressed in order to actually implement a luck-egalitarian distri-bution of PCAs, they need not interfere with the present project of defending aluck-egalitarian distribution of PCAs. That the line between choice and unchosencircumstance is not always clear implies neither that we should reject the distinc-tion nor that the distinction does not have the normative relevance claimed for it.

As well as enjoying the theoretical support of luck-egalitarianism, this inter-pretation yields intuitively plausible results that overcome the difficulties associ-ated with the basic needs or capabilities interpretation of the normal-functioningapproach. It can explain the intuition that agents should not be prevented bycircumstances beyond their control from achieving a normal level of functioningat a similar cost to other agents, since the opportunities for welfare of an agentwho has to pay to purchase additional PCAs would be adversely affected by herfinancial loss. It also provides a distributive principle that applies both to PCAsrequired for subsistence, and to additional PCAs not required for subsistence.Finally, the luck-egalitarian interpretation allows us to achieve consistencybetween the normative principle informing decisions about initial allocations ofPCAs, and the normative principle informing decisions about carbon accounting.Recall that in the case of carbon accounting—working out how many PCAs anagent need surrender to purchase a particular emission-dependent good—I sug-gested that we ought to require agents to surrender more PCAs for choosing totake a more carbon-intensive option than a less carbon-intensive one, but not forbeing given a more carbon-intensive option for reasons beyond their control.Adopting a choice-sensitive but circumstance-insensitive approach both to theinitial allocation of PCAs and to carbon accounting allows us to capitalize on theenvironmentally beneficial incentives of a system of PCAs while remaining faith-ful throughout to the demands of luck-egalitarian justice.

5. Conclusion

I have argued that we should initially allocate PCAs in a manner that ensures,insofar as is possible, that the distribution does not affect any agent’s opportunitiesfor welfare any more or less than other agents, as a result of circumstances beyondthe agent’s control. Once PCAs have been allocated, agents should then be freeto sell their PCAs or to buy more PCAs as they wish. In practice, of course, anydistribution of PCAs will only be an approximation to this ideal. But practicaldifficulties do not impugn the moral value of the distributive principle itself, and anapproximation to an ideal is still a better outcome than complete disregard for theideal. There is, of course, a trade-off here between simplicity and justice. From apolicy perspective, it is tempting to say that, in order to keep the system simple, we


should allocate PCAs equally despite the injustices that will arise if we do so. ButI doubt that we need to go so far in prioritizing simplicity over justice. Simplicity isonly of value here insofar as it helps the system to run smoothly and transparently,so that administrative costs are kept down and so that the public understand thesystem and regard it as fair. We will undoubtedly have to compromise justice tosome extent for the sake of these ends, but we need not pessimistically assume thatany variation on equal allocations will prevent their achievement.

So, how should governments that adopt a system of PCAs proceed? Perhapsthe best way to proceed would be initially to distribute PCAs equally, but to holdsome PCAs back for agents who submit successful applications for additionalPCAs on the grounds of their unchosen exceptional circumstance. Such a systemwould throw up not insignificant problems: the need to set clear criteria forunchosen exceptional circumstance; the need to win public support for a system ofPCAs in general and for this distribution in particular; the need to design andimplement a system for fairly assessing applications from those claiming uncho-sen exceptional circumstance. Any system initially more complex than this wouldindeed run the risk of condemning the whole system of PCAs to failure fromthe start. But the suggested system could be improved over time, both in order totake account of more minor variations in circumstance-attributable emissionrequirements, and in order to identify not only agents who have greater thanaverage circumstance-attributable emission requirements, but also agents whohave smaller than average circumstance-attributable emission requirements. Soonce the system was up and running, governments might seek to develop moresophisticated methods for assessing agents’ circumstance-attributable emissionrequirements. But they should not rush to do so. By waiting a few years beforedeveloping such methods, governments would have the considerable advantagenot only of having addressed initial problems and let the system settle down, butalso of having access to a wealth of information about the use of PCAs thus far,which could usefully inform the development of new methods for assessingcircumstance-attributable emission requirements.

For helpful comments I would like to thank Paula Casal, Tim Hayward, RobLamb, Andrew Williams, and two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1 For more detail on the subtle differences between these schemes, see Catherine Bottrill, “Under-standing DTQs and PCAs,” ECI Working Paper (2006), http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/pct/dtq-and-pca.pdf (accessed September 24, 2008); and Simon Roberts and JoshuaThumim, A Rough Guide to Individual Carbon Trading: The Ideas, the Issues and the Next Steps,Centre for Sustainable Energy report to Defra (2006), http://www.cse.org.uk/pdf/news1270.pdf(accessed September 24, 2008).

2 Cf. Paul Baer, “Equity, Greenhouse-Gas Emissions, and Global Common Resources,” in ClimateChange Policy: A Survey, ed. Stephen H. Schneider, Armin Rosencranz and John O. Niles(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002), 393–408, at 401.

252 Keith Hyams

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy

http://www.cse.org.uk/pdf/news1270.pdf

3 David Fleming, Paper 11—Tradable Quotas: Setting Limits to Carbon Emissions (London: The LeanEconomy Initiative, 1997); David Fleming, “Tradable Quotas: Using Information Technology toCap National Carbon Emissions,” European Environment 7 (1997): 139–48; David Fleming,Energy and the Common Purpose: Descending the Energy Staircase with Tradable Energy Quotas(TEQs), 3rd ed. (London: The Lean Economy Connection, 2007), http://www.teqs.net/book/teqs.pdf (accessed September 24, 2008).

4 Richard Starkey and Kevin Anderson, “Domestic Tradable Quotas: A Policy Instrument for ReducingGreenhouse-Gas Emissions from Energy Use,” Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research:Technical Report 39 (2005), http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/theme2/final_reports/t3_22.pdf(accessed September 24, 2008).

5 Mayer Hillman and Tina Fawcett, How We Can Save the Planet (London: Penguin, 2004); GeorgeMonbiot, Heat: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning (London: Penguin, 2007).

6 On the UK government position, for example, see Tina Fawcett, Catherine Bottrill, Brenda Board-man, and Geoff Lye, Trialling Personal Carbon Allowances, UKERC Research Report (2007),http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/fawcett-pca07.pdf; and http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/individual/carbontrading/index.htm (both accessed Sep-tember 24, 2008).

7 Survey conducted by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)—see IPPR press release, “IPPRSays Public More Receptive to Personal Carbon Trading than Policy Makers Believe,” 16 July2008, http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=3208 (accessed September 24, 2008).

8 http://www.rsacarbonlimited.org/ (accessed September 25, 2008).9 See Raymond J. Kopp, “CO2 Emissions—Taxes or Permits? Raymond J. Kopp asks whether U.S.

Climate Policy Should Be Based on Taxes or Permits,” Oxford Energy Forum 38 (August 1999):14–16

10 For example, Roberts and Thumim, A Rough Guide, 8.11 In the UK, for example, household energy and personal transport accounts for fifty percent of

national greenhouse gas emissions, or forty percent without aviation and public transport.12 Steve Vanderheiden, Atmospheric Justice: A Political Theory of Climate Change (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2008): 222–23. Vanderheiden’s point is directed at the international context, butit applies also to the domestic context.

13 See Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

14 Michael Sandel, ed., “Should We Buy the Right to Pollute?” chap. 14 in Public Philosophy (Cam-bridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 93–96, at 94. Goodin makes similar arguments in RobertE. Goodin, “Selling Environmental Indulgences,” chap. 17 in Debating the Earth: The Environ-mental Politics Reader, Second Edition, ed. John S. Dryzek (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2005), 239–56, although his arguments are levelled not only at a trade in emission permits, but atany system that legitimizes emissions for a price, including taxes and non-tradable permits.

15 A stronger argument for prohibiting a trade in PCAs can be made if, instead of treating agents asbeing under a collective responsibility to reduce aggregate emissions, one instead argues thateveryone is under an individual duty to reduce their own emissions in order to avoid harmingpotential victims of climate change, regardless of what other agents are doing. Such a positionprovides a stronger grounding for a prohibition on trading PCAs, but it does so at the considerablecost of demanding unrealistically high reductions in individuals’ greenhouse gas emissions. AsVanderheiden (Atmospheric Justice, 162) argues, since any emissions generate increases, howeversmall, in the likelihood that potential victims of climate change will be harmed, “the upshot is aban on nearly all human activity, including the exhaling of CO2, insofar as such acts releasegreenhouse gases into the atmosphere.” (I suspect that a case could be made for exempting at leastthose activities necessary to sustain life, but it is nevertheless true that the implications ofprohibiting all non-life-sustaining greenhouse gas emissions would still be immense.) Whateverthe moral merits of this position, which depend on involved issues about responsibility foraggregate harms, they are beyond the scope of the present discussion. In considering how to


http://www.teqs.net/book

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/theme2/final_reports/t3_22.pdf

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/fawcett-pca07.pdf

http://www.defra

http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=3208

http://www.rsacarbonlimited.org

distribute PCAs—or for that matter how to distribute industrial permits or set environmentaltaxes—we are already committed to treating the problem as one of sharing out the burden ofdischarging a collective responsibility rather than enforcing individual duties to the potentialvictims of climate change. Whether the decision to treat the problem this way is based on moralreasons or policy reasons, it entails rejection of the individual-duty case against trading PCAs.Note, however, that for policy reasons one might treat the problem in terms of distributing acollective responsibility while still maintaining that the problem ought, morally, to be analyzed interms of individual duties drastically to reduce one’s own personal emissions. As Goodin (“SellingEnvironmental Indulgences,” 252) writes, “Environmentalists ought to be realists. They ought notgo tilting at windmills; they ought not let the best be the enemy of the good; they ought get whatthey can, here and now, rather than holding out in all-or-nothing fashion when doing so onlyguarantees that nothing will be achieved.”

16 Henry Shue, “Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions,” Law and Policy 15 (1993): 39–59; seealso Henry Shue, “Climate,” in A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, ed. Dale Jamieson(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 449–59. Shue allows that additional emission rightsbeyond those required for subsistence could be made available for trading. For additional argu-ments against Shue’s position, see Stephen Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” Ethics114 (2004): 555–600, at 585–86.

17 Shue, “Climate,” 455.18 See, for example, publications cited above by Anderson, Bottrill, Fleming, Fawcett, Hillman,

Monbiot, and Starkey.19 For example, Tim Gibbs and Simon Retallack, Trading Up: Reforming the European

Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (London: IPPR, 2006), http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=513 (accessed September 25, 2008).

20 For an overview of these efforts, see Keith Hyams, “Political Authority and Obligation,” chap. 1 inIssues in Political Theory, ed. Catriona McKinnon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 9–32.

21 Peter Barnes, Who Owns the Sky? (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001), 53–54, offers three answersto the question “why should individuals be treated as the primary recipients of atmosphericrights?”, all of which seem to me to be grounded in the fundamental liberal commitment to moralindividualism. Also relevant is Pogge’s more practical point that by allowing governments tocontrol resources on behalf of their populations—what Pogge calls the resource privilege—wecreate incentives for political instability and corruption in developing countries. Thomas Pogge,World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms, Second Edition(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 119–20.

22 Lukas H. Meyer and Dominic Roser, “Distributive Justice and Climate Change: The Allocation ofEmission Rights,” Analyse and Kritik 28 (2006): 223–49.

23 Henry Shue, “The Unavoidability of Justice,” in The International Politics of the Environment, ed.Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 373–97, at 397.Quoted by: Michael Grubb, “Seeking Fair Weather: Ethics and the International Debate onClimate Change,” International Affairs 71 (1995): 463–96, at 478; Matthew Paterson, “Interna-tional Justice and Global Warming,” in The Ethical Dimensions of Global Change, ed. BarryHolden (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1996), 181–201, at 183; E. Wesley and F. Peterson, “TheEthics of Burden-Sharing in the Global Greenhouse,” Journal of Agricultural and EnvironmentalEthics 11 (1999): 167–96, at 187; Stephen M. Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change,”Ethics 114 (2004): 555–600, at 578.

24 For example, Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case ofEnvironmental Colonialism (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1991); Dale Jamie-son, “The Epistemology of Climate Change: Some Morals for Managers,” Society and NaturalResources 4 (1991): 319–29; Michael Grubb, Jame Sebenius, Antonia Magalhaes, and SusanSubak, “Sharing the Burden,” in Confronting Climate Change: Risks, Implications, andResponses, ed. Irvin M. Mintzer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 305–22; AubreyMeyer, Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change, Schumacher

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Briefing No. 5 (Dartington: Green Books, 2000); Paul Baer, John Harte, Barbara Haya, Antonia V.Herzog, John Holdren, Nathan E. Hultman, Daniel M. Kammen, Richard B. Norgaard, and LeighRaymond, “Equity and Greenhouse Gas Responsibility,” Science 289 (2000): 2287; Paul Baer,“Equity, Greenhouse-Gas Emissions,” 393–408; Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer, Dead Heat:Global Justice and Global Warming (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002); Peter Singer, ed.,“One Atmosphere,” chap. 2 in One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 2002).

25 See Singer, “One Atmosphere,” 43–44; Baer, “Equity, Greenhouse-Gas Emissions,” 402.26 Hillel Steiner, An Essay on Rights (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).27 Vanderheiden (Atmospheric Justice, 103–104) argues that there is a stronger case for an egalitarian

distribution of atmospheric emission rights than there is for other resources, because the atmo-sphere transcends national boundaries and is not therefore subject to competing property claimsfrom those states in whose territory other resources lie. This is not to say that the national propertyclaims should always take precedence over other considerations, but only that a strongerargument—Vanderheiden looks at the argument from an international Rawlsian original positionto a “resource redistribution principle” made by Charles R. Beitz, Political Theory and Interna-tional Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)—must be given for redistributingresources between nations, than that required to justify an egalitarian allocation of a hithertounowned supranational resource. This distinction seems to me difficult to maintain. It is notenough, to maintain the distinction, that nations claim ownership rights over natural resources intheir territory. Rather, the distinction requires that these claims be morally justified. But if oneendorses the view that unowned, supranational resources like the atmosphere should be distributedin an egalitarian fashion, then there is a prima facie case for rejecting as morally unjustified theclaims made by nations over natural resources in their territory. All resources were once unownedand supranational (or at least, before nations existed, extranational), and as such should have beenallocated in accordance with the same egalitarian distributive criteria that apply to the atmosphere.Since they were not, we ought to conclude that existing claims to national ownership of resourcesderive from unjust methods of appropriation, and are not therefore morally justified.

