Title:
Fair chore division for climate change.
Date:
A hitherto neglected way of
dividing chores fairly offers the best likelihood of promoting international
cooperation in dealing with the problem of global climate change. The largest
obstacle to international cooperation in this matter is, arguably, the problem
of allocation--how to divide among nations the costs or chores of climate
change mitigation and adaptation. The difficulties of this allocation problem
are compounded by the absence of an overseeing supra-national authority with
the power to police and enforce any agreement that the nations of the world may
reach. Allocation according to a fair chore division into equally burdensome
shares best promotes international cooperation in the absence of such an
overseeing authority. Still, for all its practical advantages, this approach to
the allocation problem remains morally problematic for neglecting past
iniquities and bringing only partial remedy to present and future iniquities
arising from climate change.
In the first part of this
paper, I review what I take to be the strongest grounds for our having moral
obligations to deal with climate change. Given that it is highly likely that
climate change will cause serious distress to large portions of the future
human population, all those who can do something about it are under an
obligation to deal with this threat to future humanity, Our obligation comes
from two sorts of universal moral duties: a duty of non-maleficence--not doing
wrongful harm to others--and a duty to assist those who need help in order to
avoid harm and suffering. These two universal duties give rise to two distinct
strains of moral argument for our having obligations to deal with climate
change and they each support different ways of allocating the chores and costs
of climate change adaptation or mitigation. Violations of duties of
non-maleficence give rise to obligations to compensate for or rectify the
maleficence for which one is responsible. Obligations of assistance, instead,
fall equally on all who can help those who will otherwise suffer. Because of
this, these last obligations are better suited to equitable or fair allocations
or chore divisions. Thus there are grounds for resolving the problem of
allocation according to two different principles--a principle of responsibility
and a principle of equitable or fair allocation.
I evaluate the merits of
different approaches to the allocation problem in the second part of the paper.
I argue for the practical superiority of a chore division into equally
burdensome shares. I then consider the iniquities left unanswered by this
approach as well as some difficulties that would arise in implementing this
solution to the allocation problem.
Admittedly, fair division seems
an initially implausible candidate principle for determining who ought to do
what about climate change. This is mainly because any principle of fair
division of tasks or chores suffers from two drawbacks for being a
forward-looking principle--one concerned only with the nature of the results of
its application. First, fair chore divisions typically do not directly consider
differentiated obligations stemming from differentiated responsibilities (as
principles of rectificatory justice do, for instance). Second, fair chore
divisions typically disregard unjust inequalities in the background conditions
to the division. There is, on the other hand, a very good practical reason for
dividing this task fairly--into equally burdensome shares, or shares that
require equal levels of effort: this approach has the best prospects of
resulting in international cooperation in the absence of a supra-national authority
capable either of enforcing cooperation or of enforcing its judgments
concerning responsibility for maleficence. For, under suitable publicity
conditions, when each nation is allotted an equally burdensome share of the
task or chore of dealing with climate change, then each nation knows that no
other nation has stronger (prudential) reasons to defect than it has. Where
this result can be achieved or satisfactorily approximated, each nation
confronts an important measure of moral pressure to cooperate in the
maintenance of this public (global) good from the knowledge that its defection
is no better motivated than is the defection of any other nation. As I will
explain below, the presence of the additional moral pressure that this
knowledge brings to bear appears particularly desirable in promoting
cooperation before a commons--a situation in which cooperation is particularly
problematic particularly when coercive enforcement is out of the question. (1)
Since this is the situation that our planet faces with regard to climate
change, I urge that the determination of what various nations should do to deal
with climate change be done in terms of an equally burdensome division of
chores.
1. Why Should We Worry About
Dealing with Climate Change?
Is the present human population
(or a subset thereof) under some moral obligation to do something about the
future effects of climate change induced by global warming from anthropogenic
greenhouse gas emissions? Yes--on two counts. First, if past and current emissions
will harm humans of future generations, then those who made those emissions may
be responsible for causing this harm. Those responsible would then bear
obligations toward the future potential victims of this harm. (2) The second
count does not turn on moral responsibility for what one has done. It rests,
instead, on the recognition that we have duties to help others avoid harm, that
is, that we have duties not to let harm happen to them, particularly when we
can do something about it and they cannot and will not be able to do so.
