Principles of justice in proposals and policy approaches to avoided deforestation: Towards a post-Kyoto climate agreement

This paper offers a normative analysis of the current negotiations on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Drawing on existing theories of distributive justice, we seek to determine which interpretations of equity are embodied in the key proposals and policy approaches to REDD in the run up to a post-Kyoto climate agreement. Our analysis indicates that whilst the various proposals are characterised by different and sometimes contradictory notions of equity, it is the ideas that are more consistent with neoliberal concepts of justice that tend to prevail. The result is that despite abiding contestations and controversies, emerging REDD policy solutions for the post-2012 climate regime looks very likely to reflect a commitment to market-based approaches to forest governance. However, whilst such market-based approaches might serve the preferences of powerful players, their effectiveness in terms of forest preservation, the protection of indigenous peoples and sustainable community development remains extremely dubious. On a broader note, our analysis reinforces the growing realization that the international arena is not beyond the pale of moral arguments but rather that the governance of global environmental change implicates elemental ethical questions regarding which ways of life human beings ought to pursue.     

Contesting climate justice in the city: Examining politics and practice in urban climate change experiments

Debates about climate justice have mainly occurred at the international scale, and have focussed on the rights and responsibilities of nation-states to either be protected from the effects of climate change, or to take action to reduce emissions or support adaptation. In this paper, we argue that it is both productive and necessary to examine how climate justice is being pursued at the urban scale, which brings into focus the need for attention to issues of recognition as well as rights and responsibilities. Building on work from environmental justice, which has conceptualized justice as trivalent, we propose that climate justice can be understood as a pyramid, the faces of which are distributions, procedures, rights, responsibilities and recognition. We then apply this conceptual framework to examine climate change interventions in five cities; Bangalore, Monterrey, Hong Kong, Philadelphia and Berlin. Arguing that the politics and practices of urban climate change interventions are constantly engaging with and refracting the idea of justice, we examine how justice was articulated, practiced and contested across our cases. The perspective of recognition emerges as a particularly useful entry point through which to explore the types of rights, responsibilities, distributions and procedures required to respond justly to climate change. We conclude by reflecting on our framework, arguing that it is useful both as an analytical device to interrogate climate justice and to shape the design of climate change interventions which seek to ensure climate justice.     

Vulnerability: A generally applicable conceptual framework for climate change research

The term ‘vulnerability’ is used in many different ways by various scholarly communities. The resulting disagreement about the appropriate definition of vulnerability is a frequent cause for misunderstanding in interdisciplinary research on climate change and a challenge for attempts to develop formal models of vulnerability. Earlier attempts at reconciling the various conceptualizations of vulnerability were, at best, partly successful. This paper presents a generally applicable conceptual framework of vulnerability that combines a nomenclature of vulnerable situations and a terminology of vulnerability concepts based on the distinction of four fundamental groups of vulnerability factors. This conceptual framework is applied to characterize the vulnerability concepts employed by the main schools of vulnerability research and to review earlier attempts at classifying vulnerability concepts. None of these one-dimensional classification schemes reflects the diversity of vulnerability concepts identified in this review. The wide range of policy responses available to address the risks from global climate change suggests that climate impact, vulnerability, and adaptation assessments will continue to apply a variety of vulnerability concepts. The framework presented here provides the much-needed conceptual clarity and facilitates bridging the various approaches to researching vulnerability to climate change.     

Measuring Environmental Values and Environmental Impacts: Going from the Local to the Global

Measuring the impact of global change depends critically upon our ability to gauge the impacts of changes at the local and individual level. There are strong philosophical and practical concerns in measuring environmental, health, social, and economic impacts even at this level. Aggregating these across commodities, individuals, sectors, regions, and time presents further difficulties. Overcoming these obstacles oftentimes runs afoul of our inability to make interpersonal and intergenerational comparisons. This paper walks through the process of economic valuation from the very local scale of individual choices up to global aggregations across goods and services, individuals, space, and time. Along the way, important assumptions, particularly those related to analyses across different scales and aggregation from lower to higher scales will be emphasized. The effects of making different assumptions will be noted. Fundamental questions about the 'scientific' versus 'political/moral/ethical' nature of valuation will also be highlighted.     