28 For example, Hillman and Fawcett, How We Can Save the Planet, 127; Starkey and Anderson,“Domestic Tradable Quotas,” 11–14; Tina Fawcett, “Making the Case for Personal CarbonRations,” Proceedings of European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy Summer Study—What Works and Who Delivers? (2005): 1483–93, at 1491, http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/fawcett-pct05.pdf (accessed September 27, 2008); Fleming, Energy and theCommon Purpose, 31; Monbiot, Heat, 47–48. For a detailed breakdown of the distributionalimpacts of giving everyone an equal PCA allocation, see Joshua Thumim and Vicki White,Distributional Impacts of Personal Carbon Trading, Centre for Sustainable Energy report to Defra(2008), http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/individual/carbontrading/pdf/pct-distributional-impacts.pdf (accessed September 23, 2008).

29 Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), chaps. 1, 2,and 7; G. A. Cohen, “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,” Ethics 99 (1989): 906–44.

30 Vanderheiden (Atmospheric Justice, 226–27) endorses a similar position at the level of nationalemission allocations, which he calls a “modified equal shares approach.” Vanderheiden writes that“differences in circumstance that lie outside of an agent’s control can form the basis for validclaims for unequal resources, and must do so insofar as these affect opportunities for welfare”(p. 227). There are two respects, however, in which the present position is more faithful to thewider luck-egalitarian theory of justice than the position endorsed by Vanderheiden. First, byapplying luck-egalitarian criteria to the distribution of PCAs rather than national emission allo-cations, the present position recognizes that luck-egalitarian distributive criteria are intended, atthe moral level, to describe what is owed to individual agents rather than to larger moral units suchas nations. Second, the present position endorses only luck-egalitarian criteria for the distributionof PCAs, whereas Vanderheiden’s modified equal shares approach also endorses need-basedreasons for departing from equality: “the portion of available global emissions to be subject


http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/individual/carbontrading/pdf

to egalitarian distribution ought to be luxury emissions, not total emissions” (p. 226). Butluck-egalitarian and need-based distributive criteria do not combine comfortably in a unified moraltheory, one being a historical distributive principle and the other a patterned distributive principle.Perhaps these two problems are linked: when luck-egalitarian criteria are applied to states ratherthan individuals, the conclusion that states that make bad decisions should be left to suffer seemsunpalatable, precisely because states are not unitary agents in the way that individuals are. Rather,the citizens who will suffer most within states that make bad decisions are unlikely to be the samecitizens who make the bad decisions. In order to protect these vulnerable citizens, it seemsnecessary to supplement luck-egalitarian criteria for the distribution of emission quotas betweenstates with need-based criteria, even though the latter are unnecessary in the domestic context.

31 Can one say, for example, that “I need extra PCAs so that I can continue to fly to Barbados for myholidays. You might be content with the seaside resort up the road, but I can only achieve a similarlevel of welfare if I go to Barbados”? This raises the problem—usually couched in monetary termsbut equally problematic for emission requirements—that Dworkin (Sovereign Virtue, 48) hasdubbed expensive tastes. The answer depends, of course, on how one draws the distinctionbetween choice and circumstance (Dworkin draws the distinction so that all expensive tastes fallon the choice side; Cohen in “On the Currency” and in G. A. Cohen, “Expensive Taste RidesAgain,” in Dworkin and His Critics, ed. J. Burley (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 3–29, draws thedistinction so that some expensive tastes fall on the choice side and some on the circumstanceside). Only if it is really a matter of circumstance rather than choice (e.g., a choice to foster thetaste for Barbados) that you need Barbados whereas I am content with the seaside resort up theroad would you have any case for extra permits, and that seems unlikely on most plausible versionsof the distinction. Furthermore, even if you do need your holiday in Barbados in order to achievethe same level of welfare that I can achieve in the local seaside resort, nothing in the luck-egalitarian interpretation of the normal-functioning approach automatically entitles either of us toour holiday, if the overall emissions cap cannot accommodate such peripheral opportunities forwelfare. More likely to earn serious consideration, perhaps, are cases of so-called “love miles,”where an agent lives far from close members of his family and needs to fly to see them. MayerHillman (How We Can Save the Planet, 142–43) rejects any claim for additional permits for suchagents, but the luck-egalitarian normal-functioning approach might be more sympathetic, pro-vided that an agent’s situation is the result of circumstance rather than choice, and that his welfarewould suffer sufficiently if he doesn’t see his family. The choice–circumstance distinction maythrow up particularly thorny issues in such cases. For example, is it a matter of choice orcircumstance that a naturally intelligent and ambitious Angolan pursues an academic career in theUnited States and needs to fly back to Angola to see her family? It was her choice to go to theUnited States, but it was a matter of circumstance that she was naturally intelligent and ambitious,and that the universities in the United States were better than those in Angola.

256 Keith Hyams

josp_1450 257..275

Allocating Ecological Space

Steve Vanderheidenjosp_1450 257..275

Liberals have long been committed to two axiomatic claims about freedom:that the exercise of control within one’s private space epitomizes individualliberty, and that each person must be free to define and pursue the good life forthemselves. Together, these claims form a conception of freedom as autonomy(from the Greek Auto-Nomos, giving law to oneself), conceptualized as a personalspace in which each can act according to one’s own view of the good, free fromexternal constraint. Liberal theories of justice have embraced such claims aboutautonomy, defining justice in terms that recognize sovereignty within one’spersonal space and protect individuality. John Rawls’s primary goods,1 RonaldDworkin’s resources,2 and Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach3 all focus oninstrumental goods within a metric of egalitarian justice, allowing individuals fullcontrol over their personal spaces of autonomy while maintaining the bases forinterpersonal comparison that distributive justice requires. This spatial conceptionof liberty has dominated liberal thought at least since J. S. Mill’s observation that“the only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good inour own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impedetheir efforts to attain it.”4 Here, Mill not only defines individual liberty in terms ofautonomy, but he also specifies its limits: each of us should be free to pursue ourown ideas about the good within our own space, bounded only by the space ofothers, where our acts infringe upon their autonomy.5 If this autonomous space isto play the role that Mill and other liberals have long assumed, it must besufficiently large to allow for a wide range of actions and choices, allowing eachto express their individuality without encountering the limits that Mill mentionsand the constraints on action that they entail. If almost everything that I doimpedes others from pursuing the good in their way—harming them directly,limiting their opportunities, or otherwise infringing upon their space—then mypersonal space becomes vanishingly small, and my liberty but a trivial abstraction.

This spatial conception of freedom is challenged by analyses emerging fromthe ecological crisis, which offer competing accounts of personal space with quitedifferent implications for the exercise of individual autonomy.6 Given ecologicallimits, aggregate ecological space7 (i.e., life-supporting natural resource-basedgoods and services, conceived in spatial terms) is finite and threatened by currentpatterns of over-appropriation, yielding imperatives to fairly allocate that spaceamong various claimants, present and future. Uninhibited autonomy, as construedabove, is not sustainable, justifying significant limits on both personal space and


acceptable conceptions of the good life if one person’s exercise of liberty is to beprevented from diminishing another’s opportunity to do the same. The personalspace of autonomy has always been physical and temporal as well as conceptualin that actions undertaken within it could affect current and future others, andconsideration of such effects has always set the boundaries of each person’s space.Ecological limits highlight the urgency of fairly allocating personal space,bounded in this same way but increasingly scarce, and require us to resurvey itsconceptual boundaries in light of its physical and temporal ones. Nearly every-thing we do to survive (e.g., eating, breathing), not to mention activities associatedwith living well, makes a de facto claim on ecological space, and under conditionsof scarcity this could be construed as (following Mill) depriving others of theecological space they need to pursue their good, thus justifying severe limitson our actions and choices. Given such limits, basic actions like breathing andeating may reside wholly within my personal space of autonomy—at least as it isconstrued in the strong sense, in which I am completely autonomous—since theyoccupy ecological space that could be claimed by others and which is subject todistributive justice. Insofar as my sphere of personal liberty is construed as thedomain of what Mill terms “self-regarding conduct” and in which he argues that“the public has no right to interfere,”8 it appears that this sphere of individualautonomy becomes vanishingly small in light of analyses concerning ecologicallimits. If activities as basic as eating and breathing make claims on sharedecological space rather than taking place within a purely private domain, then theliberal sphere of autonomy may be restricted to exclude even rudimentary humanfunctioning, let alone my cultivation of the sort of individuality that Millimagined.

Since nearly all of my acts and choices make claims on ecological space,justice can no longer tenably be theorized primarily in terms of goods designed tomaximize or maintain personal space, but must instead begin with considerationsof how much shared space any person may defensibly claim. To challenge Mill’sconclusions with his own logic, ecological limits suggest that very little of ourconduct is genuinely “self-regarding” in the sense that justifies our “absolute”sovereignty within the personal spaces of autonomy in which persons enjoy “theliberty of tastes and pursuits.” Rather, nearly all of our conduct “concerns others”and thus makes us “amenable to society” and the limits placed upon our liberty inthe interest of justice.9 Given the commitments of classic liberal theory transposedagainst the recognition of contemporary ecological limits, liberal justice must betransformed from a set of principles safeguarding liberty and autonomy to onesplacing spatial limits on the ecological claims that persons make in their pursuit ofthe good life if it is to continue to play the role of arbiter among competing claimsof individual freedom and guarantor of the social bases for personal autonomy. Itmust recognize the causal role that environmental conditions play in humanwelfare as well as the links between many of the activities associated with humanwelfare and declining environmental conditions. And it must treat the scope ofjustice as coterminous with that of the impacts of the relations that it governs,

258 Steve Vanderheiden

extending analyses of justice across national borders and over time where thecircumstances of justice require. That is to say, justice must now be centrallyconcerned with allocating ecological space.

The scarcity of ecological space need not undermine the classic liberal con-ception of freedom as autonomy, and indeed the allocation of ecological spacedefines the sphere in which persons can make the kind of autonomous choices thatliberalism celebrates, within the constraints that it recognizes. Absent some notionof individual entitlement to ecological space, there can be no space for autonomy,for the two spaces are one and the same. I can be sovereign within my own spaceof autonomy only so long as I do not claim an unjust share of ecological space inthe process. But the recognition of this scarcity by liberal theories of justice doesrequire some rethinking of several classic liberal assumptions that are maintainedby contemporary theories of egalitarian justice, and some changes of emphasesand amendment of several normative judgments issuing from those theories inlight of retained commitments from classic liberalism. In this essay, my aim is toconsider how liberal egalitarian justice theory might be reshaped by heretoforeunacknowledged ecological limits and how it might respond to the under-theorized but urgent imperative to fairly allocate ecological space.

What Is Ecological Space?

The fact of ecological limits and its implications for various dimensions ofhuman endeavor have been slow to be incorporated into many existing scholarlyfields, and political theory is no exception. As Aldo Leopold observed of theabsence of an “ecological conscience” within the “intellectual emphasis, loyalties,affections, and convictions” of persons and normative theories, “the proof thatconservation has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact thatphilosophy and religion have not yet heard of it.”10 Since the development ofclassical liberalism predates the recognition of ecological limits and since thecontemporary inheritors of that tradition remain beholden to many of its corepremises about the human relationship with the natural world, it may not besurprising that political theory continues to be informed by unrealistic assump-tions and to be naïve about the human potential to degrade the essential conditionsfor ongoing human flourishing. As this fact comes to be incorporated into politicaltheory, its several normative implications will shape the continued evolution ofliberal political thought in the same dynamic between empirical understandingand normative prescription that has marked that tradition’s adaptability to changeand ongoing relevance for the past three centuries. How, though, might liberalconcepts of justice and autonomy be informed by this fact, and how might they betransformed by it?

The fact of limits has been adequately observed elsewhere, but warrants abrief synopsis here to explicate its relevant features. Humans require environmen-tal goods and services in order to survive, and desire additional goods and servicesbeyond mere survival levels in order to flourish. We need clean air to breathe,

Allocating Ecological Space 259

clean water to drink, and agricultural produce for food, clothing, and shelter. Ourwaste must be assimilated back into the environment, whether from bodily pro-cesses of digestion and respiration or from our use of energy and consumption ofcommodities. These needs are basic in that, following Henry Shue’s distinctionbetween basic and nonbasic rights, “any attempt to enjoy any other right bysacrificing the basic right would be quite literally self-defeating, cutting theground from beneath itself,”11 and their dependence on natural ecosystems isessential in that technological substitutes for degraded resources do not currentlyand may not ever exist. The satisfaction of these basic human needs and furtherwants has some impact on the natural environment somewhere, and we canconceptualize our aggregate impacts in terms of ecological space, or the amountof the planet’s surface area needed to sustain our demand for environmental goodsand services at average levels of biological productivity. The best known of suchmeasures is the ecological footprint,12 which offers perhaps the most ecumenicalof matrices for gauging ecological demand at both individual and aggregate levels,but in order to focus on the spatial concept of ecological demand rather than thespecific index for measuring it I shall use the more general term here.

Demand for ecological space varies widely among persons and peoples.According to Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, who developed the ecologi-cal footprint idea and index, the average American requires 5.1 hectares of eco-logical space in order to sustain her annual resource consumption and wasteproduction, while the average Indian requires only 0.38 hectares and the averageecological footprint for all humans is 1.8 hectares.13 Manifold external driversaffect the size of such averages, including national stages of economic develop-ment, population density, housing patterns, and so on, but within any given societyand social stratum considerable variation in footprint size exist. While one’s socialmilieu is a factor in determining one’s footprint, individual acts and preferencesalso clearly play a significant role. Members of a common social class in the samegeographic region vary widely in the amounts of energy that is required to heatand cool their homes, the distances that they must commute for work or choose totravel for leisure as well as the fuel efficiency of their transportation choices, andotherwise make a wide range of choices that can significantly increase or decreasetheir individual claims on ecological space. Among the drivers of such wideinterpersonal variation is a personal commitment to environmental sustainability:Some have a strong preference for reducing the amount of ecological space theyrequire as part of their conceptions of the good, often for some mix of environ-mental and economic reasons, while others do not. Beyond some survival thresh-old, individual demand for ecological space is largely discretionary, and variesaccording to individual preferences and social norms that can increase or diminishthat demand, making some norms and preferences more sustainable than others.

