Why does climate justice matter?

Climate change will affect different people and places unevenly, and so is likely to lead to inequalities within and across nations, and between current and future generations, so creating injustice.

Internationally, climate justice is linked with an agenda for human rights and international development, and sharing the benefits and burdens associated with climate stabilisation, as well as concerns about the impacts of climate change (see the work of the Mary Robinson Foundation).

In the UK, climate justice relates to concerns about the inequitable outcomes for different people and places associated with vulnerability to climate impacts and the fairness of policy and practice responses to address climate change and its consequences. It has been defined as:

Ensuring that collectively and individually we have the ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from climate change impacts – and the policies to mitigate or adapt to them – by considering existing vulnerabilities, resources and capabilities¹.

By ‘just’ we mean: some chance of a safe climate for future generations; an equal distribution of the remaining global carbon budget between countries; and a transition in the UK in which the costs are distributed progressively, and where everyone’s essential needs for housing, transport and energy use are met².

Climate change has been described as the biggest threat to public health this century³. Some people and places will be more exposed than others to the direct impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, or extreme weather, due to where they live. Within these places, some people will be more vulnerable to the impacts, as they will be more sensitive to negative effects on their health or wellbeing or may have less capacity to respond. However, vulnerability is not inherent in particular groups – it is determined by a mix of social, economic, environmental and cultural factors, as well as institutional practices.

Policy and practice responses, such as energy policies linked to carbon reduction, or flood resilience measures, could exacerbate inequalities or be used to address different forms of disadvantage, and hence will also add to the uneven consequences of climate change, raising concerns over distributional justice.

Climate justice also involves considering relative roles and responsibilities for causing the problem of global warming and for associated action. This is a critical issue in considering the fairness of global emissions reduction targets, and the respective roles (and costs) for different nations to reduce emissions, set through international climate change negotiations. Arguably, it is also relevant to the development of responses within countries. Questions of procedural justice – or who has most voice in decisions is critical here.

References

Banks. N et al (2014) Climate change and social justice: An evidence review. JRF, York.
Childs, M. (2011) Just transition: is a just transition to a low-carbon economy possible within safe global carbon limits? London: Friends of the Earth
Anthony Costello, Mustafa Abbas, Adriana Allen, Sarah Ball, Sarah Bell, Richard Bellamy, Sharon Friel, Nora Groce, Anne Johnson, Maria Kett, Maria Lee, Caren Levy, Mark Maslin, David McCoy, Bill McGuire, Hugh Montgomery, David Napier, Christina Pagel, Jinesh Patel, Jose Antonio Puppim de Oliveira, Nanneke Redclift, Hannah Rees, Daniel Rogger, Joanne Scott, Judith Stephenson, John Twigg, Jonathan Wolﬀ, Craig Patterson (2009) Managing the health effects of climate change: Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission. The Lancet 373: 1693–733

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s research on climate change and social justice has found five forms of injustice associated with climate change and its consequences in the UK.

Low income and other disadvantaged people:

contribute least to causing climate change as their carbon emissions tend to be lower than other groups
are particularly vulnerable to negative effects on their wellbeing from the direct consequences of climate change, including flooding and heatwaves,
pay a higher proportion of their income towards the costs of certain policy responses, particularly associated with energy and carbon reduction, while also
benefiting less from those measures than high income households,
tend to have least voice in decisions¹.

Figure 1. Compound climate injustice

There are ethical, legal and pragmatic reasons for developing fair and equitable responses to climate change that take account of issues around responsibility for emissions, the differing vulnerability of people and places to climate impacts, and varying resources and capacity to act.

See our presentation Why climate justice matters for more information.

Ethical basis

There is a question of fairness in relation to who carries the costs or benefits of climate change and who is likely to experience the negative effects of climate change. Internationally, some of the poorest parts of the world are expected to feel the effects more quickly and severely than other countries, despite contributing least to the problem. Within nations, particular communities will be more exposed, for example, to the effects of sea level rise and coastal erosion, as well as extreme weather, expected from climate change. Within those communities, some people will suffer more than others as they are less able to deal with the consequences, with disadvantaged communities most at risk (Box 1).

Box 1. Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report notes that:

Climate change will amplify existing risks and create new risks for natural and human systems. Risks are unevenly distributed and are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development.²

There are also moral issues about rights and responsibilities, not only for emissions, but also for action, both within and across generations, with the risks of inaction today leading to severe consequences for future generations, raising questions over intergenerational justice.

Legal basis

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change commits governments to reduce greenhouse gases and considers equity in the ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ of signatory states. Developed countries are expected to take a lead, recognising their greater historic role in contributing to global greenhouse gas emissions compared with other countries.

In the European context, the 1998 Aarhus Convention lays out public rights to access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters. Under the convention, there is a right to review procedures to challenge public decisions that are made without respecting people’s rights of access to environmental information, public participation in decisions or environmental law in general.

The Climate Change Act 2008 also provides a legal basis for action to reduce emissions, assess the risks from climate change and take action to adapt in the UK.

Pragmatic and policy considerations

People are more likely to support climate change mitigation (emission reduction) policies and adaptation policies (addressing climate change impacts) if they reflect a fair balance of responsibility, capability and need. Policy responses also provide an opportunity to create a fairer society. Fair processes that widen participation and address justice can help to manage conflict and to build consensus in responses, as well as mobilising assets and generating wider benefits from actions than taking narrow economically or financially driven approaches.³

Taking preventative action to reduce risks could also help to avoid longer term costs, as Nicholas Stern, former economic adviser to the UK Government, reported in 2007⁴ (box 2). He has since suggested that the international approach to economic modelling has underestimated the scale of the problem and costs we may face from climate change.⁵

Box 2. Key messages from the Stern Review 2007

The evidence gathered by the Review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting.

Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms.

Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more.

In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.⁶

References

Banks. N et al (2014) Climate change and social justice: An evidence review. JRF, York.
See the various reports of the Intergovernmental panel on climate change including the IPCC (2014) Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report.
Banks. N et al (2014) Climate change and social justice: An evidence review. JRF, York.
Nicholas Stern (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge University Press.
S. Dietz and N Stern (2014) Endogenous growth, convexity of damages and climate risk: how Nordhaus’ framework supports deep cuts in carbon emissions Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy Working Paper No.180 Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Paper No. 159
Nicholas Stern (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, Cambridge University Press.

Some of the evidence is collated in the presentation (Why climate justice matters, right) developed by the University of Manchester with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which helps to set out the arguments for action. The slides identify issues and related evidence which can be used and adapted to support your own case for action.

The Climate Just website provides a whole range of further material which helps to explain some of the climate justice issues in a UK context and suggest possible responses to help address inequities. In brief, it:

looks at responsibility for carbon emissions and how energy policy affects different households Who emits most?
analyses current fuel poverty and energy vulnerability and possible responses. What can be done to tackle fuel poverty?
identifies which people and places are most vulnerable to the direct impacts of extreme weather, with maps of the areas that face particular disadvantage due to flooding or heat in England. Who is vulnerable?
highlights actions that could be taken to adapt and build local resilience.

To understand more about how the content may be relevant to you in your own role, see the section on Who needs to do what? and the diagrams (right) which provide a hyperlinked map of the content to help you navigate to the most useful material.