Experiences of host communities with carbon market projects: towards multi-level climate justice

The literature on equity and justice in climate change mitigation has largely focused on North–South relations and equity between states. However, some initiatives (e.g. the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programme (REDD), and voluntary carbon markets (VCMs)) are already establishing multi-level governance structures that involve communities from developing countries in global mitigation efforts. This poses new equity and justice dilemmas: how the burdens and benefits of mitigation are shared across various levels and how host communities are positioned in multi-level governance structures. A review of the existing literature is used to distill a framework for distinguishing between four axes of climate justice from the perspective of communities. Empirical evidence from African and Asian carbon market projects is used to assess the distributive and procedural justice implications for host communities. The evidence suggests that host communities often benefit little from carbon market projects and find it difficult to protect their interests. Capacity building, attention to local power relations, supervision of business practices, promotion of projects with primarily development aims and an active involvement of non-state actors as bridges between local communities and the national/international levels could potentially contribute towards addressing some of the key justice concerns.Policy relevance International negotiations on the institutional frameworks that are envisaged to govern carbon markets are proceeding at a rather slow pace. As a consequence, host countries and private-sector actors are making their own arrangements to safeguard the interests of local communities. While several standards have emerged to guide carbon market activity on the ground, distributive as well as procedural justice concerns nevertheless remain salient. Four empirical case studies across Asia and Africa show that within the multi-scale and multi-actor carbon market governance, local-level actors often lack sufficient agency to advance their claims and protect their interests. This evidence suggests that ameliorating policy reforms are needed to enhance the positioning of local communities. Doing so is important to ensure future acceptability of carbon market activity in potential host communities as well as for ensuring their broader legitimacy.     

An ethical approach to climate adaptation finance

This article develops a framework of procedural and distributive justice specifically tailored to the international-level funding of adaptation based on the assumptions that the ethical contents of such funding should consist of a fair process which involves all relevant parties, that adaptation funds should be raised according to the responsibility for climate impacts, and that the funds raised should be allocated by putting the most vulnerable first. In particular, after underlining the usefulness and possibilities of an ethical approach to climate adaptation finance, the article, in defining the framework of justice, first explores and justifies principles of procedural and distributive justice, and on their basis advances fairness and equity criteria that serve as benchmarks for assessing the ethical contents of international adaptation funding. Then, in order to test the robustness and investigative potential of the framework of justice developed, the article uses its fairness and equity criteria to evaluate the procedural and distributive justness of some climate adaptation finance architectures.     

The political ecology playbook for ecosystem restoration: Principles for effective,equitable, and transformative landscapes

The urgency of restoring ecosystems to improve human wellbeing and mitigate climate and biodiversity crises is attracting global attention. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) is a global call to action to support the restoration of degraded ecosystems. And yet, many forest restoration efforts, for instance, have failed to meet restoration goals; indeed, they worsened social precarities and ecological conditions. By merely focusing on symptoms of forest loss and degradation, these interventions have neglected the underlying issues of equity and justice driving forest decline. To address these root causes, thus creating socially just and sustainable solutions, we develop the Political Ecology Playbook for Ecosystem Restoration. We outline a set of ten principles for achieving long-lasting, resilient, and equitable ecosystem restoration. These principles are guided by political ecology, a framework that addresses environmental concerns from a broadly political economic perspective, attending to power, politics, and equity within specific geographic and historical contexts. Drawing on the chain of explanation, this multi-scale, cross-landscapes Playbook aims to produce healthy relationships between people and nature that are ecologically, socially, and economically just – and thus sustainable and resilient – while recognizing the political nature of such relationships. We argue that the Political Ecology Playbook should guide ecosystem restoration worldwide.     