One fact about ecological space has become manifestly evident in recentdecades: there is not enough space to accommodate the current de facto claimsmade through human consumption patterns, let alone those of a more populousor affluent world. Wackernagel and Rees illustrate this fact and some of its


implications: given the 8.9 billion hectares of biologically productive land andaquatic ecosystems worldwide and reserving the ecological goods and servicesfrom one-sixth of that space to support all nonhuman terrestrial and aquaticspecies, they estimate that the planet contains 7.4 billion hectares of ecologicalspace that can be directed toward the satisfaction of human needs and wants. Witha current global population of 6.7 billion persons14 and an average individualecological footprint of 1.5 hectares, the world is currently running an ecologicaldeficit of 0.4 hectares/person. This alone bodes ill for the planet’s future, forreasons to be considered shortly. But as the authors provocatively observe, if allcurrent persons were to consume resources and produce waste at the rate of theaverage American, we would need the ecological capacity of an additional threeearths in order to support this one planet’s human population alone. Averagehuman footprints paint a disturbing enough picture of unsustainable human con-sumption patterns, but these wide deviations from the mean reveal equally widevariations in current claims on ecological space and the related difficulties inbringing about a sustainable planet. It is possible to accommodate this sort ofexcessive demand on ecological space in the short run, for example, by depletingstored energy reserves and natural capital like forests and fish stocks that generatenatural resources or absorb waste. But this ongoing pattern of overuse is unsus-tainable and degrades ecological productivity over time, resulting in decreasingamounts of available ecological space to accommodate future demands. A sus-tainable planet is one that is able to live within its available ecological space, givenvarious demands on that space by all its human and nonhuman residents. Anunsustainable one is literally living on borrowed time, whether that debt isincurred to the planet’s past, through depletion of stored nonrenewable resourceslike coal and oil, or to its increasingly bleak future, through the insidious bequestof depletion and pollution to future generations.

From this one central fact, several related observations follow, and somenormative implications that are often thought to follow cannot indeed validly beinferred. As I have argued elsewhere,15 global limits on ecological space based onthe earth’s ecological capacity cannot justify highly unequal national limits onecological demand based solely on the unequal ecological capacities withinnational territories, as if nation-states are entitled to all and only the ecologicalresources located within their borders. Those with the good fortune of territorialnatural resource wealth have no legitimate claim to far greater per capita ecologi-cal footprints merely by virtue of this natural abundance, and those fortunateindividuals that command the contemporary surrogate for abundance in landcannot necessarily make a justified claim to proportionally larger shares of eco-logical space than their less fortunate counterparts. Principles of national andindividual allocation cannot simply be inferred from global limits, which concernphysical facts rather than normative claims. The sort of wide inequality in accessto ecological space that is seen in current use patterns requires a separate justifi-cation from the natural distribution of ecological wealth, and may be indefensibleon any terms. While the fact of ecological scarcity has been invoked on behalf of


a variety of social and political agendas, other and more controversial premises arerequired before many such normative judgments can validly be reached. Myinterest here lies in what must follow for liberal political theory from recognitionof ecological limits, not in what might follow from that in combination with otherassumptions or biases.

Another observation also necessarily follows: global limits combined withglobal demand that is well in excess of those limits entails some international,interpersonal, and intertemporal allocation of ecological space. At least someclaimants on such space will be forced to curb their ecological demands in light ofscarcity produced by the demands of others. Indeed, allocation must occur evenwhen global demand for space does not exceed ecological limits, since it does notrequire competing claims but rather entails the division of some finite good amongvarious parties. The conscious recognition of or effort to observe ecological limitsis not a prerequisite to conceiving of human claims upon ecological space asconstituting an allocation, as I use the term here, since to “allocate” presupposesneither a fair process or outcome nor any intention to deprive those receiving lessor to reward those getting more. Allocations of this sort can be intentional andbased in justified principles of distributive justice or they can be the unintentionalresult of current and future use patterns. If the present generation of humansignores limits on its aggregate ecological footprint, whether from ignorance,antipathy, or outright malevolence, this necessarily comes at the expense of futuregenerations. If the present generation as a whole observes such aggregate limits,then the refusal by one nation to do so comes at the expense of other nations, andwithin a country that observes national limits, individual refusals to limit con-sumption come at the expense of other citizens. Such is the logic of limits: morefor any one necessarily means less for others.

Several normative judgments can also be inferred from the fact of ecologicallimits combined with the inevitability of allocating scarce ecological space and asimple principle of non-maleficence. If the present generation, through its wordsand deeds, continues to ignore ecological limits and claims more than its share ofecological space, this will almost certainly make later generations vulnerable tocurrent de facto allocation choices, just as the pollution of a river by upstreamriparian users will almost certainly affect those living downstream. While scholarsmay debate the appropriate degree of culpability for harm that is unintentionallycaused, this does little to mitigate the impact of the harm itself. Unsustainablelevels of resource consumption and waste production cause avoidable harm andsuffering, and we know enough about the causal chains linking over-appropriationof ecological space with the predictable harm that results to fault such acts asmorally negligent, if not willfully malevolent. The over-appropriation of ecologi-cal space constitutes an unjustified claim to more than one’s share of a finiteresource that carries with it the necessary consequence that later generations willhave to survive with less than their fair share of that shared resource, and so isunjust. Thinking about how ecological space ought to be allocated is thus not someoptional and empty intellectual exercise, but is rather an inescapable imperative


that can drive contemporary environmental policy decisions and act as a prin-cipled constraint on individual life plans and conceptions of the good, or its unfairallocation can be the unintentional but inevitable result of a collective failure toexercise due moral care. The fact of ecological limits and unavoidability of itsallocation leaves open only two possibilities: the way in which persons, nations,and entire generations allocate ecological space can either be justified or unjusti-fied. The claims that each makes on that space through their patterns of resourceuse and waste production can be just or unjust, a judgment that stands whether ornot the parties in question acknowledge this to be the case.

Allocation and Normative Judgment

But what does it mean to allocate ecological space among persons andpeoples? The term often conjures the image of some authoritative body thatweighs opposing claims and issues limited use rights on the basis of such claims.While it is obvious that no such body exists, particularly at the global level, thisimage nonetheless captures the essential aspect of an allocation framework. Whendetermining which of two or more contending parties are entitled to some scarcegood, fair decisions must be guided by the strength of the respective claims ratherthan the identity or other irrelevant characteristics of the parties in question. Thatone party to the conflict may be wealthier, stronger, or better connected to politicalpower cannot be allowed to influence allocation decisions unless these constitutecriteria relevant to entitlement claims, regardless of the role that each plays in thede facto allocation of ecological space through current use patterns. Decisionsabout each party’s warranted share of ecological space must be principled rathermerely deferring to greater power or granting concessions to the first claimants,and should be justifiable to all on the basis of publicly defensible reasons andobjectively measurable criteria. Such decisions, that is to say, are matters of dis-tributive justice16 rather than issues of “might makes right” or its equivalent.

By appealing to principles of distributive justice to allocate ecological space,it might appear as though the conventional distinction between ethics and politicalphilosophy has been collapsed. Actions that make claims on ecological space—abroadly inclusive category that not only contains much of what was previouslyregarded as the domain of ethics but also much of what was once thought to existoutside of that sphere—must now be subject to principles defining the just distri-bution of that space. Should one exceed their just share, this transgression couldbe condemned as unjust in the distributive sense. That is, the normative judgmentthat they should not have acted as they did would be based on their indefensibleclaim to more than their share of ecological space, to the detriment of others. Butnotice that this is not identical to evaluating the act as wrong in a moral sense. Hadthe agent not already made all their prior claims on ecological space that causedthe act in question to be the one that exceeded their individual budget, that actitself would not be unjust. Hence, it would be mistaken to describe particular actsor choices as unjust in this sense, though there may be some that by themselves


bust ecological budgets and so result in injustice by necessity. Rather, a person’sfull package of actions or pattern of choices may adhere to or exceed their justallowances of ecological space. Normative judgments are thus applied to thesepackages or patterns, and not to the discrete acts or choices that exceed somethreshold. Ethical judgment therefore remains in the picture, serving as a supple-ment to judgments based in distributive justice; the former is not subsumed withinthe latter. An act can be wrong without being unjust, as when the offense is otherthan an excessive claim on shared resources, and unjust without being wrong. Tothis latter possibility, which forces the reevaluation of a wide range of acts andchoices, we now turn.

Feminists invoke the slogan “the personal is political” in order to challengethe conventional division between public and private spheres, where the latterdenotes acts and choices that are regarded as beyond the gaze of normative socialor political judgment. Women’s choices about whether to work or remain withinthe home as primary caregivers to their children, whether or not to marry or toconform to other conventional gender roles, and so on, have been successfullychallenged as adversely affecting other women, and therefore not being the strictlypersonal choices that they were once considered. Resting on the liberal distinctionbetween public and private, the feminist effort to politicize the personal choices ofwomen (as well as men) can be regarded as less an effort to break this dichotomyand more an attempt to redraw the line dividing public and private spheres toaccurately reflect the causal connections between the acts and choices of some andthe opportunities of others, often through the constraining mechanism of socialnorms. Campaigns to politicize acts and choices that harm women aren’t meant toobliterate the liberal sphere of protected self-regarding conduct, where personscan exercise autonomy free from the influence of state coercion or social pressure,but rather aim to ensure that other-affecting conduct does not insidiously mas-querade as private in order to deflect normative critique. The aim and effect ofsuch campaigns is not to make everything a political act, to be subject to publicscrutiny and the force of social norms and possibly also to coercive regulation, butrather to update the boundary to reflect mistaken past assumptions and shiftingintellectual terrain.

As with feminist campaigns to politicize acts and choices that had previouslyif mistakenly been regarded as private, environmentalist efforts to call criticalattention to many consumer choices likewise accept a liberal division betweenpublic and private but assert a mistaken identification of political acts and choicesas strictly personal. Campaigns against highly fuel-inefficient sport utility vehicles(SUVs), for example, politicize personal transport choices on grounds that suchdecisions can potentially harm others and so must be subject to more than purelyprivate esthetic and economic preferences.17 By the line of argument that emergesfrom this critique of automotive choice, the state not only has a right to regulatemotor vehicle fuel economy but also has an obligation to do so, since excessivelyinefficient options significantly raise the likelihood that the consumers purchasingthem will contribute to ecological harm through their over-appropriation of


ecological space. While it would be hypothetically possible to avoid such harmwith even the most fuel-inefficient choice of vehicles at sufficiently low rates ofuse, this logical possibility does nothing to mitigate the harm that does occur or toblunt the fact that it would be avoidable through fuel economy regulation. More-over, one consumer’s decision to buy a large and fuel-inefficient vehicle makes itmore difficult for others to purchase smaller and more efficient models, givenweight and bumper height incompatibilities that raise kill rates when the formercollides with the latter.18 According to this claim, then, one’s transport choices arepolitical rather than personal; they are subject to normative consideration in ethicsand/or political philosophy rather than being the purely personal choices that someopponents of automobile fuel economy regulation maintain.

Regardless of the merits of this SUV critique, it serves to illustrate how aconcern with ecological limits can politicize consumption choices that werepreviously treated as subject to personal preferences alone. It might be wrong topurchase and drive a vehicle that necessarily harms others, as by exposing them tohigher risk of injury or death in collisions (as is the case with most SUVs)—anethical judgment that holds regardless of what other choices that consumer makes.On the other hand, it would be unjust to consume energy and produce waste atrates that exceed one’s fair personal allotment of ecological space, which is farmore likely to result from the use of a fuel-inefficient vehicle than the comparableuse of a fuel-efficient one. Normative arguments for regulatory standards onvehicle fuel efficiency take the latter form, claiming a public interest in personaltransport choices that justifies the use of public coercion over such choices, herein the form of prohibitions against excessive inefficiency. Their concern is withjust allotments rather than particular acts, so they focus on the relationshipbetween vehicle choices and their effects on ecological space over time, noting thedisparity in ecological impacts for otherwise-similar transportation services. Butsuch regulations do not themselves allocate ecological space, for they place noupper limit on the overall amount of petroleum that any vehicle can consume orpollution it can emit. While their motive is derivative of concerns for allocatingecological space—assuming that regulatory incentives for promoting efficienttransport choices will reduce aggregate as well as individual demand for suchspace—they lack the hard cap of a formal allocation. Appeals to justice such asthese aim to remove the consumer’s automobile choice from the realm of purelyprivate acts, calling for external coercion to facilitate the mitigation of harmwithout directly prohibiting harmful acts. In doing so, they call attention to limitson ecological space, but stop short of any allocation of it to particular persons. Inthis sense, environmental standards for individual commodities like automobilesrest on a kind of second-order moral imperative in that the acts and choices theyprohibit may not themselves be wrong or unjust, but they make it easier for usersof such regulated commodities to avoid contributing to harm and thus to realizethe demands of justice.

Allocating ecological space therefore involves the assignment of moralresponsibility to persons or peoples who exceed their fair shares of ecological


goods and services, holding them culpable for harm that results from the depletionof those goods and degradation of those services as well as the additional con-straints that they unfairly impose on others through their over-appropriation ofshared resources. This assignment of moral responsibility may be accompaniedby some state-sponsored rationing scheme and the legal forms of responsibilityfor unjust claims that one would entail, but it need not. It is a way of causallyconnecting harm that results from aggregate patterns of unsustainable behavior tothe individual acts and choices that produce those aggregate patterns, even wheresuch discrete acts by themselves are insufficient to cause unique and discernableharm.

Notice that the allocation of ecological space allows for some threshold ofjustified claims on ecological space before further claims become unjust, leavingin place a sphere of autonomy in which acts and choices that are not otherwisewrong are treated as private and thus immune from moral or political critique, atleast while associated with purely self-regarding conduct. But many of the con-sumer choices and consumption activities that are protected as private below thethreshold of fair shares become public above that threshold, inviting normativecritique like that of the fuel efficiency of one’s personal transport choices. Becauselimited claims on ecological space are viewed as benign, but excessive ones asharmful and unjust, the allocation of ecological space makes it impossible toclassify many consumer choices as categorically benign and therefore subject toconsumer sovereignty alone. Many such acts and choices become harmful andunjust beyond some threshold that defines fair shares of ecological space—and soare neither wholly private nor public, neither purely self-regarding nor other-affecting—challenging the classic liberal assumption that discrete acts viewed inisolation can be categorized as harmful or benign, where the latter “occasions [no]perceptible hurt to any assignable individual.”19 Liberal autonomy thus takes on aquantitative rather than qualitative hue once ecological space is allocated, chang-ing the nature and application of the concept within political theory and requiringa fundamental rethinking of justice theories that have been grounded in outmodedconceptions of this classic liberal commitment.