The stronger argument for
saying that at least some of the present generation has a moral duty to deal
with predicted climate change is the first, responsibility-based argument: we,
the present human generation (or parts thereof), owe assistance to future
humans for presently and knowingly violating our duties of non-maleficence
toward future human beings. Duties of non-maleficence are duties to not bring
about (whether by act or omission) bad results to others, unless our ignorance
of doing so is non-culpable. These are duties to not bring about a worsening of
the condition of others. Duties of non-maleficence range in moral stringency
from the most stringent duties not to bring about physical harm or damage to
others to the less stringent duty not to cause mere displeasure to others. The
duty not to bring about physical harm or damage to others, I assume, is among
our most stringent moral duties. So violating this duty is among the worst
things we can do, morally speaking, to future human generations (among others).
This means that, other things being equal, when we violate this duty, our
subsequent duties to make amends for our violation are also among our most
stringent duties. That is why this is the strongest or most compelling moral
argument for having duties to deal with climate change from global warming.
This duty of non-maleficence
is, moreover, a universal duty, (3) which means that distance, whether spatial
or temporal, does not directly affect the stringency of the duty. (Of course,
even though this duty of non-maleficence is equally stringent for all, we may
have other moral obligations that may counterbalance or outweigh it, so that
the all-things-considered stringency of our duty to not harm particular people
may be correspondingly weakened.) Rectificatory or compensatory duties arising
from a violation of non-maleficence, however, are not universal--they invest
only those responsible for the violation.
Thus, in order to establish the
existence of obligations from either line of argument sketched above, one must
establish that harm will occur from climate changes caused by global warming
caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, unless something is done.
Establishing that much and establishing that we can only be culpably ignorant
of these dire predictions is sufficient to establish that we have the weaker or
less stringent duties to help future people to avoid this harm. In order to
establish the more stringent duty from responsibility we must show that we are
morally responsible for violating our duty of non-maleficence. Proving this
responsibility, in turn, requires showing that we are inflicting suffering on
future generations, that we know that we are doing so, and that we are not
otherwise excused for doing so--in particular, that our actions are not excused
by our intending to avoid either harm or comparable suffering to ourselves (or
to still other intermediate generations). I will assume that these conditions,
when persuasively established, are also sufficient to show responsibility for
this maleficence.
Are harmful climate changes
predicted for future generations? They certainly seem to be. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reached a scientific
near-consensus for the claim that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases
(GHGs) will cause climate change from global warming. (4) The IPCC has also
expressed something close to this near-consensus for the claim that this global
warming will lead to disruptive, frequently devastating climate changes that
are predicted to result in much human distress, including physical harm, unless
something (sometimes a great deal) is done beforehand. Warmer weather
conditions are expected to raise ocean levels. This will cause more flooding,
reduce fresh-water sources near the coastline, and reduce land surface suited
for agriculture. Rainfall in the tropics will also be further reduced, making
agriculture harder there than it is already. In addition, the rise in average
global temperatures will generally lead to an increase in violent, destructive
weather events such as monsoons, floods, tornadoes, typhoons, and hurricanes.
A panel of reviewers from the
National Academy of Sciences convened by President George W. Bush confirmed the
scientific soundness of the latest IPCC findings and predictions in May 2001.
However, the arguments that anthropogenic emissions are the cause of climate
change are not as strong as the arguments that some harmful climate change will
occur. This is because we still lack the evidence needed to exclude alternative
explanations. In the words, of Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, reacting,
on
The conclusion is that there
are some things that science has nailed down and knows for sure, and one of
them is that the temperature of the earth is rising. There are other things
that science still does not know for sure, and that is, what the cause of it
is, what is manmade that contributes to it, what is natural that contributes to
it, and how much of this may be cyclical. Those are question marks?
Although the conclusion that
suffering will ensue is neither certain nor even as highly probable as that
some climate changes or other will occur, still, the relatively small measure
of uncertainty surrounding the potential for harm from our greenhouse gas
emissions does not excuse our present inactivity. For it seems quite clear that
we are morally required to prepare for this occurrence at least in proportion
to its likelihood. Since that likelihood is great enough, it places us under
enough of a moral obligation that we should acknowledge that we ought to act.
