Spatializing Climate Justice: Justice Claim Making and Carbon Pricing Controversies in Australia

Abstract

Recent years have seen significant academic attention to conceptualizing climate justice and how its ideas might be mobilized in political debates on climate policy. This article contributes to these debates by advancing two arguments. The first concerns the need for greater examination of how climate justice coexists and competes with more established political and justice considerations during the negotiation of climate policies. I argue that distinguishing analytically between normative interpretations of climate justice and justice claims made by parties affected by climate change or by mitigation or adaptation policies provides fertile ground for deepening understanding of the multivalent and relational nature of climate justice and confronting challenges to its incorporation into climate responses. The second argument concerns the importance of exploring how proponents and opponents of climate action strive to develop “spatial anchors” for justice claims to increase their legitimacy in policy debates. Based on analysis of carbon pricing controversies in Australia, the article illustrates how supporters of carbon pricing initiatives stressed international justice issues, whereas opponents mobilized multiscalar and multivalent international, national, regional, and local justice narratives to gain traction for their arguments. The article concludes by calling for further investigation of the multivalence of climate justice and of how climate justice might be spatially represented to advance its leverage in political debates on climate policy.

学术界近年来对于概念化气候正义, 及其想法如何在有关气候政策的政治辩论中进行动员, 投以显着的关注。本文藉由推进两大主张, 对上述辩论作出贡献。第一个主张, 考量必须更进一步检视气候正义如何在气候政策协商中, 与更为确立的政治及正义考量共存并与之竞争。我主张, 在分析上区辨气候正义的常规诠释与受到气候变迁或移民或调适政策影响的当事人所提出的正义宣称, 提供了深化我们对于多种意义与关係性的气候正义本质之理解, 以及面对其整合进气候回应之挑战, 提供了厚实的基础。第二个主张, 考量探讨气候行动的倡议者与反对者如何力图发展正义宣称的 “空间锚定”, 以增加他们在政策辩论中的正当性。本文根据澳大利亚碳定价争议之分析, 阐述碳定价倡议的支持者, 如何强调国际正义的议题, 而反对者则动员多重层级且多重意义的国际、国家、区域与在地正义之叙事, 提高其主张的受欢迎程度。本文于结论中呼吁, 需进一步探讨气候正义的多重意义, 以及气候正义在空间上可能如何再现, 以推进其在气候政策的政治辩论中的影响力。

Los últimos años han sido testigos de una notable atención académica a la conceptualización de la justicia climática y a la manera como sus ideas podrían movilizarse políticamente en los debates sobre políticas climáticas. Este artículo quiere contribuir en estos debates impulsando dos argumentos. El primero de ellos concierne a la necesidad de un examen más grande del modo como la justicia climática coexiste y compite con consideraciones de política y justicia determinadas durante la negociación de políticas climáticas. Sostengo que, al distinguir analíticamente entre las interpretaciones normativas de la justicia climática y las demandas de justicia hechas por quienes se ven afectados por el cambio climático o por las políticas de mitigación o adaptación, se provee un campo fértil para profundizar en el entendimiento de la naturaleza multivalente y relacional de la justicia climática y confrontar retos a su incorporación entre las respuestas climáticas. El segundo argumento se refiere a la importancia de explorar cómo los proponentes y adversarios de acciones climáticas se esfuerzan en desarrollar “anclas espaciales” para las demandas de justicia con el fin de incrementar su legitimidad en los debates sobre políticas. Con base en análisis de controversias sobre la cotización o precios del carbono en Australia, el artículo ilustra sobre la manera como quienes apoyan las iniciativas de esas cotizaciones enfatizan asuntos de justicia internacional, en tanto los opositores movilizan narrativas de justicia internacionales, nacionales, regionales y locales de carácter multiescalar y multivalente para ganar tracción para sus argumentos. El artículo concluye haciendo un llamado en pro de una mayor investigación de la multivalencia de la justicia climática y sobre cómo ésta podría representarse espacialmente para promover su ventaja en los debates políticos sobre políticas climáticas.

Key Words:

• Australia
• carbon pricing
• climate justice
• justice claims
• spatial representation

关键词：:

• 澳大利亚
• 碳定价
• 气候正义
• 正义宣称
• 空间再现。

Palabras clave:

• Australia
• precio del carbono
• justicia climática
• clamor de justicia
• representación espacial

Funding

The author acknowledges funding provided by the Research Council of Norway to the Fridtjof Nansens Institute, Oslo, for the project Designing Effective Emissions Trading: The Contribution of International Diffusion (ETS-DIFFUSION).

Notes

1. Skitka, Winquist, and Hutchinson (2003) argued, however, that if a group is convinced that outcomes are moral or immoral, procedural fairness might be less important than outcomes due to the strength of a priori convictions.

2. The main obstacle to negotiations was that the Greens regarded the government's target to reduce emissions to 5 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 as underambitious. Raising the target was problematic, however, because it was supported by the Coalition and industry. A compromise was reached whereby the Greens supported an initial fixed price of $23 to create incentives for emissions reduction in return for agreement that Australia's emissions targets would be reviewed by the independent Climate Change Authority.

3. Formed by Clive Palmer in 2013 with an agenda to repeal the CPM and restore Australia's economic prosperity.

4. Economics is, of course, a form of ethical argumentation with its own normative compasses for deciding justifiable courses of action. The distinction Christoff drew, though, is between (1) ethical discourses centered on climate ethics and the normative appropriateness of different mitigation and adaptation solutions and (2) economic discourses about efficiency, welfare, development, and modernization, ranging from older economic discourses supporting resource-centered growth that entail weak valuations of nature and higher future discounting and bias cost–benefit calculations toward short-term economic security, employment, investment, and welfare, to newer economic discourses that incorporate the future costs of climate change. Christoff's ethical and economic discourses thus both contain normative standpoints but contest what matters when judging the justice of different approaches to cost-sharing the burdens of climate impacts, mitigation and adaptation. I am grateful to one anonymous referee for this point.

5. Australia's emissions are estimated to be 1.4 percent of the global total, but this figure excludes emissions from coal exports because these are attributed to countries where greenhouse gases are emitted for energy generation under Kyoto accounting rules.

6. As Peet and Harrison (2012) noted, the term tax often invokes negative feelings among voters, and even revenue-neutral taxes is contentious because voters disbelieve that environmental taxes can accomplish anything without imposing penalties.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ian Bailey

IAN BAILEY is a Professor in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include climate and energy politics and the social dimensions of sustainability.