Egalitarian Justice and Ecological Limits

Normative concepts and theories that have been premised upon natural abun-dance or practically infinite ecological space may become invalid under morerealistic conditions of ecological scarcity. For example, Locke’s theory of prop-erty acquisition posits a set of conditions for the justified appropriation of landfrom the commons so long as each withdrawal leaves “enough, and as good”behind for others. As Locke writes, “he that leaves as much as another can makeuse of, does as good as taking nothing at all.”20 Of course, the converse of thisposition is that appropriations of land from the commons that exacerbate scarcitydo “prejudice” others and thus may require their consent, or at least the ability tojustify that appropriation to them. While Locke recognized that the Enclosure


movement21 had already undermined this condition in the British Isles andthroughout most of Europe during his lifetime, he suggested that continued abun-dance of land in America enabled this premise, which is crucial to his analysis.Under conditions of perfect abundance in land or ecological space, the appropria-tion from the commons by one person has no practical effect on opportunities forothers to similarly appropriate, even if it exacerbates scarcity at the margins. AsLocke argues, under such conditions the community has no legitimate interest inindividual claims on common property when none are harmed by them, and theact of appropriation need not be regarded as a matter of ethics or justice. Butperfect abundance has never existed anywhere, and Locke’s conclusion is invali-dated under more realistic conditions of scarcity, as others have noted.22

Scarcity of ecological space may invalidate many other long-standing nor-mative commitments from the liberal canon, forcing us to rethink judgmentsreached on the basis of obsolete premises in light of a more realistic set ofassumptions. One such commitment concerns the way that liberal autonomy istheorized with egalitarian justice theory. Rawlsian justice theory, for example,endorses social primary goods as the objects of just distribution in part becausethey can be more readily redistributed than can natural primary goods, but alsobecause as all-purpose instrumental goods their recognition as primary is neutralwith respect to various conceptions of the good life. All persons need resourcesin order to pursue their own versions of the good life, regardless of what theirindividual conceptions of the good entail, so a resource-based view of justicepreserves the classic liberal emphasis on autonomy against objectionable equalityof welfare views as well as perfectionist strains within political thought that seekto instantiate one particular view of the good within society. As Dworkin’s versionof liberal egalitarian justice theory makes clear, equalizing resources makes ituniquely possible to hold persons responsible for their choices, allowing for anendowment-insensitive but ambition-sensitive allocation of social goods.23 Freeto choose any life plan or conception of the good that they desire, persons inDworkin’s view are granted virtually unlimited autonomy and then held respon-sible for the choices that they make from an equal starting point, after redressingthe natural injustice of unequal endowments and neutralizing the effects of luck.By this conception of individual autonomy, which pervades egalitarian justicetheory generally and provides the characteristic feature that connects it to theliberal tradition, the focus is on allocating instrumental goods that persons maydeploy as they see fit, subject only to the constraints that they not use them to harmothers and that each bears responsibility for their choices in how such goods areused.

But by making instrumental economic goods the objects of egalitarian dis-tribution, and decisions regarding how those goods are used the core element ofindividual autonomy, egalitarian justice theories like those of Rawls and Dworkinobscure the potentially wide variation in claims on ecological space that resultsfrom the way that people use their just shares of goods. This blind spot is due inlarge part to the way that both Rawls and Dworkin rely on economic theory to


conceptualize the personal space of liberal autonomy. Dworkin, for example,bases his envy test on the market-based metaphor of a hypothetical auction, whereegalitarian distribution is achieved so long as no participant prefers someoneelse’s post-auction bundle of goods to their own. According to Dworkin’s “marketprocedure” thought experiment, “people decide what sorts of lives to pursueagainst a background of information about the actual cost their choices impose onother people and hence on the total stock of resources that may fairly be used bythem.”24 When, for example, multiple bidders desire the same auction lot, thescarcity of that good drives up its price, providing information to each bidderabout the costs to others of losing access to that good. But this feedback concern-ing costs to others ends once the auction is concluded. Unless participants wererequired to bid on the ecological space that they will claim through their variousconsumption-related activities—they are not on Dworkin’s island, where suchspace is assumed to be abundant and therefore valueless—then not only do theylack any “background of information” about how these claims harm others butthey have incentives to impose externality costs on others through unjust claims onecological space,25 frustrating the envy test. Only if each person had to either bidon shares of ecological space in the initial auction or purchase additional unusedshares from others when their claims on space exceeded their personal allowances(as a form of ex ante compensation for the other’s excessive claims) couldDworkin’s scheme ensure the genuine equality that it promises. So long asecological space is not treated as among the goods to be subject to egalitariandistribution, incentives toward environmental despoliation are inadvertently builtinto Dworkin’s model of autonomy and genuine equality will remain elusive.

Similarly, Rawls’s influential difference principle is premised upon theabsence of limits on the aggregate quantity of social primary goods to be madeavailable and subject to egalitarian distribution. At the core of the Rawlsianargument for justified inequality is an assumption, grounded in economic theoryand flavored by economistic commitments to unlimited growth, that incentivescreated through unequal allocations of social primary goods can increase the sizeof the overall economic pie to be divided among all members of society, makingit possible for such inequality to benefit the least advantaged. Whether or not thissort of unlimited economic growth is possible shall not be my concern here, butsuffice to observe the sharp contrast between the objects of conventional egalitar-ian justice theory and those associated with ecological space. The latter are finitein a way that the former are assumed not to be. Allowing some to claim largershares of ecological space may result in a larger overall quantity of Rawlsianprimary goods, satisfying the difference principle if this surplus is redirectedtoward the least advantaged, but it cannot increase the amount of ecological spaceavailable to disadvantaged persons and groups. If the maximin rule is to apply toallocations of ecological space, it cannot be in the same way or for the samereasons as are invoked in Rawlsian justice theory, since any inequality in theallocation of a finite good necessarily entails less of that good for the least well off.Both of these models view autonomy through the metaphor of free persons


deploying instrumental resources in the service of private ends, unconstrained byexternal interference, where justice is concerned primarily with the initial alloca-tion of those economic resources. In ignoring the crucial role of noneconomicresources like ecological space, both Rawls and Dworkin fail to recognize thecausal role that ecological space plays in human welfare and relegate to a pro-tected sphere of autonomy many of the activities that contribute to ecologicaldegradation.

This implication of ecological limits has begun to be recognized withinegalitarian justice theory, albeit indirectly. Ethical cosmopolitans like CharlesBeitz26 and Thomas Pogge27 have noted that highly unequal claims on the earth’snatural resources stocks are causally responsible for the impoverishment of theworld’s least advantaged, giving rise to claims of compensation in order to redressearlier injustices, whether through Beitz’s “resource redistribution principle” orPogge’s “global resources dividend.” Both reject the Rawlsian premise that anunequal allocation of the desideratum in question (natural resources themselvesfor Beitz, the wealth that results from their exploitation for Pogge) can be ben-eficial or even benign for those left with less of it as a result. Neither applies theiranalysis to ecological space, however, focusing instead on natural resources liketimber and minerals that can be exploited for economic gain but ignoring theeffects of industrialization and increased consumption on ecological capacities forabsorbing waste.28 Moreover, neither takes seriously the way that ecological limitspotentially constrain economic development and thereby pose obstacles to furtherhuman development or the causal role that uninhibited individual autonomy inconsumption choices can play in causing ecological harm half a world away.

In short, cosmopolitan justice theories have begun to display some insightsfrom the recognition of ecological limits, but there remains much further insightto be gleaned and implications to be followed. For example, since some nationsroutinely make uncompensated claims on the ecological capacities of others byproducing more waste than the sinks within their borders can absorb, a compre-hensive analysis of ecological space that included ecological inputs as well asoutputs would yield an even stronger case for redistribution and compensationthan those that have been advanced thus far. Beitz and Pogge may be correct inobserving that ecological goods are subject to egalitarian distribution and perhapscompensation for past and present over-appropriations, but the case for fault-based liability may be even clearer with ecological services. Moreover, at leastsome of these waste assimilation capacities transcend national borders and theproperty-based entitlement claims with which they are associated, undercuttingone potent objection to regarding the planet’s resources as commonly held ratherthan privately owned and providing additional ammunition against those denyingthat justice applies across national borders. Perhaps the best example of a fullyglobal allocation conflict involves the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb the green-house gases that cause to climate to change. Since this capacity is not locatedwithin any national borders, rights to it cannot be territorial in the way thatentitlements to other resources are often thought to be. And since climate change


threatens all nations and peoples, independent of their respective emissions ofgreenhouse gases, it offers a clear case of global ecological interdependenceagainst communitarian denials that the capacity to harm across borders establishthe circumstances of justice.29 This finite atmospheric capacity and the interde-pendence of harmful causes and effects further undermine national claims tolarger shares of atmospheric space based in territorial ecological abundance andavoid other objections that plague the terrestrial resource-based accounts that havethus far dominated cosmopolitan justice debates.30

Conclusion: Theorizing Ecological Space

So how might egalitarian justice theories be wielded on behalf of allocatingecological space, and how does thinking about ecological space constrain ortransform existing theories of distributive justice? Constructing the problem ofglobal justice in terms of allocating space offers several unique advantages andilluminates several key features of an adequate normative theory. As noted above,ecological space is a genuinely global resource in that it transcends nationalborders, giving rise to conflicts over individual and national appropriations ofspace that adversely affects other nations and persons. Given the zero-sum natureof such conflicts over finite resources, this spatial conception establishes causalchains connecting over-appropriation of ecological space by some and avoidableharm suffered by others. Andrew Dobson suggests that the ecological footprintidea creates a “space of potential obligation” for grounding a “thick cosmopoli-tanism”31 based in culpability for harm rather than the thin forms of obligation thatmight be generated through membership in a common humanity or mere ability toassist. The first advantage of conceptualizing justice in terms of ecological space,then, concerns its scope and site, and the second lies in the robustness of theobligations that it creates. The spatial conception reveals the global scope of manycases of anthropogenic environmental harm and the irrelevance of nationalborders or membership in either the causal chains that degrade ecological space orthe suffering that results. Climate change is again illustrative: the phenomenon islargely caused by the world’s most affluent persons and peoples and is expected todisproportionately harm its poorest, yet the geographical point sources of emis-sions are not relevant to either its causes or effects.32 The problem’s scope is fullyglobal, so the site of any effective remedy must involve institutions capable ofavoiding this international injustice, and the failure by those culpable to mitigateongoing climate-related harm presents a clear example of fault-based liability,which offers perhaps the strongest available normative foundation for cosmopoli-tan justice.33

Because the overuse of ecological space by any generation leads directly to itsdegradation and resulting deleterious conditions for future generations, whereasthe several metrics of egalitarian justice cannot so readily be allocated over time,34

construing distributive justice in terms of ecological space allows for more robustanalyses of intergenerational obligations. Finally, because the aggregate human


appropriation of ecological space is causally related to declining habitats fornonhuman animals, which also require ecological space for their survival andflourishing, the analysis of anthropocentric obligations like those inherent indistributive justice can be made commensurable with duties of environmentalethics insofar as both involve allocating ecological space as the core means ofsatisfying their distinct categories of obligations. In contrast with those goods thatare instrumental to human welfare but typically useless to nonhumans, ecologicalspace offers an object of distribution that clearly illustrates how the demand forjustice among humans exists in tension with obligations between human personsand communities and nonhuman ones. Conceiving of distributive justice in termsof the allocation of ecological space among all affected parties thus makes pos-sible a view that takes into account the international, intergenerational, and inter-specific aspects of conflicts over scarce resources.

A focus on ecological space rather than social resources like primary goodsneed not require the abandonment of autonomy, and indeed maintains some spacefor persons to exercise control over their own personal spaces in a fashion thatis derivate of Mill’s classic expression of the concept. But as noted above, thissphere of unconstrained liberty shrinks considerably once ecological limits aretaken into account, so the focus on autonomy can no longer play the hegemonicrole in justice theory that it once did. Also relevant to each person’s ability toexercise control over their personal space of autonomy is the restraint exercised byothers in their own personal spaces. Justice theory must therefore incorporatesome metric of ecological goods and bads, allocating not only what people needto survive and flourish but also what they produce as by-products of that activity.Conceptions of social justice that envision increasing shares for the least advan-taged as the key to rectifying unjustified patterns of inequality depend on a naïvemodel of beneficial or at least benign economic growth in which increases inconsumption for the poor are possible without even larger decreases in consump-tion by the affluent. A realistic view of ecological limits would posit at least somedecrease in consumption rates by the affluent as a necessary condition for theadvancement of the poor. While this critique has played out in global environ-mental politics, against the cornucopian assumptions of those advocating aversion of sustainable development which supposes that growth of production andconsumption in developing countries can be sustainable in the absence of eco-nomic contraction in industrialized ones,35 its force has not yet been reflected inegalitarian justice theories that limit their purview to domestic inequalities. Egali-tarians have not, for example, called for a “contraction and convergence” onconsumption within or even among nations, as cosmopolitan climate justiceadvocates have with respect to global greenhouse gas emissions.36

Recognition of ecological limits within egalitarian justice theory need notnecessarily take the form of calls for the leveling down of national economicproduction and consumption, as in contraction and convergence climate policyscenarios. Rather, it might take the form of a more prominent distinction betweenthose social goods which are subject to zero-sum ecological limits, such as the


forms of wealth that are translatable into increased consumption and thereforerequire larger shares of ecological space, and those which are not, such as rightsand liberties as well as the other indices of human development. It may be possibleto expand the array of rights, liberties, powers, and opportunities to be madeavailable to the world’s less advantaged without decreasing those of the moreadvantaged, whereas the same cannot be said of expanding their shares of eco-logical space. The incentive effects of the difference principle might be redirectedaway from economic growth in general—which, when accompanied by increasedclaims on ecological space, is necessarily averse to the interests of some disad-vantaged party, now or in the future—and toward the promotion of greater eco-logical efficiency, understood as deriving more human welfare from the sameecological resource inputs and waste outputs. Such efficiency gains may be tech-nological, allowing users to experience qualitatively similar consumption optionswith smaller ecological footprints, or they may involve shifts in social norms,allowing persons influenced by those norms to decrease their consumptionwithout concomitant declines in welfare or happiness.37 Insofar as these ecologicalefficiency gains can be transferred to the disadvantaged, they satisfy the egalitar-ian logic of the difference principle, but do so without the inegalitarian conse-quences. Innovations in ecological efficiency already benefit the innovators—theyderive more welfare from a constant share of ecological space—rendering unnec-essary what would likely be an unjustified claim on larger shares of that space inorder to support their entrepreneurial efforts. Incorporation of ecological limitswithin egalitarian justice theory would by necessity discourage conceptions of thegood that depend on unsustainable acts and choices, as it currently discouragespreferences whose satisfaction necessitates injustice toward others. But it need notcompromise the core intuition that has guided the development of contemporaryjustice theory in general: that for all to be treated as free and equal, some limitson freedom are necessary in order to protect the freedom of others. Conceiving ofthis balancing act in terms of allocating ecological space merely highlights howdifficult but nonetheless urgent this endeavor can be.

