What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care by Elizabeth Cripps

Author:Elizabeth Cripps
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472991829
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

5

The Least Unjust Option

On 12 December 2015, just as countries were due to adopt the Paris Agreement on climate change, the United States came up with an obstacle. It demanded a weakening of the normative language: developed countries ‘should’, rather than ‘shall’, make quantified, economy-wide cuts to carbon emissions. According to the Guardian, the US delegation said the original ‘shall’ was an error, approved by oversight. But for poorer countries, the more demanding word represented a moral imperative: rich, high-polluting states must take the lead.

The US got its way. The change, says European Union delegate Radoslav Dimitrov, was ‘slipped in as a “technical correction”, together with punctuation changes!’

In the real world, there is no magic wand to bring about the way forward outlined in Chapter Four. Instead, we have a muddle of international negotiations, under pressure from social movements on the one hand, and vested interests on the other. Too often, rich polluters either refuse outright to do what’s right, or make grandiose claims without actually intending to change. This leaves a choice, for those who do care. It’s crucial to make that choice in the least unjust way, but there’s no pretending it’s anything other than what it is: a moral second (or third) best.

That’s what this chapter is about.

The paris compromise

The Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted on 12 December 2015. It was a historic achievement: a step many had come to believe was impossible. It was the culmination of more than two decades of international negotiations and innumerable long-haul flights and late-night bargaining sessions. It is the best we currently have.

Un fortunately, it’s a long way short of enough.

Whatever participatory justice requires – trans­parency, recognition, participation on equal terms – it looks very different from the process that actually produced the agreement. The agreement was the result of climate diplomacy, mostly conducted behind closed doors. Indeed, it was widely considered an unexpected victory of just such diplomacy that any agreement was reached at all, when the parties had such different agendas. Big polluters generally didn’t want binding agreements on emissions cuts; rich countries often wanted to ignore global adaptation needs. Small island states and more vulnerable countries wanted ambition and compensation. It took clever leadership by the French hosts to reconcile them into a deal.

Radoslav Dimitrov, a scholar of environmental politics as well as a climate negotiator, paints a picture worthy of the final scenes in a suspense movie. Secret negotiations, alliances forming across groups, many delegates unaware of what had been settled until they were presented with a fait accompli. The result? Small island states gained some points, mainly via a ‘high ambition’ coalition that also included the European Union. But mainly the result reflected the balance of power going into the negotiations. The developed countries of the north, says Dimitrov, ‘won most of the key battles’.

That doesn’t bode well for climate justice. But let’s take a closer look.

Words without commitments

On the plus side, the Paris Agreement is a global deal. And it does, to some extent, acknowledge the demands of justice.

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