On to the next point: are we
aware that we are inflicting suffering on future generations or is our apparent
maleficence excused on grounds of ignorance? This question assumes that
ignorance, or non-culpable ignorance anyway, would exonerate us from
responsibility for the harm caused by our emissions. This assumption is highly
questionable. But even if we assume that non-culpable ignorance exonerates, the
conclusions of the IPCC and of other scientific bodies, and the play they have
had in the media, should lead us to conclude that what ignorance exists of the
possibility of climate change and of its potentially dire consequences can only
be considered culpable ignorance--ignorance that does not excuse our
responsibility. All the same, the media have also reported the views of the few
"mavericks" who have voiced skepticism about global warming or its
consequences. Some may think these skeptical opinions suffice to justify our
not worrying about this matter. But, once again, any reasonable and consistent
treatment of risks would suggest that we should act to deal with the problems
of global warming in light of their great likelihood (according to our best
current estimates). We may argue--as scientists and economists, among others,
do--about how much future suffering we may be inflicting; but we cannot
plausibly argue that we are unaware that we are most likely causing some
serious future suffering. So we are not relieved of our responsibility either
to help future humans avoid harm, or for our maleficence in causing them harm.
Admittedly, the difference in the degree of certainty investing the belief that
harm will occur and the belief that we are causing that harm to occur will
temper differentially the strength of the arguments for our having these two
sorts of obligations--obligations from maleficence and obligations from future
humans' predicted distress. But this uncertainty does not exonerate us from
responsibility.
Interestingly, because much of
the effects of these climate changes cannot be (and may never be) traced back
to their specific causes beyond the existence of a general greenhouse effect
from the emission of greenhouse gases, the responsibilities for localized
suffering may never be traced back to particular emissions, either. So no more
specific causal responsibility may ever be known. We are limited to a
presumption of responsibility for the effects of climate change based only on
recorded emissions.
If we are acting maleficently
and if we are not excused by our ignorance, then are we morally obligated to
act on account of our maleficence? Not necessarily: even if we are responsible
for a maleficent result, we may still not violate a duty of non-maleficence
when we are properly excused for the resulting maleficence. Are we excused
somehow for knowingly inflicting this suffering on future generations?
Arguably, not having any choice in the matter would excuse this maleficence.
Matters of logical or nomological necessity--of literally not being able to do
otherwise--would count as having no choice in the matter and therefore excuse
us. Assuming that this is not the case, one may still reasonably argue that certain
options among which we can choose are so rationally compelling as to count as
excusing or rationally forced choices. Rationally forced choices are matters of
social or physiological necessity. Social necessity amounts to what a society
needs or finds indispensable in order to survive; physiological necessity is a
matter of what is needed or indispensable in order for the members of a society
to survive (barring illness or age, etc.) or in order for them to live at some
minimally acceptable level of health, say, at which they are able to avoid
enduring physiological harm or damage. When socially or physiologically
necessary options, as rationally compelling options, are maleficent, they are
excusably maleficent. Thus those emissions that are rationally compelling or
indispensable emissions are excusably maleficent.
These socially or
physiologically indispensable emissions--what Henry Shue (6) calls
"subsistence emissions"--are excusably maleficent because they
present their potential emitters with such a hard choice between avoiding a
harm today or avoiding a harm in the future. Where the choice is hard enough to
make, either option may be permitted and may excuse us from not opting for the
alternative. For where the present harm from not emitting is conspicuous
enough, we would be unrealistic, unreasonable, and maybe even irrational to
expect present people to allow present harm and suffering to visit them or
their kith and kin in order that they might avoid harm to future people far
less closely related to them. (7) In these cases, we may with good reason speak
of having so strong or so rationally compelling a reason to emit that, in spite
of the harm these emissions will cause to (future) others, we are excused for
our maleficence. Much like self-defense may excuse the commission of an injury
and even a murder, so their necessity for our subsistence may excuse our
indispensable current emissions and the resulting future infliction of harm
they cause. Subsistence emissions are emissions we cannot reasonably be
expected not to make, because they are rationally compelling emissions, and we
are excused for making them.