Notes

1 Rawls defines primary goods as “things which it is supposed a rational man wants whatever else hewants,” and describes as including “rights and liberties, opportunities and powers, income andwealth.” John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971), 92.

2 Ronald Dworkin, “What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources,” Philosophy and Public Affairs10, no. 4 (Autumn 1981): 283–345.

3 Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), esp. chaps. 1–4.4 John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty,” in On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1991): 5–128, esp. 17.5 This limit is specified by Mill’s harm principle, which serves to demarcate the borders of personal

space and to justify state coercion on individual liberty. According to Mill, “the sole end for whichmankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of anyof their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfullyexercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.


His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” In support of this view, JohnSkorupksi takes this spatial conception to be central to Mill’s political thought, casting the classicliberal conception of autonomy upon which Mill relies as “the freedom to do as one wishes withinone’s private domain,” where the “private space” of liberty is distinct from the “public space” ofjustice. See Skorupski, John Stuart Mill (London: Routledge, 1989), 364–65.

6 Some critics blame liberal commitments to individual autonomy for enabling rampant ecologicalexploitation and undermining the basis of effective state regulation, sometimes even going so faras to recommend authoritarian forms of government to restrict individual choices. While I don’twish to endorse such views here, I take the prevailing view within green politics to hold thatcompletely unrestricted individual consumer freedom cannot be sustainable on a planet with sevenbillion human inhabitants, and that at least some restrictions on that freedom are essential tobringing about a sustainable society and planet. The form and content of such restrictions,however, remain a key controversy among those sympathetic to both liberal autonomy andenvironmental sustainability.

7 In describing demand for ecological goods and services in spatial terms, I follow Tim Hayward, whocredits Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen for originating the concept. See Hayward, “Thomas Pogge’sGlobal Resources Dividend: A Critique and an Alternative,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 2, no. 3(2005): 317–32, and Georgescu-Roegen, Energy and Economic Myths (New York: PergamonPress, 1976).

8 Mill, “On Liberty,” 95.9 Ibid., 14.10 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), 210.11 Henry Shue, Basic Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 18–19.12 See Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on

the Earth (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1996).13 Ibid., 97.14 U.S. Census Bureau, online at http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html (accessed

August 15, 2008).15 Steve Vanderheiden, “Two Conceptions of Sustainability,” Political Studies 56, no. 2 ( June 2008):

435–55.16 I use the term “distributive justice” in the most general sense here, to refer to normatively defensible

allocations of goods, rather than in reference to any particular family of principles of justice.Whether or not liberal egalitarian theories of justice are appropriate bases for allocating ecologicalspace, such allocations surely must be based in some sort of principle if they are to involvejustifiable exercises of power and claims on resources.

17 For an assessment of this line of harm-based argument, see Steve Vanderheiden, “Assessing the CaseAgainst the SUV,” Environmental Politics 15, no. 1 (February 2006): 23–40.

18 See Vanderheiden, “Assessing the Case,” and Keith Bradsher, High and Mighty: The DangerousRise of the SUV (Public Affairs, 2004). Large trucks and sport utility vehicles typically havebumpers that are higher than those on passenger cars that, in combination with the weightdifferential between the two types of vehicles, significantly raise the probability that passengersin the lower and lighter vehicle will be killed in a collision between the two. In this sense, drivingthe former creates a consumption externality for owners of the latter, raising risks for othermotorists.

19 Mill, “On Liberty,” 91.20 John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C. B. MacPherson (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,

1980), 21.21 The “Enclosure movement” refers to a process by which common land was appropriated for private

use, starting in the 15th century. By the time of Locke’s Second Treatise, the English commons hadbeen largely appropriated.

22 See, for example, G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995), chaps. 9–10, Michael P. Zuckert, Natural Rights and the New


http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html

Republicanism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 255–56, and Clark Wolf,“Contemporary Property Rights, Lockean Provisos, and the Interests of Future Generations,”Ethics 105, no. 4 ( July 1995): 791–818.

23 Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 2000), esp. chaps. 1–2.

24 Dworkin, “What is Equality?” 288.25 As rational maximizers, islanders would presumably be motivated by the free rider incentive to

create value for themselves while imposing externality costs on others. Because the degradation ofecological space held in common presumably affects all rather than exclusively the person causingit, a tragedy of the commons occurs in Dworkin’s scheme, benefitting the worst environmentaloffenders at the expense of all. See Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162(1968): 1243–48.

26 Charles R. Beitz, “Justice and International Relations,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 4, no. 4(Summer 1975): 360–89.

27 Thomas W. Pogge, “A Global Resources Dividend,” in Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life,Justice, and Global Stewardship, ed. David A. Crocker and Toby Linden (New York: Rowman &Littlefield, 1998): 501–36.

28 Hayward (“Thomas Pogge’s Global Resources”) criticizes Pogge’s global resources dividend for thisreason, arguing that cosmopolitan obligations can more accurately be charted through the use ofecological space as a metric for egalitarian justice.

29 This is not entirely accurate—carbon sinks like forests comprise part of the planet’s capacity toabsorb greenhouse gases, and such sinks do exist within national territories. For this reason,nations with substantial forest cover have advocated credits for these carbon sinks within Kyotoprotocol climate obligations. But most of this capacity resides outside of national borders, and thatwhich does not is subject to the argument advanced by Beitz (“Justice and International Rela-tions”) against awarding valuable goods to parties based solely upon the morally arbitrary naturalallocation of ecological wealth.

30 For more on how the allocation of greenhouse gas emissions points the way toward a view ofcosmopolitan justice capable of overriding national sovereignty or property-based objections, seeSteve Vanderheiden, Atmospheric Justice: A Political Theory of Climate Change (New York:Oxford University Press, 2008), esp. chap. 3.

31 Andrew Dobson, “Thick Cosmopolitanism,” Political Studies 54, no. 1 (2006): 165–84, 177.32 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “There are sharp differences

across regions and those in the weakest economic position are often the most vulnerable to climatechange and are frequently the most susceptible to climate-related damages, especially when theyface multiple stresses.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007:Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Reportof the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. R. K. Pachauri, A. Reisinger, and TheCore Writing Team (Geneva: IPCC, 2007), 65. Online at: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm (accessed April 2, 2009).

33 See Vanderheiden, Atmospheric Justice, chaps. 5–6.34 Rawls, for example, seeks an entirely different basis for intergenerational obligations than he uses

to ground his justice theory, arguing unpersuasively in A Theory of Justice that the idea of justsavings can adequately capture our obligations to futurity. Likewise, Dworkin’s equality ofresources view has trouble establishing the normative bases for intergenerational justice, except tosay that whatever resources exist at the end of one generation must be fairly allocated amongmembers of the next one.

35 See, for example, Herman E. Daly, “Sustainable Growth: An Impossibility Theorem,” in Valuing theEarth, ed. Daly and K. N. Townsend (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), 267–74.

36 See, for example, Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer, Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming(New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002), and Vanderheiden, Atmospheric Justice. Both limit callsfor “contraction and convergence” (i.e., reductions on greenhouse gas emissions from industrial-


http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm

ized nations until national per capita emissions can converge around some roughly equal level thatis closer to what developing countries now produce) to the distribution of carbon emissions, whichis at least hypothetically compatible with continued growth in consumption at the top of theworld’s economic hierarchy, rather than calling for a leveling down on the distribution of alleconomic goods.

37 Juliet Schor advocates such a redefinition of social norms through what she calls the “downshifting”of consumption expectations, arguing that this normative transformation can result in lowerconsumption with increased happiness. See Schor, The Overspent American (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).


International Political Theory and the Global Environment:Some Critical Questions for Liberal Cosmopolitans

Tim Hayward

In recent years the intellectual resources of mainstream liberal political theoryhave been increasingly applied to environmental issues, and, of late, especially tothose associated with climate change. That such issues are no longer treated asmarginal concerns with respect to established agendas of political theory is a verywelcome development. Nevertheless, I believe it is worth asking whether contem-porary environmental concerns should in fact occasion a more radical questioningof inherited liberal framings of political theory—especially as questions of inter-national and global relations come to the fore.josp_1451 276..295

In the face of global challenges—particularly widespread severe povertyand environmental threats—contemporary political theorists are seeking to for-mulate cosmopolitan responses. While endorsing this cosmopolitan impulse, mycritical questions concern the continued formulation of these responses withinestablished liberal framings of political theory. Two major changes of contexthave occurred since liberalism came to maturity. First, the theory and practice ofliberalism developed before awareness arose of environmental constraints oneconomic activity, and on the basis of presuppositions which those constraintsserve to undermine. Second, liberalism developed historically with nation-statesand thus prior to serious consideration of global, cosmopolitan, politics—asdistinct from the international relations between those states as the primary andusually sole locus of sovereign power. To refer to these developments aschanges of context is perhaps to understate the issue. For they could be thoughtsuch as to challenge certain fundamental, even constitutive, presuppositions ofliberalism.

This, then, is the first general question to consider: what reason is there topresume that liberalism provides a suitable framing for political theory relating toglobal justice and the environment? In section 1, I aim to loosen this presumptionby highlighting how liberalism as a whole is rather ambivalent with regard to bothsets of issues. Regarding global justice, specifically, there are strong liberal argu-ments against cosmopolitanism. I suggest that if there are stronger arguments to beadvanced against these in favor of cosmopolitanism then they might have to besupported by premises other than liberal ones. To provide a focus for this sugges-tion, I point out how cosmopolitanism might better be promoted within a socialistframing.


Having thus questioned why liberalism would necessarily provide an appro-priate framing for global justice, I then question whether it is any more appropriatefor framing global environmental issues. In section 2, the specific focus is on theidea of sustainable development and liberal understandings of it. The aim ofsustainable development has been widely endorsed because, I suggest, its usualinterpretation conveniently implies the possibility of a win-win-win scenario forprotecting the environment while at the same time securing economic develop-ment and promoting global justice. Yet the truth may be less convenient, given theevident tensions between these objectives in practice. As economic developmentcontinues, the global environment deteriorates and global inequalities intensify.For that reason, I argue, we need also to attend to the losses and costs alreadyassociated with this development model. On this basis, it is more appropriate toreframe the aims relating to global environmental justice in terms of ecologicaldebt. This reframing represents a challenge to liberal understandings of “sustain-able development.”

This argument leads us then to ask critical questions about the empiricalassumptions made in liberal theory regarding the material, biophysical basis ofglobal political economy. Section 3 thus begins by asking what must be assumedwhen liberal cosmopolitans propose, for instance, globalizing Rawls’s differenceprinciple. For the application of such a principle appears to presuppose that justicemeans sharing more fairly the proceeds of ever-increasing wealth as are generatedby a globally liberalized economy. This fosters the same idea it presupposes: thatliberalism will ultimately be good for everyone, providing only that we ensuresome redistribution of surplus value. This general idea seems also to underpinvarious suggestions made by contemporary political theorists that relativelymodest reforms of international institutions may suffice to secure basic justice forall, including the eradication of world poverty. Once we heed the ecologicalconstraints on growth of the productive economy, however, the basis of this faithis called into question.

The arguments thus far highlight ambivalences and uncertainties aboutliberalism—which are in good measure due to its own internal tensions, particu-larly between its progressive ethical goals and its morally more troubling asso-ciation with capitalism. In section 4 I raise some questions about how progressivein fact is a distinctively liberal construction of ethical goals in the contemporarycircumstances of global justice when these importantly include recognition ofecological finitude. I question the extent to which peculiarly liberal values shouldbe preserved by cosmopolitanism, and focus in particular on the argument thatwhat present circumstances require is an ethos of restraint and that this, in keyrespects, is the antithesis of a liberal ethos.

In conclusion, I sum up how, taking human rights as the fundamental norma-tive touchstone, we can develop an account of what global justice requires in thelight of ecological constraints that is recognizably cosmopolitan but at variancefrom liberal understandings of cosmopolitanism in key respects.

International Political Theory and the Global Environment 277

1. Liberalism, Cosmopolitanism, and Global Justice

Today there is an influential current of thought that conceives of cosmopolitanjustice as a globalization of liberal principles. As Anthony J Langlois notes, “muchof what goes by the name of contemporary cosmopolitanism is liberalism envi-sioned at the global level.”1 What gives coherence to this vision, he states, is thecore of values associated with human rights. But there is a tension within it: whileaffirming a basic liberal right to own private property as a way of protecting theindividual, Langlois notes it is also important in the liberal tradition that individu-als who have less as a consequence of economic structures should be protectedfrom the power of those better situated by virtue of their private property rights.He conceptualizes the tension here as one between political liberals, who “have afocus on the commonwealth, the common good,” and economic liberals whosefocus on individual self-maximization translates into a concern about marketadvantage. What is distinctive about political liberalism, then, is a kind of com-mitment that economic liberals would presumably struggle to recognize as liberalat all.