Why climate migration is not managed retreat: Six justifications

This perspective piece makes a case for a more rigorous treatment of managed retreat as a politically, legally, and economically distinct type of relocation that is separate from climate migration. We argue that the use of both concepts interchangeably obfuscates the problems around climate-induced mobilities and contributes to the inconsistencies in policy, plans, and actions taken by governments and organizations tasked with addressing them. This call for a disentanglement is not solely an academic exercise aimed at conceptual clarity, but an effort targeted at incentivizing researchers, practitioners, journalists, and advocates working on both issues to better serve their constituencies through alliance formation, resource mobilization, and the establishment of institutional pathways to climate justice. We offer a critical understanding of the distinctions between climate migration and managed retreat grounded in six orienting propositions. They include differential: causal mechanisms, legal protections, rights regimes and funding structures, discursive effects, implications for land use, and exposure to risks. We provide empirical examples from existing literature to contextualize our propositions while calling for a transformative justice approach to addressing both issues.     

The importance of expressly examining global warming policy issues through an ethical prism

A vast scientific and economic literature on global warming has emerged in the last two decades. Surprisingly, however, there has been little written on the ethical dimensions of human-induced climate change despite the numerous, obvious, and profoundly important ethical questions raised by human activities that are now clearly threatening human health, the environment, and many things humans value greatly. This paper argues that ethical analysis of global warming issues is practically imperative for two reasons. First, unless ethical is made analysis is made of global warming issues, ethically dubious decisions about global warming will be made because many of the most important ethical considerations are hidden in what appear to be ethically neutral scientific and economic arguments about global warming policy options. Secondly, unless issues of ethics, justice and equity are expressly dealt with, urgently needed global solutions to global warming will not likely be adopted by many nations. That is, an ethical focus on global warming matters is the key to achieve a globally acceptable solution and to harness political support for action. The paper concludes with a recommendation on how institutions and nations should go about implementing express examination of the ethical dimensions of global warming questions. The paper argues for express identification of ethical issues often hidden in scientific and economic analyses of global warming policy options.     

Forty-three years of Ramsar and urban wetlands

The Ramsar Convention is unquestionably the backbone of modern wetland management theory and practice. In the last four decades, it has mainstreamed wetlands in the environmental discourse and fostered the development of a comprehensive institutional framework for wetland governance. However, many of the wetlands that occur in human-dominated landscapes remain acutely threatened. The problem is most alarming in urban areas, especially in the fast expanding cities of the developing world, where unprecedented wetland destruction is leading to recurring environmental disasters. This triggers the question: are these failures in wetland governance purely induced by factors exogenous to Ramsar-based institutions or are they manifestations of conceptual drawbacks within Ramsar conceptual framework. Here, we investigate the success and failures of the application of the Ramsar framework's policy directives and management guidelines for urban wetlands using two rapidly expanding cities in South Asia as case studies – Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Kolkata (India). We conclude that despite its remarkable achievements over the past four decades, the Ramsar framework has several conceptual drawbacks that weaken its effectiveness in complex urban contexts. An inadequate recognition of the complex dynamics of urban social-ecological systems, an inadequate recognition of the political complexity of the policy processes, and a lack of an environmental justice perspective are the main shortcomings contributing to failures in urban wetlands governance. While we acknowledge that some solutions are contingent upon national and transnational level socio-political processes and reforms, we offer a set of technical and strategic modifications to the Ramsar framework that can significantly improve its effectiveness in urban wetlands governance.     

Linkages between vulnerability,resilience, and adaptive capacity

This article uses a systemic perspective to identify and analyze the conceptual relations among vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity within socio-ecological systems (SES). Since different intellectual traditions use the terms in different, sometimes incompatible, ways, they emerge as strongly related but unclear in the precise nature of their relationships. A set of diagnostic questions is proposed regarding the specification of the terms to develop a shared conceptual framework for the natural and social dimensions of global change. Also, development of a general theory of change in SESs is suggested as an important agenda item for research on global change.     

