Global justice and climate governance: bridging theory and practice, by Alix Dietzel

Any minimally equitable response to global climate change must place the individual at the heart of governance. Based on this starting point, this book centers on three issues: a clear conceptualisation of who is most affected; what a fair distribution of climate responsibilities requires; and how duties of justice can be better realized. In exploring these aspects of the debate, the author considers the influence of wider, transnational contexts of action, as much as multilateral or state-led ones. Dietzel assesses how states and non-state actors have structured the social and political context of climate action at both these levels, and have limited prospects for the realization of the core demands of justice, including the need to keep global temperatures below 2°C; the distribution of the benefits and burdens of climate change on the basis of the polluter’s ability to pay; and finally, holding capable actors, be they corporations, states, cities, international institutions, or sub-state entities, responsible for lowering emissions in proportion to their capacity to do so.

Dietzel defends a rights-based approach to these issues; in particular, the human right of all to health, as it is health that links many concerns raised by climate change, including access to food, water, clean air and safe haven [WHO, ‘Climate Change and Health’, 2017]. The author also notes how the right to health connects with a series of other, overlapping global justice concerns, including patterns of social exclusion, inequalities in employment opportunities, those relating to healthcare, housing and so forth. As the primary purpose of a right to health is in the alleviation of suffering, a climate justice approach that prioritizes this right over more vaguely defined normative commitments may lead to a situation ‘where it is increasingly difficult for governments to avoid action’ (p. 43). This, Dietzel adds, might prove a more effective stimulant to action than lowering emissions for ‘abstract reasons’ (p. 43).

Certainly, scientific evidence pointing to the detrimental effects of pollution on health is growing; yet this evidence has not prompted states to do more. As a corrective, Dietzel proposes the introduction of a ‘Polluter’s Ability to Pay’ (PATP) approach where those ‘capable of lowering emissions and/or contributing to adaptation costs should be responsible for doing so’ (p. 81). The question of responsibility is undoubtedly key to a more proactive response to climate threats but it is also one of the most fiercely contested aspects of the debate. Dietzel concedes to the difficulties of demonstrating how individual acts of pollution might be linked to specific climate harms and, for such reasons, suggests harms also be considered collectively. A collective approach raises other challenges, however. For example, how might the question of legal liability for wrongdoing be resolved? Collective reasoning assumes that many are part of the problem. How might specific legal judgments be made with regard to the contribution of each polluting party? The principle of liability assumes a clear correspondence can be established between the victim and perpetrator and does not, as a consequence, easily accommodate a collective approach. The ‘deep’ effects of human-inspired environmental destruction (which unfold gradually across place and time) thus necessitate a new approach to issues of responsibility, criminal liability and ecological agency [see Skillington 2019, Climate Change and Intergenerational Justice].

Dietzel draws attention to another problem – the lack of systematic research assessing the potential impact of new climate change governance initiatives or the capacity of existing arrangements to reshape contexts of climate inaction and poor decision-making. For instance, the decision to replace centrally determined emissions targets (the Kyoto Protocol) with more voluntary or ‘pledge and review’ measures (Paris Agreement) is called into question on the grounds that it has resulted in most parties to the agreement under-delivering on emissions targets. However, Dietzel does see the submission of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) plans by 190 states as ‘encouraging’, as is the increasing trend towards state or regional government-private partnerships designed to strengthen communities’ climate resilience and mitigation efforts (p. 147). An example is C40, a global network of cities taking action to reduce emissions by investing in energy sustainable infrastructure and sharing knowledge on best practice.

The importance of these new initiatives was highlighted recently when a number of non-federal actors in the US (the US Climate Alliance and the US Climate Mayors) pledged to work with local government to meet emissions targets set for the US following President Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement. For Dietzel, such developments give some indication of the potential of new actor alliances; but if these initiatives are to make a genuinely positive impact, they must be ‘given as much space as possible to pursue their ambitions with limited guidance from the UNFCCC’ (p. 218). Undoubtedly, the contribution of new climate action networks is crucial to the realization of sustainable futures. However, some degree of caution is necessary when proposing more freedoms be granted to corporate-led initiatives. Capitalism has always been an agent of expulsions [Sassen, 2014], from large-scale land acquisitions and the displacement of peoples, to more mundane practices of clearing wildlife habitats, forests and wilderness areas for new commercial developments. Little, it seems, has changed in this regard. Renewable energy sources may have the potential to meet two-thirds of current energy demand and contribute to the bulk of necessary greenhouse gas reductions [Gielen et al., 2019, Energy Strategy Reviews] but investments in renewable energy globally are stagnating whilst investments in fossil-fuel projects continue to grow. Given this context, the likelihood of keeping average surface temperatures below 2°C is low. The active contribution of global corporations to these problems and the governments that support them must be part of the debate on responsibility and what climate justice demands.