I think Langlois’s view fairly reflects that of many liberal cosmopolitans. Thetension within it is one that is familiar from the history of liberal thought. Politicalliberals have a moral vision, captured by what C. B. Macpherson saw as theessential meaning of liberal democracy: “a society striving to ensure that all itsmembers are equally free to realize their capabilities.”2 This vision, he thought,could be dissociated from liberal democracy in the sense of “the democracy of acapitalist market society”: “a liberal position need not be taken to depend foreveron an acceptance of capitalist assumptions, although historically it has been sotaken.” What I think we can consider a distinctively liberal view, quite generally,is the belief that this dichotomy between ethico-political liberalism and economicliberalism is in some way satisfactorily manageable and not problematic in anyradical sense. It involves a belief that whatever criticisms might be directed againsteconomic liberalism as the ideological counterpart of capitalism, the values of“ethical” liberalism or principles of “political” liberalism are immune from anyimplications of those criticisms.

A defining feature of liberalism is thus that it does not have a constitutiveobjective of ending capitalism’s endless pursuit of accumulation. It may aim tomake capitalism more “benign,” for instance through policies geared to distribu-tive justice; and some left-leaning liberals may even emphasize their non-objection to the ending of capitalism, but there is no sense in which they wouldhasten it.

Thus, what “liberalism” means can in part be expounded from the perspectiveof critics who would contrast it with socialism. On such accounts liberalism is apolitical ideology which serves to legitimate subservience to the capitalist marketeither nakedly (e.g., neoliberalism) or more insidiously by expounding moralprinciples that will never get traction. C Wright Mills, for instance, wrote: “Theideals of liberalism have been divorced from any realities of modern social

278 Tim Hayward

structure that might serve as the means of their realization. . . . if the moral forceof liberalism is still stimulating, its sociological content is weak; it has no theoryof society adequate to its moral aims.”3

Now this charge may seem overstated in relation to more recent liberal theory.John Rawls, for instance, was very clear that “ethical principles depend upongeneral facts and therefore a theory of justice for the basic structure presupposesan account of these [political economic] arrangements.”4 Rawls believed that anadequate sociological understanding was available for his purposes. Accordingly,however, he was also clear that his normative theory applies to a well-definedcontext—that of a modern liberal democratic state.

Given that liberal cosmopolitanism precisely aims at transcending thenation-state context, Wright Mills’s criticism regains pertinence: how is themoral theory related to socioeconomic or political realities? But now the ques-tion is posed from within liberalism. Liberal critics of cosmopolitanism arguebroadly as follows:

(i) Normative theorizing and theories of justice presuppose an account of basicsocioeconomic facts about the context to which the theory applies.

(ii) Liberal political theory presupposes facts of liberal democratic states.

(iii) Not all states are liberal democratic states, and the world as a whole is nota liberal democratic state.

Therefore:

(iv) Normative liberal political theory cannot simply be applied or extended tothe whole world without, minimally, reviewing the factual assumptions itoriginally presupposed.

Rawls himself was clear on this point and developed the quite separatenormative theory of international relations presented in his The Law of Peoples.

So how do things stand with liberal cosmopolitanism? To answer this we needto observe the distinction drawn by Charles Beitz between “moral cosmopolitan-ism” and “institutional cosmopolitanism.” The former is a moral philosophy thatpresupposes little specifically about the socioeconomic facts of the world; rather,it takes its bearings from the moral status of individuals. Correspondingly, itimplies nothing very particular about institutional arrangements. If cosmopolitan-ism is understood purely as a moral position, then, it is not even inconsistent withnationalism.5 As David Miller put it, if this “weak” interpretation is all there is toit then “we are all cosmopolitans now.”6

Let us, then, consider what is required of “strong” cosmopolitanism:

(v) Cosmopolitanism as a normative theory applies to the whole world at thelevel of basic institutions.

(vi) To apply, the theory must presuppose an account of the facts of the wholeworld, including, importantly, economic facts.


(vii) One possible account of the facts is that of liberal international relationstheory.

(viii) But (at least according to Rawls and others) this account does not supportstrong cosmopolitanism.

It would follow, then, that either Rawls gets liberal international relations theoryquite seriously wrong or else strong cosmopolitanism must depend on somealternative account of the facts.

Political theorists who are consistent in their liberalism—and these includenot only Rawls and his followers, but also people like Miller or Michael Walzer—argue that there are no grounds for strong cosmopolitanism. Samuel Freemancaptures the problem: “what bothers many cosmopolitans is that global capitalismhas created ways to elude political control by the world’s governments . . . andpart of the problem is that there is no global basic structure to deal with it.”7 Itis no solution to advert to the moral interpretation of cosmopolitanism, forthe problem is precisely the want of adequately cosmopolitan institutions. “It is aserious failing of cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice that they discountthe significance of social cooperation and regard distributive justice as asocial andapolitical.”8 Leif Wenar criticizes cosmopolitans’ “insistence upon radical dis-tributive principles without a prior demonstration that they can validate the mostfundamental norms of global stability.”9

But if critics of liberal cosmopolitanism seem clearer than its advocatesabout what the challenge is, this should not mean they have the last word. SinceWenar cites Brian Barry in support of his concluding message—that in theglobal arena “the problem of establishing a peaceful order eclipses allothers”10—I shall defer to the same authority. What Brian Barry has contributedto global justice debates is, I believe, a salutary dose of realism. Contrary towhat Wenar implies, Barry’s position does not entail a rejection of cosmopoli-tanism but rather of the illusions of liberal constructions of it. In his essay “TheContinuing Relevance of Socialism,” Barry writes that “the transformation froma society ruled by the tyranny of the market to one of freedom requires collec-tive control over the economy.”11 Whereas the tyranny of the market underglobal capitalism is not in principle challenged by liberals, Barry articulates theredistributive cosmopolitan case in terms that challenge the basic assumptions ofa liberal framing of international relations: “industrial countries have achievedtheir present prosperity by first using their own natural resources and then, whenthese began to get scarce, by using those of the rest of the world at relativelylow cost to themselves . . . In effect, this bonanza has been turned into accumu-lated capital that is regarded by these countries as their private property to dowith as they choose.”12 Poor countries meanwhile have been left at a significantdisadvantage in international economic relations. Thus, on the question of secur-ing a peaceful world order, it is not obvious that cosmopolitans should acqui-esce in the liberal perspective. Darrel Moellendorf, for instance, offers analternative perspective:

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The problem is that constitutional democracies with capitalist economies contain a systemof incentives for persons with business interests in other states to advocate the use of statepower to protect those interests. In other words, such states contain a class of people whohave an interest in imperialist wars. Imperialist wars are externalities of a system in whichprofits accrue to private individuals. The only way to remove these externalities is throughthe establishment of an economic system that is not primarily based upon the profit motiveor one that institutes public control over profits.13

Thus, Moellendorf recognizes that “socialist states may be a desirable goal of anegalitarian world order.”14

So cosmopolitans can share Wenar’s view about the indispensability of apeaceful order and yet take a different view of what its accomplishment mightentail. Rather than trust in the idealist tenets of liberal peace coming eventually tobe shared by all peoples through the beneficent workings of a “truly free market,”cosmopolitanism potentially challenges the adequacy of liberal theory’s con-struction of the facts of global political economy. Yet this is the break thatliberal cosmopolitans in the tradition of Beitz and Pogge have refrained fromcompleting.15 Their reason being, I think, that it involves entertaining explanatoryhypotheses—such as those of world systems theory, for instance16—that arehighly controversial within a liberal worldview and are strongly resisted by liberalcritics of cosmopolitanism. At any rate, if “explanatory nationalism” is inad-equate, this implies there must be a better explanatory theory to account for thecontemporary circumstances of justice globally. But instead of showing howliberal theory is overoptimistic about the cooperative character of internationalpolitical and economic relations, and thereby focusing on the necessary precon-ditions still to be achieved for a more just world order, the liberal cosmopolitanspromote what is arguably an even more optimistic view of international relationsas a “cooperative scheme” analogous to that of a modern nation-state. To suggestthere is a “basic structure” globally equivalent to that presupposed by Rawls for aliberal democratic state—if this is understood as referring to a set of constitution-ally and politically governed institutions—is tantamount to saying institutionalcosmopolitanism is already a reality. This would be liberal political theory becom-ing once more a moral philosophy cut adrift from moorings in socioeconomicexplanation.

However, the need to liberate cosmopolitanism from liberal assumptionsbecomes even clearer when we consider the global environmental context. Herewe may find reason to appreciate Barry’s claim that if the critique of capitalismimplies socialism, then socialism, in turn, provides “the essential intellectualframework for environmental concerns.”17

2. Liberalism and the Global Environment: Sustainable Development orEcological Debt?

As the other contributions to this special issue testify, appropriate politicalresponses to global environmental threats have to appreciate their connection to


matters of global justice. In light of this, I pose the question of why it should beanticipated that liberalism would be a necessary part of an appropriate response.

Various authors have discussed how liberalism can be compatible with envi-ronmental values. A major focus of their attention in arguing this is on howliberalism can—despite apparent presumptions to the contrary—accommodatenoninstrumental value of nonhuman nature.18 I do not think we should be sur-prised to find that liberalism can accommodate a very wide range of ideas,including those of environmentalists and ecologists. The touchstone of liberalismas a moral philosophy is, after all, toleration. It is a relatively easy matter forreasonable people (at least when they find themselves in circumstances propitiousto reasonableness) to reach broad agreement on desirable goals, and the recentliberal accommodation of environmental goals would be a case in point. But whatis desirable has in practice also to be conditioned by what is possible, and this mayprovide a sterner test of the compatibility of liberal and environmental values—ofhow well liberal principles can be pressed into service of the aim of securing adecent environment, when that is understood, especially, as a global environment.

Liberal political theorists—indeed, like businesses and politicians of variousstripes as well as publics—have had little difficulty in embracing the goal of“sustainable development” as articulated in the Brundtland Report some twentyyears ago.19 Brundtland’s idea of sustainable development held out the appealingaspiration of international cooperation being able to protect the environment whileat the same time securing economic development and promoting global justice.

Yet the tensions between these objectives remain all too evident. As economicdevelopment continues, the global environment deteriorates and global inequali-ties intensify. The benefits of development carry serious environmental costs andare unjustly distributed. We have to recognize that the question of what it meansto pursue sustainable development cannot be answered simply in terms of thebenefits aimed at. We need to attend to the costs involved in achieving them andto the issue of their just distribution. For either the costs are borne equitably orthose who are already victims of human rights deficits suffer worse.

The most fundamental norm proposed by Brundtland was that every personhas a fundamental human right to live in an environment adequate for their healthand well-being.20 The achievement of this right, for every person, would involvea more radical transformation of global relations than seems to be supposed inmost discussions of sustainable development. For it cannot be achieved withoutalso achieving a range of basic social rights; yet the environment also sets con-straints on economic activity in the aggregate, and thus on the generation of thewherewithal to fulfill those rights. Considering the conditions of possibility ofits achievement would thus suggest a profound challenge to the system of privateproperty rights which allows some to draw immense profit from the world’snatural resources while others are deprived of even the basic necessities of life.

This implication, that full respect for all human rights indivisibly involvesa fundamental challenge to the existing order of property rights worldwide, isnot generally foregrounded in discussions of sustainability. The dominant ethos

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remains that of liberalization, premised on the idea that we can all become betteroff—the rich raising standards so that the poor benefit too.

Yet the situation is that developed countries benefit from the use of morenatural resources and environmental services than is either ecologically sustain-able or arguably, especially in light of global inequalities, their due share. Fromthe perspective of developing countries, we can be accused of running an “eco-logical debt.” The idea of ecological debt refers to the myriad ways that humansocieties today, both separately and in the aggregate, live, so to speak, beyond theirecological means. Ecological debt accrues whenever resources are taken out oftheir natural state at a rate faster than they can naturally be renewed, or whenpollutants are emitted at a rate faster than they can naturally be assimilated.Allegations of ecological debt can be understood as claims that there is an unjustdistribution of rights in the planet’s various natural resources and environmentalservices. The allocation of rights is certainly haphazard: international law accom-modates an array of property and sovereignty rights which have arisen historicallyas products of unregulated exploitation, wars, colonialism, power politics, ad hocnegotiations, and, in the best of cases, multilateral treaty agreements. Meanwhile,as international institutions create new rights—for example, carbon emissionsrights or intellectual property rights in genetic resources—old rights, and particu-larly rights of territorial sovereignty, are being significantly modified. How justthese regimes are, individually or in the aggregate, is a central question forassessing allegations of ecological debt. The magnitude of the problem is indi-cated by the estimate that to sustain the world’s population at the current con-sumption levels of the affluent would actually require the resources of threeadditional Planet Earths. Even the current aggregate consumption level, whichincludes that of some billion people who exist in absolute poverty, is not sustain-able. From this perspective, it appears that in myriad ways the affluent are“ecological debtors” who actively deprive the planet’s poorer peoples of their “fairshare” of the earth’s ecological space.

This perspective is not a liberal one. Liberals, whether cosmopolitan ornationalist, envisage, at most, a more equitable sharing of economic benefits, butnot any more radical questioning of the justifiability of the benefits themselves. Toassess why it might be considered permissible to disregard such questions, weneed to consider what can reasonably be presupposed about the general circum-stances of justice in a globally liberalizing world.

3. What Do Liberals Assume About Global Political Economy?

Historically, liberal political theory developed in conjunction with the theoryand practice of liberal political economy. The latter provided important elementsof empirical reference that could be assumed as the context of application fornormative theory. Today, as liberal cosmopolitans attempt to adapt their politicaltheory to changing contexts, the relation of that theory to any determinate under-standing of political economy is becoming increasingly uncertain.


To take an illustration, when liberal cosmopolitans argue for a global exten-sion of Rawls’s difference principle, they tend to neglect what I think is a crucialquestion: If this principle is supposed to operate so that the affluent are incentiv-ized to maintain economic growth provided that the poor can benefit too, and allthis is subject moreover to a “just savings principle,” how is that growth in factgoing to be maintained, let alone something saved, when the consequences ofeconomic growth to date are already—as is now, belatedly, recognized—threatening the very biophysical basis of human life on this planet?