Another way of reaching the
same conclusion is to state our duties of non-maleficence as duties not to
inflict unnecessary suffering on others. The suffering of others may be
unnecessary in at least two ways: it may not be necessary for others to suffer
(we could do something to prevent their suffering) or, in the case that
interests us here, it may not be necessary for us to inflict suffering on
others in order to avoid greater, equal, or probably even some lesser measure
of suffering to ourselves. I have proposed that subsistence emissions are
rationally compelling emissions because they are socially or physiologically
indispensable emissions, that is, roughly, because these emissions are
necessary for us to make in order to subsist.
To some, this argument for
complete exoneration from responsibility for future harm for currently
indispensable emissions may seem excessive. They will argue that even
maleficence excused by necessity may still give rise to compensatory or
rectificatory obligations on the part of those whose actions harm others, even
if their performance of the action is excused. It seems correct to hold those
emitting greenhouse gases (especially if they know that they are (most likely)
causing harm to others in the future) to be morally obligated to do what they
can to minimize the damage caused by their presently indispensable emissions or
to make some sort of reparation for the harm they have caused, even when the
indispensability of these emissions leaves the emitters no choice but to emit.
So it seems that while those rationally compelled to emit gases that are likely
to cause damage in the future may be excused for their emissions, they may
still, perhaps, owe some compensatory obligations to those who will be harmed
in the future.
It seems clear that subsistence
emissions present the strongest case for being fully excused. But what about
our dispensable emissions? What about those emissions without which we would
have been less well off, but whose absence would not have brought upon us any
such harm as long-term physical or psychological damage or debilitation?
Insofar as these emissions are not, strictly-speaking, indispensable or
subsistence emissions, their maleficence is not excused.
This conclusion is most obvious
for straightforward luxury emissions--emissions produced to furnish goods and
services that are luxuries.(8) These luxury emissions are expendable or
unnecessary, save perhaps for their status-conferring nature. If we reasonably
expect (as we do) that these emissions will contribute to inflicting
unnecessary suffering, then, excluding ignorance and excusing circumstances (as
we do), these emissions are inexcusably maleficent. If they are inexcusably
maleficent, then they are the emissions that we have obligations to omit or
reduce as a matter of justice.
Of course, much of our
emissions (in developed countries) fall somewhere in the middle--between the
extremes of luxury and necessity. Should all these in-between emissions be
treated the same way? Are only maleficent subsistence emissions excused or are
all non-luxury emissions excused? It seems more reasonable to draw the line of
excusable maleficence somewhere in between luxury and necessity. Perhaps we
should hold that only subsistence and suitably defined near-subsistence
emissions are excused on the grounds that they are the only emissions that we
are rationally compelled to produce. An argument for drawing the line at
near-subsistence emissions runs thus: they are the only emissions allowed by
our duty of non-maleficence if it is correct to add that there is a priority to
not harming those near or dear to us over not causing similar harm to
strangers. Thus we can reasonably draw the line of excusable maleficent
emissions at near-subsistence emissions.
An alternative way to settle
this question of which maleficent emissions are excused is to hold that
emissions become progressively more excusable as we move from inexcusable
luxury emissions to fully excused subsistence emissions. One relatively
familiar way to add some definition or particulars to this approach would be to
suppose that our duties of non-maleficence are based on a fundamental concern
to promote the least suffering or harm overall (over time). In this case, we
could hold that the only infliction of suffering that is permitted is an
infliction that still results in an improvement overall (over time) in this
regard. Thus, all and only those emissions made today that avoid more suffering
for us than they will produce for others in the future are morally permissible.
So, in line with a view expressed by Peter Singer writing about famine relief,
(9) we might say that if we were truly non-maleficent, we ought to refrain from
all emissions that create more suffering to others in the future than they
spare us today. What part of our current emissions is this? I do not know but
I'll wager that it is a substantial part of the GHG emissions of developed nations.