Safe and just operating spaces for regional social-ecological systems

Humanity faces a major global challenge in achieving wellbeing for all, while simultaneously ensuring that the biophysical processes and ecosystem services that underpin wellbeing are exploited within scientifically informed boundaries of sustainability. We propose a framework for defining the safe and just operating space for humanity that integrates social wellbeing into the original planetary boundaries concept (Rockström et al., 2009a,b) for application at regional scales. We argue that such a framework can: (1) increase the policy impact of the boundaries concept as most governance takes place at the regional rather than planetary scale; (2) contribute to the understanding and dissemination of complexity thinking throughout governance and policy-making; (3) act as a powerful metaphor and communication tool for regional equity and sustainability. We demonstrate the approach in two rural Chinese localities where we define the safe and just operating space that lies between an environmental ceiling and a social foundation from analysis of time series drawn from monitored and palaeoecological data, and from social survey statistics respectively. Agricultural intensification has led to poverty reduction, though not eradicated it, but at the expense of environmental degradation. Currently, the environmental ceiling is exceeded for degraded water quality at both localities even though the least well-met social standards are for available piped water and sanitation. The conjunction of these social needs and environmental constraints around the issue of water access and quality illustrates the broader value of the safe and just operating space approach for sustainable development.     

“Youth is not a political position”: Exploring justice claims-making in the UN Climate Change Negotiations

Youth articulations of climate change injustice are experiencing an unprecedented moment in the spotlight as, inspired by Greta Thunberg, young people around the world take to the streets demanding justice for their generation in the face of climate emergency. Formal opportunities for youth voices to be heard in environmental governance are slim, although the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) offers a rare opportunity for youth to share their perspectives as one of nine civil society constituencies: YOUNGO. Recent research in Global Environmental Change has called for empirical exploration of justice claims-making by different stakeholders to develop understanding of how justice is conceptualised and negotiated in climate change governance spaces. To date, climate justice claims from youth have not been explored in the academic literature. This paper draws upon rich, ethnographic, longitudinal data on the evolution of justice claims made by a group of youth participants in the UNFCCC to contribute to this empirical gap. In our research, a UK-based case study organisation and long-established member of YOUNGO was studied between 2015 and 2018, including observation of their participation at the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Conferences of the Parties. We find that youth participants first articulated injustices based on perceived future risks to their generation but, over time, switched to solidarity claims about injustices experienced by other groups in the present. Whilst laudable, this impedes their mandate as representatives of younger generations. We also make three theoretical contributions to environmental justice theory. First we expand participation justice theory to both the visible structures of participation (procedural justice) and the informal rules and discourses shaping participation (representation justice). Second we demonstrate the importance of both external and self-recognition for the articulation of justice claims. Third we clarify the relationship between power and justice claim-making, proposing that we must look beneath what is articulated to shed light on the exercise of ideological power that shapes the framing and claiming of justice in environmental governance spaces.     

Environmental justice in coastal systems: Perspectives from communities confronting change

Life in the Pacific is characterised by interconnected, fast and slow socio-ecological change. These changes inevitably involve navigating questions of justice, as they shift who benefits from, owns, and governs resources, and whose claims and rights are recognized. Thus, greater understanding of perceptions of environmental justice within communities will be crucial to support fair adaptation. We contend that an environmental justice approach offers a theoretical foundation to help illuminate key concerns and trade-offs as communities navigate global change. Here, we apply an empirical environmental justice lens to the use and customary management of coastal resources in Papua New Guinea. Through two case studies, we examine perceptions of distributional, procedural and recognitional justice. We find similarities and differences. There were common concerns about the injustice of unequal fishing pressure and destructive methods, but in one case, concerns about people’s material needs overrode concerns about non-compliance and unequal costs. In the other case, deliberative decision-making served as a platform for not only negotiating and re-defining the distribution of costs and benefits, but also airing grievances, thereby strengthening recognition of different people’s values and concerns. In addition, we find that recognitional aspects of justice, such as respect, can confer or undermine the legitimacy of procedures for governing resources and thus making fair decisions about distribution. The heterogeneity of justice criteria in our cases emphasizes the need to elicit and understand plural justice perceptions in different contexts.     

Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments: An Evolution of Conceptual Thinking

Vulnerability is an emerging concept for climate science and policy. Over the past decade, efforts to assess vulnerability to climate change triggered a process of theory development and assessment practice, which is reflected in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper reviews the historical development of the conceptual ideas underpinning assessments of vulnerability to climate change. We distinguish climate impact assessment, first- and second-generation vulnerability assessment, and adaptation policy assessment. The different generations of assessments are described by means of a conceptual framework that defines key concepts of the assessment and their analytical relationships. The purpose of this conceptual framework is two-fold: first, to present a consistent visual glossary of the main concepts underlying the IPCC approach to vulnerability and its assessment; second, to show the evolution of vulnerability assessments. This evolution is characterized by the progressive inclusion of non-climatic determinants of vulnerability to climate change, including adaptive capacity, and the shift from estimating expected damages to attempting to reduce them. We hope that this paper improves the understanding of the main approaches to climate change vulnerability assessment and their evolution, not only within the climate change community but also among researchers from other scientific communities, who are sometimes puzzled by the unfamiliar use of technical terms in the context of climate change.     

Equity and justice in climate change adaptation amongst natural-resource-dependent societies

Issues of equity and justice are high on international agendas dealing with the impacts of global climate change. But what are the implications of climate change for equity and justice amongst vulnerable groups at local and sub-national levels? We ask this question for three reasons: (a) there is a considerable literature suggesting that the poorest and most vulnerable groups will disproportionately experience the negative effects of 21st century climate change; (b) such changes are likely to impact significantly on developing world countries, where natural-resource dependency is high; and (c) international conventions increasingly recognise the need to centrally engage resource stakeholders in agendas in order to achieve their desired aims, as part of more holistic approaches to sustainable development. These issues however have implications for distributive and procedural justice, particularly when considered within the efforts of the UNFCCC.The issues are examined through an evaluation of key criteria relating to climate change scenarios and vulnerability in the developing world, and second through two southern African case studies that explore the ways in which livelihoods are differentially impacted by (i) inequitable natural-resource use policies, (ii) community-based natural-resource management programmes. Finally, we consider the placement of climate change amongst the package of factors affecting equity in natural-resource use, and whether this placement creates a case for considering climate change as ‘special’ amongst livelihood disturbing factors in the developing world.     

Climate change and the transition to neoliberal environmental governance

What are the guiding principles of contemporary international governance of climate change and to what extent do they represent neoliberal forms? We document five main political and institutional shifts within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and outline core governance practices for each phase. In discussing the current phase since the Paris Agreement, we offer to the emerging literature on international neoliberal environmental governance an analytical framework by which the extent of international neoliberal governance can be assessed. We conceptualize international neoliberal environmentalism as characterized by four main processes: the prominence of libertarian ideals of justice, in which justice is defined as the rational pursuit of sovereign self-interest between unequal parties; marketization, in which market mechanisms, private sector engagement and purportedly ‘objective’ considerations are viewed as the most effective and efficient forms of governance; governance by disclosure, in which the primary obstacles to sustainability are understood as ‘imperfect information’ and onerous regulatory structures that inhibit innovation; and exclusivity, in which multilateral decision-making is shifted from consensus to minilateralism. Against this framework, we argue that the contemporary UNFCCC regime has institutionalized neoliberal reforms in climate governance, although not without resistance, in a configuration which is starkly different than that of earlier eras. We conclude by describing four crucial gaps left by this transition, which include the ability of the regime to drive adequate ambition, and gaps in transparency, equity and representation.     

Re-thinking colonialism to prepare for the impacts of rapid environmental change

This essay demonstrates how key concepts from ecology can be applied within historical analyses in order to gain insights regarding contemporary environmental change. We employ a coupled human and natural systems conceptual framework in a nascent historical analysis of rapid societal and environmental change in colonial New England, where European colonization led to stark and rapid transformations. Introduced diseases reduced indigenous communities to a fraction of their pre-contact levels. European agriculture and associated pest species, deforestation and overharvest of ecologically influential species were among key aspects of the rapid changes in colonial New England. Cross-continental biotic introductions initiated reinforcing feedback loops that accelerated the transition of human and natural systems into novel states. Integrating colonial history and ecology can help identify important interactions between human and natural systems useful for contemporary societies adjusting to environmental change.