The question as posed is of course an empirical one, and normative politicalphilosophers do not establish socioeconomic facts. But they do choose the empiri-cal presuppositions which give meaning and application to their theories. Rawlshimself, for instance, when unfolding his theory of justice, expressly assumed thatpersons who deliberate competently about principles of justice “know the generalfacts about human society,” “understand political affairs and the principles ofeconomic theory,” and “know the basis of social organization.”21 In the domesticcontext of a modern democratic state with a relatively stable socioeconomic ordersuch an assumption may have appeared quite serviceable. But what comparableassumption about taken-for-granted knowledge and understanding can we makein the global context today? In particular, should we choose to assume thatcontinued economic growth, on the part of the West, plus all the developingcountries, is possible indefinitely without causing any serious ecological dis-ruption that would undermine its advance? Or should we choose to be skepticalabout that possibility?

This choice can be characterized as one between a “cornucopian” assumptionand an assumption that that distribution of access to the world’s resources issomewhat closer to a “zero-sum” game.22

To date, most international political theorists have not been very explicitabout whether they accept or deny the cornucopian presumption. One who isexplicit is Loren E. Lomasky, who states that “The world’s wealth is not zero-sum,and thus to consume more is not to visit a harm on those who consume less.”23

Problems of poverty on his account are due to incompetent and corrupt regimes.If rich states have some responsibility for global injustices, it is not due to“insufficient zeal in applying the difference principle beyond borders. Rather, theflaw is rooted more deeply in a transgression against the grounding theory ofliberalism: denial of equal liberty to those with whom one transacts.”24 So, itemerges, the solution is the complete opening of borders to free trade and move-ment of people within a framework of rule of law that provides well-definedproperty rights. The universalist strand in liberal philosophy only needs to be putinto practice with a more complete liberalizing of the world market. Lomasky’sview is, from an ecological point of view, even more retrogressive than that ofthose who advocate globalizing the difference principle. The latter recognizeat least that wealth distribution requires some institutional intervention; onLomasky’s it would appear to be expected as a natural consequence of furtherfreeing up markets. This expectation does not appear to have any clear warrant in

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terms of evidence to date; moreover, regarding the question of presuppositions, itis important to note that in the initial statement quoted Lomasky’s reasoning isfallacious. It is true that the world’s wealth is not zero-sum; however, at any giventime its amount is determinate and finite; and if we add to this fact the consider-ation that it is very unevenly distributed, then we can see that the oppositeconclusion to Lomasky’s can be drawn, namely, that the high consumers can verywell visit harm on the worst off by marginal increases in their own consumption.

Now I am sure that many liberals will contend that Lomasky’s libertarianview is not a view of liberalism one needs to accept. But my question is whetherthere is a comparably clear alternative view of liberal theory’s assumptionsregarding political economy. Others may place less faith in the market’s capacityto deliver material equity, yet I am not aware of any significant strand of liberalthinking that decisively challenges the cornucopian presumption.

In fact, I believe there is an uneasy agnosticism about this question amongnormative theorists who for the most part, accordingly, simply avoid it. Yet thequestion goes to a very basic issue about the material circumstances of justiceglobally. In what follows, therefore, I consider two lines of resistance against theecological critique of the cornucopian assumption. The first involves askingwhether criticism of cornucopianism really is in fact relevant as a criticism ofliberalism; the second is whether cornucopianism can anyway be defended againstecological criticism.

(i) Is criticism of cornucopianism relevant as a criticism of liberalism? Onepotential reason why not would be the following. It is not natural resources thatmatter most fundamentally for justice, but a well-ordered society; and the amountof natural resources required to support good social order is not so great as torequire the indefinite demands implied by the critique of cornucopianism. There-fore, liberalism, conceived as primarily concerned with implementing a liberaltheory of justice, does not need to make the cornucopian assumption. However,this line of reasoning does not do more than offer a defense of the agnosticismreferred to. It leaves unanswered some questions that are salient even within itsown terms of reference. If natural resources are assumed to be of limited rel-evance, where are the limits and how are they maintained, and what would happenif they were overstepped? Of wider significance is the point that this reasoning isdeployed by those liberals who resist the cosmopolitan generalization of liberalprinciples. Liberal cosmopolitans, by contrast, do not accept that less advantagednations should have to settle for significantly less in terms of resources than do theaffluent. They cannot therefore consistently appeal to this argument.

A different line of reasoning, however, has been canvassed, for instance, bythe liberal environmentalist Mark Sagoff.25 Sagoff sets out reasons to be skepticalabout whether natural resources matter particularly for global justice. For not onlyis what is needed not necessarily natural resources, but, more crucially, to theextent that what is needed has a natural resource component, it is not scarce. Onthis view—which is that of mainstream economists—what is needed is ingenuity


and knowledge; these overcome scarcity. Therefore, a biophysical perspective onthe economy—that which generates the critique of cornucopianism—is largelybeside the point:

Quantitative increase in the physical dimension of the economy is neither necessary norsufficient for economic growth in the conventional sense, which has to do with the value ofproduction rather than the physical size of whatever is produced or consumed.26

Now in response it has certainly to be agreed that the “value” of production doesnot have any uniquely determinable correlation with the biophysical dimension ofthe economy, and so we cannot claim that economic growth necessarily entailsany particular increase in biophysical loads. Any such connection in practicewould be contingent on the character of the economy rather than the manifestationof a necessary truth in any metaphysical or logical sense. It is thus indeedconceivable that an economy could be so predominantly service-based, forinstance, that any such contingent connection was absent.27 It is also conceivablethat an economy could be so ecologically efficient that the connection was absent.However, we should not disregard the difference between what is conceivable andwhat is actual. In actuality, economic growth is invariably accompanied byincreased biophysical pressures. So empirical actuality is to date certainly differ-ent from what is implied by the hypotheses that Sagoff conceives. Certainly, thehypothesis that natural resources matter for justice is not refuted merely byshowing that alternative hypotheses can be conceived. So the critique of cornu-copianism is not irrelevant. Still, it might be argued to fail.

(ii) So what of the second line of argument, that cornucopianism can anyway bedefended against ecological criticism? The argument here is that even if naturalresources might matter, they are nevertheless not finite, or at least not as limited inavailability as the ecological approach has to suppose they are to support aprincipled critique of liberalism’s presuppositions. This argument goes beyond theclaim that economic growth could conceivably be sustained within natural limitsto challenge the idea of natural limits itself. Sagoff locates this claim at the coreof liberal economic thought: “Mainstream economists, such as James Tobin,Robert Solow, and William B. Nordhaus, typically state that nature sets no limitsto economic growth. Trusting to human intelligence and ingenuity as people seekto satisfy their preferences and achieve well-being, these economists argue thatpeople can choose among an indefinitely large number of alternatives.”28 Thisview as stated amounts simply to an article of faith—“trusting to human intelli-gence and ingenuity.” Can it draw on more persuasive support?

Sagoff notes three arguments offered by mainstream economists to show thatknowledge and ingenuity are likely always to alleviate resource shortages. First,reserves of natural resources “themselves are actually functions of technology. Themore advanced the technology, the more reserves become known and recoverable.”However, while there is some truth in this, the new reserves themselves stand to be

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consumed, and we cannot expect that ingenuity will create more reserves once allhave been discovered and exploited, which is what would need to be the case tosupport the mainstream position. This, though, is where the second argument comesin: “advances in technology allow us not only to increase available reserves but alsoto employ substitutes for resources that may become scarce.” Again, there is sometruth in this, but not enough: for it is debatable whether all resources can or shouldbe substituted; it is also often the case that the substitution itself involves heavy useof other natural resources—as for instance, when plastics or chemical fertilizersrequiring heavy use of fossil fuels substitute for naturally occurring materials. Moredecisively, as a supposed refutation of ultimate natural limits, it again does notappear to be an argument as such, since it merely asserts that substitutes will alwaysbe available, the thought underlying it being encapsulated in a restatement of faith“that in the aggregate resources are infinite, that when one flow dries up, there willalways be another, and that technology will always find cheap ways to exploit thenext resource.”29 Yet although this sentence uses the word “always,” the actualreports cited in evidence refer to a rather shorter time horizon: “the world is not yetrunning out of most nonrenewable resources and is not likely to, at least in the nextfew decades.”30 Clearly, the ecological economists’ claim that resource depletioncannot continue indefinitely is not refuted by the observation that it can neverthelesscontinue for some decades yet. While the amount of ecological space available ispartly contingent on the efficiency with which natural resources are exploited, thisonly means that the “natural limits” to resource exploitation cannot be fixed withprecision once and for all. It would be a non sequitur to conclude from this,however, that there are no such limits.

Before turning to the third argument, it is worth emphasizing that the questionof natural limits is not merely a technical one but also has profound implicationsin the sphere of global justice. For it is not just a question, as some suppose, ofwhether “we confront an age of scarcity in the near or, at best, the medium term.”The actual problem is both more mundane and more immediately pressing.Natural limits to economic growth are mediated by complex socioeconomicarrangements that produce wide disparities of outcomes. We only need to considerthe plight of those millions who have lost lives, livelihoods, and homes throughfamine, disease or environmental displacement to recognize that these vast popu-lations have already encountered natural limits. Thus, the claim that there is aproblem of natural limits is not refuted by the observation that the rich can for thetime being stave off the most serious effects of it for themselves.

This point is highly salient regarding the third argument offered by mainstreameconomists against the idea of natural limits. This is “that the power of knowledgecontinually reduces the amounts of resources needed to produce a constant orincreasing flow of consumer goods and services.”31 As evidence, Sagoff notes that“Societies with big gross domestic products, such as Sweden, protect nature, whilenations in the former Soviet bloc with much smaller gross domestic products, suchas Poland, have devastated their environments.”32 However, even leaving aside thepoint that Sweden’s territorial endowment of resources per capita is something like


three times that of Poland, a fact which somewhat compromises this particularcomparison, there are more general critical observations to make about the claimthat economic growth ultimately serves to protect the environment.

In support of this claim there has been much attention devoted in the literatureto the hypothesis of an “Environmental Kuznets Curve.”33 According to thishypothesis, during the process of economic development, countries tend toincrease consumption of energy and materials at the same rate as growth inincome, until a certain level of income is reached; beyond that point furtherincreases in the level of output will no longer be followed by increases (at thesame rate) of energy and material consumption. However, while there is evidencethat a level of economic growth can bring with it a reduction of material andenergy inputs per unit of output, this stops a long way short of supporting thegeneral claim that growth is “good for the environment,” as does evidence thatricher countries tend to protect their territorial environments better than poorercountries. For one thing, ecological efficiency gains per unit of output do nottranslate into greater environmental protection if growth of aggregate consump-tion more than offsets them, which it tends to for reasons inherent in the dynamicsof growth. For another, even to the extent that a de-linking of growth and envi-ronmental degradation does occur, it is only after the country has reached athreshold of income and consumption of energy and materials per capita which issuch a high one that it could not be emulated by all countries in the world withoutprovoking likely ecological collapse in the meantime. Moreover, recent researchhas suggested that even if developed countries may go through a dematerializationphase, they can also then go through a re-materialization phase—so the invertedU-shaped curve would then appear as an N-shaped one, just depending on the timewindow used for observation. But the most fundamental criticism of this hypoth-esis is that it simply disregards how countries benefiting from economic growthcan effectively export their environmental problems. When account is taken ofhow the rich nations can “externalise” the most polluting factors of production, thevery basis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis is called into question.

Empirical evidence showing that developed countries have improved theirenvironments while growing their economies could only be held to support theeconomists’ conclusion if it could also be shown that no appreciable resourcedepletion, pollution or increased entropy had occurred as a result of that sameeconomic activity elsewhere in the global ecosystem. The evidence does not showthis.

On the mainstream view, national economies are looked at in isolation andthere is assumed to be no limit to their potential growth. This is because externalimpacts are simply disregarded, just as future impacts are discounted.34 Thisreflects the traditional liberal political perspective which sees the internationalorder in terms of relations between discrete nation-states, each rationally pursuingits own interest.

Cosmopolitans do not share this perspective, and thus have little reason, asfar as I can see, to accept the cornucopian presumption or rely on its future

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vindication, given the evident need here and now to begin addressing—for reasonsof both ecology and justice—the overarching problem of ecological debt. Yetcontemporary liberal cosmopolitans appear to envisage relatively modest reformsthat involve a greater sharing of the benefits of a liberal economy, rather than takea more probing approach to the sustainability of those benefits themselves. If I amright about this, then cosmopolitanism represents a challenge to liberalism of amore thoroughgoing kind than liberal cosmopolitans believe.

4. Critical Questions About the Liberal Ethos

Historically, the development of liberalism attended and served the develop-ment of the modern nation-state. Today, there is a widely held view that liberalismprovides the normative principles not only for international moral and politicalcooperation, but for a cosmopolitan world order. However, I think we need toconsider more carefully the extent to which cosmopolitanism really can be seen asan extension of liberal normative principles.

One of the few voices raising questions about this assumption is that of KatrinFlikschuh: “If liberal economic policy has significantly contributed to the produc-tion of extreme wealth in some parts of the earth and extreme poverty in otherparts, can we continue to assert with confidence liberalism’s ‘moral universal-ism’?” She believes this discrepancy should lead us at the very least “to askwhether liberal theory is capable of delivering, politically and economically, on itsuniversalistic moral aspirations.”35 Liberal cosmopolitans tend to treat these moralaspirations as separable from their “contingent” material conditions of possibility.Flikschuh thinks we should find this more surprising than we have becomeaccustomed to do when discussing proposed reforms to the global institutionalorder:

if the current global order is a major contributor to global poverty, and if the existence ofthat order turns out also to have been an essential prerequisite to the achievement of theliberal good life in mature liberal societies, how can the proposed reforms be expected toresult in the widening of access to a life-style the possibility of which presupposes theglobal status quo?36

She thinks liberals may rather have lost sight of the material presuppositions ofliberalism, and the implications of these:

Arguably, what is depicted in current liberal theorising as the individual quest for thecritically examined good life, is observed by the global poor as an attractively high standardof living. . . . It is arguably these more material aspects of the liberal good life, rather thanthe promise of sharpening one’s powers of critical reflection, that very many of thematerially deprived global poor not only aspire to, but that they may also—given globalterms of production—claim to have a just stake in.37


The trouble is that the liberal good life is expensive, she observes, and once theeconomic costs of making it more widely available are counted, liberal thinkers,mindful of the “strains of commitment,” frequently shrink back from promotingits universalization. But if liberals are partial and selective about the values andobligations to be universalized, this raises critical questions about the extent towhich cosmopolitanism should be conceived in terms of the universalization ofliberal values at all: “. . . is it not more reasonable to accept that institutionalreform is likely to impose new moral constraints—the constraint upon citizensof the West, for example, to lower their material expectations so as indeed toenable distant others ‘to meet their basic needs with dignity’?”38 This suggestioncan be reinforced by considering the ecological constraints on the requiredresources.