The long and short of this
excursion into matters of maleficence is that it is likely that a great deal of
the world's current greenhouse gas emissions, at least in developed countries,
are inexcusably maleficent because they are luxury emissions, or the least
indispensable emissions. If emissions are maleficent, then we are morally
obligated to refrain from making these emissions. If we emit greenhouse gases
maleficently, then we are responsible for the future suffering that they will
cause and we are obligated to do what we can to minimize this suffering. Here,
then, is the source of our stronger obligation regarding climate change. Here
also is the key to determining which emissions are most excusable: those that
will avoid harm--subsistence emissions, above all. (It is important not to
insist that emitters are the only persons responsible for the suffering that
climate changes due to global warming will inflict on future generations. Since
many people will have a chance to do something about this global warming
between now and when its effects are felt, they too may be partially
responsible for the future suffering if they do not act to alleviate it). (10)
The foregoing conclusion--that
we, the unexcused maleficent greenhouse gas emitters, ought to worry about the
effects of climate change and that it is our collective responsibility to do
something about this risk--should come as no great surprise. It is a conclusion
that most politicians appear to have accepted, most notably in agreeing to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in May 1992. (As we
shall see, it is not clear that politicians of developed nations all admit
their nation's responsibility; many appear to argue as though climate change
were just another form of beneficent assistance to the developing world.)
Concern with the risks resulting from climate change due to global warming, the
increase in average global temperatures induced by human activity, has led to
the formation of the IPCC--perhaps the largest international scientific
research project yet assembled--which has reached the consensus conclusion that
climate change due to human activity is occurring and will continue to occur.
This concern with the effects of this climate change then reached a political
high-water mark at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED) in
Politicians of the world,
however, have agreed to much less about how to deal with climate change.
Perhaps the major proposal for concerted action is the Protocol to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed in
By "dealing with climate
change" I mean that it is in our power to do some of both of the
following:
(1) mitigate harmful climate
change by reducing our GHG emissions (that is, deal with the cause as the Kyoto
Protocol envisions);
(2) adapt to predicted harmful
climate change caused by global warming (that is, prepare to deal with the
effects of climate change).
Most of the discussion at the
international level has focused on mitigation. While hardly anyone believes
that the global climate can be stabilized at its global conditions of the 1990s,
for instance, many are still hoping that global greenhouse gas emissions may be
stabilized soon, instead of continuing to grow. The Kyoto Protocol is intended
as a first step in this direction. Much less has been said about ways of
adapting to climate change. Perhaps the most conspicuous discussion of coping
measures occurred when, prior to the Rio Conference, the Alliance of Small
Island States proposed an internationally funded insurance pool to enable them
to deal with the harms from predictable rises in sea-levels. (12) Presumably,
discussion of such coping mechanisms will increase as the reality of greater
negative weather impacts from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions sets in.
(13) Also, funding adaptation should become progressively more attractive to
developed countries as their risks increase of being required to pay
reparations in international courts following suits brought forward by the
major victims of climate change from greenhouse gas emissions: low-lying island
states, countries with large delta regions, and other developing countries
whose agriculture will be devastated by climate change. (14)
Several considerations have
prevented nations and their political leaders both from actively dealing with
climate change--whether by pursuing their Kyoto Protocol goals or by other
means--and from even agreeing to act in concert with other nations. First of
all, short-term national interests and the interests of national leaders have
tempered the dictates of long-term prudence or morality. Emissions reductions
are a hard sell for politicians of any stripe because they are costly.
Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions generally require reductions in energy
consumption, which, in turn, result in reductions in economic activity and in
national and per capita earnings, which, almost invariably, make the government
itself less popular.
