Climate Change and Distributive Justice

Global climate change from the perspective of ethics is defined by many scholars as the biggest problem of distributive justice encountering the world. Governments construe the notion of justice in terms of their political positions or national interests in the climate negotiations. Because the burden sharing agreed in the Kyoto Protocol is unsatisfactory for almost every country in terms of justice, it seems that just distribution of costs and benefits of climate change is one of the most important matters of discussion in the post-Kyoto climate negotiations. This study aims to analyze climate change as a problem of distributive justice. The analysis focus on three dimensions of distributive justice; the recipients of distribution (developed countries, developing countries, present generations, future generations, companies, individuals etc.), the item of distribution (atmosphere, emission rights, trust of future generations to the present generation, costs of mitigation or adaptation), and the process of distribution (fair decision making processes in global climate change regime etc.). The study concludes that it is extremely difficult to reach an agreement based on principles of distributive justice in the post-Kyoto climate negotiations because application of different justice principles leads to different outcomes for the Parties.