To meet global challenges, it is arguable that we—those of us currentlyover-consuming—require the inculcation of an ethic, an ethos, of restraint toaccompany and underpin the recognition of our obligations to reduce our demandson resources. With this ethos we would “tread lightly” on the earth, and live in away that is “simple in means, rich in ends,” with a focus on satisfactions derivedfrom being as opposed to having. This characteristically “green” conception of thegood life is arguably in humans’ own enlightened interest, entailing the happinessthat comes with exercise of our faculties and capacities rather than sacrifice. Anethos of restraint can foster the resourcefulness that makes such activities theirown reward rather than something experienced as a cost or sacrifice.39 An ethos ofrestraint, though, has in turn to be deeply grounded in a sense, and principles, ofjustice. It certainly should not be confused with the self-righteousness of theaffluent ascetic, who, from a position of material security, can demonstrate howeasy it is to “dematerialize” their interests. From the point of view of the have-nots, it is a perverse mockery to be shown by well-off people how they can “dowithout.” The imperative of restraint, then, is a matter both of the good and of theright.40

Liberalism in many respects is an ethos of non-restraint.41 The way the liberalemphasis on the value of individual freedom is placed, in particular, does notclearly or directly tend to promote the kind of collective restraint that globalenvironmental justice would seem to require. In pursuit of their traditional socio-economic goals, liberals have embraced a constitutive encouragement of thepursuit of individual self-interest as the engine of aggregate economic develop-ment, something whose benefits in due course supposedly will (or can be made to)trickle down to all. We are accustomed to thinking of our liberties as achieve-ments, but the fact that they were achieved by people in the past and at some costto others tends to be passed over in contemporary versions of the implicit idealismmanifest in various “win-win” ideas such as that of the possibility of adequatetrickle down of wealth and of “sustainable development.” It is as if there is a linetacitly drawn in the sand: we want the rest of the world to be able to achieve whatwe have achieved; but we are not going to enter questions about relinquishing anyof what we have.

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This position is defensible with regard to human rights relating to security andrespect of the person—rights to non-zero-sum goods that we should not give up atall. Indeed, the one clear principle of restraint provided by liberalism (and whichprotects such rights) is the harm principle, and this—in virtue of its negativetenor—is readily universalizable and can unproblematically be extended globally.But what of the non-non-zero-sum goods, those directly carrying costs, that arealso required for the more complete fulfillment of human rights—including sub-sistence, livelihoods and adequate living conditions, including an adequate envi-ronment? Some theorists believe these can also be secured by applying the harmprinciple, albeit in novel ways, including as a guide for international institutionalreform: both with regard to environmental harms (as, for instance, some libertar-ian defenses of using property rights for environmental protection do) and withregard to global injustices (as Pogge has recently argued regarding the avoidableharms caused under existing international institutional arrangements).

Refraining from harm, however, is only part of an ethos of restraint. Forrestraint in our use of ecological space means not only taking care not to harmothers, but also reevaluating the nature and extent of the benefits we ourselvesdraw from our activities, even when these do not immediately or obviouslyprecipitate some harm on others. If the rich are to retain what they already have,then the only way the poor can become better off is by increasing aggregatepressure on the world’s resources; yet its ecology will not sustain this pressure.Taking this insight seriously, its normative implications should be deeply unset-tling for those who envisage cosmopolitanism entailing the globalization of lib-erality. Unless they simply resort to faith in the possibility of indefinite materialexpansion through technological innovation, they have to face up to the implica-tions of recognizing that, from an adequate normative perspective, what we todayhave is not, in fact, non-negotiably ours.

If any aspect of this is found “illiberal,” we should not assume, without furtherado, that simply finding it so amounts to an objection. I have suggested elsewherewe should be cautious about any commitment to substantive liberal values whenthese conflict with ecological ones.42 This is not to suggest rejecting all the valuesliberal espouse. For instance, as Andrew Dobson argues, it may be that a concep-tion of political citizenship embracing an ecological orientation has as its principalvirtues “the liberal ones of reasonableness and a willingness to accept the force ofthe better argument and procedural legitimacy.”43 But while reasonableness anda willingness to accept the force of the better argument may be values liberalstypically espouse, I am not sure they are peculiarly liberal values. To think thatliberalism has a monopoly of reasonableness could prove, in today’s world, to bea dangerous illusion. Liberalism has indeed played an important historical role inestablishing and institutionalizing such principles as tolerance, freedom, civilrights, procedural equality, and non-discrimination. Yet one can hold these prin-ciples to be dear while also believing, say, that all property should be communallyowned, or that economic growth should be severely constrained, or that citizenshave as full and dense a set of obligations as they have rights. Reasonableness does


not entail an obligation to tolerate the intolerable. Non-restraint is, from a greenpoint of view, intolerable. The planet cannot tolerate it; the worst off cannottolerate its effects; future sufferers from humanly induced ecological crises willnot be able to tolerate it either.

In short, then, it seems to me there is good reason to challenge more activelyand determinedly the assumption that cosmopolitanism represents a seamlesscontinuation of liberalism.

Conclusion

Liberalism has fostered vitally important norms with its commitment todemocracy and human rights, and I do not assume that democracy and humanrights can necessarily flourish in just any non-liberal political context. What I dosuggest is that our thinking about how such norms can be promoted in the alteredcontext of a globally interdependent, geopolitically re-orientated, and ecologicallyconstrained world should take its bearing from a more radically open-spiritedassessment of the new context. The project of political theorists to see aboutextending domestic theories has of course needed to be tried—since not allquestions are new and inherited wisdom may have much to teach. But I think wealso need to free ourselves from any assumption that this approach will suffice. Weneed to be open to the more radical questions thrown up. This means some“thinking outside the box” of liberalism, and a readiness to reframe questions innew ways. So while I am not implying that all the values and assumptions ofliberalism should be negated, I do think we need to be open to the possibility thatsome might. Approaching them in a spirit of immanent criticism, we can considerthe kind of direction in which this might lead.

The idea that an immanent critique of liberalism leads in the direction ofsocialism is to be found in the work of influential political theorists of thetwentieth century. If socialism can be arrived at as an immanent goal ofliberalism—because the realization of individual freedom for all actuallyrequires socialized material justice as a precondition—then we now also need torecognize that material justice for all has its own precondition, namely, theintegrity of the compendious resources of the biophysical world.44 Thus, ifthe immanent critique of liberalism leads in the direction of socialism, then theimmanent critique of socialism leads in the direction of what may be calledecologism—or, given that this term may be understood in different ways—ecological socialism.

We need to recognize rather than evade the extent to which existing interna-tional institutions are complicit in the logic of capital accumulation.45 For it is thiswhich so structures global economic imperatives as to render the human calami-ties associated with ecological debt a systemic outcome and not only a moralfailure. The injustices which existing institutions preside over should not beassumed to be simply incidental failings of an otherwise just system.

292 Tim Hayward

Furthermore, if liberals rightly emphasize the value of peace and stability inthe global order, then we should also be concerned about the serious potentialthreats to global stability posed by “ecological insecurity.” For the same circum-stances that can be condemned as “ecological debt” in a discourse of justice areliable increasingly to occasion security threats, as already evidenced in growingconflicts over resources. Liberalism—with its focus on “ecological moderniza-tion” and the win-win-win interpretation of sustainable development—would notappear to have an adequate theoretical apparatus for recognizing why such con-flicts are becoming more pervasive.

Yet departing from liberalism is not to depart from the goals of cosmopoli-tanism. In particular, we can readily affirm a recognizably cosmopolitan concep-tion of universal rights and global justice. The basics of justice, on the conceptionreferred to here, include a universal right of access to the necessary means for adecent life. I take it as axiomatic that there is this fundamental right: for if therewere not, then the very idea of human rights would be hollow; and if we could notrely conceptually and normatively on the idea of human rights as a touchstone forideas of justice, I doubt we could talk both cogently and persuasively about globaljustice at all. As a material premise, I take it that the means of life necessarily andimportantly include biophysical resources; biophysical resources, compendiously,can be referred to by the term “ecological space.” From these premises it followsthat a right of each human to a sufficient allocation of ecological space is a humanright.46

This right is what I believe cosmopolitanism commits us to as a matter ofjustice. Whether liberalism does, I am not so sure. Perhaps what most crucially hasto be debated is whether taking this right seriously means according it priorityover any mere right of property that conflicts with it.47

Earlier versions of this article were presented at seminars of International Politicsand Political Theory research groups at the University of Edinburgh, and at theCentre for the Study of Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham. I amgrateful for comments from participants, as well from Carol Gould and PikiIsh-Shalom.

Notes

1 Anthony J. Langlois, “Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Liberalism,” Critical Review of InternationalSocial and Political Philosophy 10, no. 1 (2007): 29–45, at 29.

2 C. B. Macpherson, The life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1977).

3 C. Wright Mills, “Liberal Values in the Modern World,” in Power, Politics and People: The CollectedEssays of C. Wright Mills, ed. Irving Louis Horowitz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963),189.

4 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 265.5 See, for example, Kok-Chor Tan, Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and

Patriotism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 193–94.


6 David Miller, National Responsibility and Global Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),28.

7 Samuel Freeman, “Distributive Justice and The Law of Peoples,” in Rawls’s Law of Peoples: ARealistic Utopia? ed. Rex Martin and David A. Reidy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 258.

8 Ibid.9 Leif Wenar, “Why Rawls is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian,” in Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic

Utopia? ed. Rex Martin and David A. Reidy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 107.10 Ibid., 110.11 Brian Barry, Democracy, Power and Justice: Essays in Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1989), 529.12 Ibid., 522.13 Darrel Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002), 174.14 Ibid.15 I raised this issue in relation to Pogge in Tim Hayward, “On the Nature of Our Debt to the Global

Poor,” Journal of Social Philosophy 39, no. 1 (2008): 1–19. Pogge has certainly focussed attentionon crucial facts about the contemporary world order, including facts about international institu-tions. But I am not aware of any serious dispute about these facts on the part of an “explanatorynationalist” like Miller. The challenge posed to Pogge by Miller, I think, is to fill in the layers ofsocial theoretic explanation between “our” individual moral responsibilities and the effects ofglobal capitalism (see, for example, Miller, National Responsibility, 238–47).

16 I single out this kind of theory (which, incidentally, Barry also considers worth taking seriously—seeDemocracy, 476–90) because of its prima facie coherence with a global ecological perspective:see Tim Hayward, “Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources,” Political Studies 54,no. 2 (2006): 349–69.

17 Barry, Democracy, 532.18 See, for instance, Derek Bell, “Liberal Environmental Citizenship,” Environmental Politics 14,

no. 2 (2005): 179–94; and, in the same issue, Simon Hailwood, “Environmental Citizenship asReasonable Citizenship,” 195–210.

19 World Commission on Environment and Development, and United Nations Environment Programme(The Brundtland Report), Our Common Future (New York: The Commission, 1987).

20 In Tim Hayward, Constitutional Environmental Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) Iargued in support of that right and in favor of its implementation in states’ constitutions as well asin international law.

21 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 137.22 See, for example, Alf Hornborg, “Cornucopia or Zero-Sum Game? The Epistemology of Sustain-

ability,” Journal of World-Systems Research 9, no. 2 (2003): 205–16.23 Loren E. Lomasky, “Liberalism Beyond Borders,” Social Philosophy and Policy 24, no. 1 (2007):

206–33, at 214.24 Ibid., 208.25 Mark Sagoff, “Carrying Capacity and Ecological Economics,” in Ethics of Consumption, ed. David

A. Crocker and Toby Linden (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).26 Ibid., 37.27 By service-based I am thinking of personal services provided by labor without significant resource

usage; I am not thinking about the “service” sector of Finance Insurance and Real Estate, whichhas a much more complicated relationship with productive sectors of the economy.

28 Sagoff, “Carrying Capacity,” 29.29 Ibid., 31.30 Ibid.31 Ibid., 30.32 Ibid., 38.33 For an overview, see for example, David I. Stern, “The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets

Curve,” World Development 32, no. 8 (2004): 1419–39.

294 Tim Hayward

34 See, for example, Caney’s article in this issue.35 Katrin Flikschuh, “The Limits of Liberal Cosmopolitanism,” Res Publica 10, no. 2 (2004): 175–92,

at 176.36 Ibid., 191.37 Ibid., 183.38 Ibid., 189.39 See, for example, Tim Hayward, “Ecological Citizenship: Justice, Rights and the Virtue of Resource-

fulness,” Environmental Politics 15, no. 3 (2006): 435–46.40 As such, it would also depend more widely on a sense of human solidarity and an inculcation of

perspectives and values of the kind indicated, for instance, by Andrew Dobson, Citizenship and theEnvironment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

41 A somewhat contrasting view is presented by Marcel Wissenburg, “Sustainability and the Limits ofLiberalism,” in Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader, 2nd ed., ed. John S.Dryzek and David Schlosberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). His suggestion thatliberalism can be consistent with the principle of restraint seems to depend on the premise that“liberalism is ultimately about taking one’s individual responsibility seriously” (p. 180) and astipulation that “[t]he critique of economic liberalism must . . . be judged on its own merits andcannot reflect on political liberalism” (p. 181).

42 Hayward, “Ecological Citizenship,” 440.43 Dobson, Citizenship and the Environment, 89.44 There are of course reasons for concern about the nonhuman world over and above its function as a

resource for humans. I assume their efficaciousness will correlate positively with the inculcationof restraint.

45 This point is forcefully argued by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clerk, “Ecological Imperialism:The Curse of Capitalism,” Socialist Register (2004): 186–201.

46 For more on this argument see, for example, Hayward, “On the Nature.”47 In saying this I am drawing a distinction which some liberals will challenge on the ground that some

property rights can actually be justified as human rights. A discussion of this question not beingpossible here, I simply note that my phrasing “any mere right of property” leaves open thatpossibility.


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