Scientists are also uncertain
about the precise changes in weather patterns that we should expect from global
warming. More importantly, perhaps, many economists and others disagree about
what should be done to adapt to this harm. For all these reasons, some
hesitance to commit to action may be justified by caution or by the
understandable fear of making technically unnecessary sacrifices. In 1993,
economist William Nordhaus summed up this view as follows:
The conclusion that emerges
from most economic studies is to impose modest restraints, pack up our tools,
and concentrate on more pressing problems. Given the high costs of controls and
the modest projected impacts of a 1 to 3 degree C warming over the next half
century, how high should global warming be on an international agenda that
includes exploding population in the South, nuclear proliferation in the Middle
East, collapsing economies in eastern Europe, increasing cycles of poverty and
drug use along with stagnating incomes in the West, and sporadic outbreaks of
violence and civil war just about everywhere? Given the modest estimated impact
of climate change along with these other urgent concerns, we might conclude
that global warming should be demoted to a second-tier issue. (15)
Nordhaus, however, has
continued to study the economic impact of global warming in search of the most
efficient global solution to dealing with this problem. His attitude remains
sanguine. According to his and Joseph Boyer's economic modeling, "an
efficient climate-change policy would be relatively inexpensive and would slow
climate change surprisingly little." (16) This is, in part, because their
study "paints a less alarming picture of future climate change than other
studies performed in the early 1990s. Whereas many studies projected baseline
global temperature increases by 2100 in the 3 to 4[degrees]C range, a better
reference estimate today would be close to 2.4[degrees]C warming in 2100."
(17)
Moreover and no less
importantly, even assuming politicians all were to agree both that something
needs to be done and on what needs to be done, they would still face a typical
problem of collective action here--a problem of cooperation before a commons.
(18) The general nature of this problem is described in the next five
paragraphs, after which I return to the particular case of dealing with climate
change.
A public good is a good to
which many have virtually unrestricted access and which they can enjoy, at a
negligible cost, regardless of whether or not they contribute to its
maintenance. Some public goods, like the starry skies above, are virtually
imperishable (on a human time scale). Most of the public goods that we care
about, however, including the night-time visibility of the stars, are
perishable. Typically, our enjoyment of a public good reduces in some measure
the enjoyment that we or others can subsequently derive from the good. This
occurs, for instance, when one's enjoyment of a finite and non-renewable public
good involves some, however slight, irreversible diminution of this good. But
even renewable public goods are often perishable goods. For instance, their
existence may be threatened by over-use. Many public goods require that we,
collectively, devote some energies and resources to their renewal. Other public
goods may require that we not use them up faster than they can renew
themselves.
All such public goods are
commons when, for each relevant agent with low-cost, virtually free access to
the good, the choice of whether to contribute to its maintenance or renewal or
the choice to refrain from enjoying the public good has the payoffs of a
Prisoners' Dilemma (PD). (19) Choices with the payoffs of a PD are those for
which these two conditions hold:
1) it is in the interest of
each agent that the public good not be exhausted so that each agent would
prefer that everyone contribute to its maintenance (or refrain ...), that is,
that all cooperate rather than that no one contribute to it, that is to say,
that everyone defect or free-ride,
but 2) it is more in the
interest of each agent, or rational for each agent, to defect, that is, to not
contribute to the maintenance of this good (or not refrain ...), regardless of
what others choose to do. (The choice to defect is said to rationally dominate
the alternative of cooperating.)
The typical fate of a commons
is a "tragedy" in which each individual's rational choice to defect
brings about a collective setback in the exhaustion or destruction of the
public good from which all or many previously could benefit. (20) To name but
one sort of example, this tragedy is one we have come close to achieving by
overfishing several fish and whale populations.
What is to be done about
preserving a commons? In many cases, the maintenance of public goods that are
commons can be ensured by altering the payoffs of this choice so that they are
no longer the payoffs of a commons. This result can be achieved by altering the
payoffs that agents face so as to make it rational for everyone (or for enough
agents) to cooperate, that is, to contribute to maintaining the public good in
question (or to reduce the use of the good so that it has time to renew
itself). An adequate interest in cooperating in the maintenance of a public
good may be achieved through the addition of inducements to cooperation, for
instance, in the form of monetary rewards. More often, however, it is easier or
more effective to employ coercive measures in order to increase either the costs
of enjoying the good or the (expected) costs of defection or free-riding (for
instance, by means of fines, etc.). Increasing the costs of enjoying the good
typically occurs by enforcing restrictions on the enjoyment of the good. In
this way, for instance, the fees from hunters' licenses go to pay for
repopulating game. Another way of "solving" problems of commons is to
effectively "privatize" a previously public good, that is, make it a
public good no longer and devolve its enjoyment or use and preservation into
individual hands who, it is hoped, will be more interested in reducing use for
the sake of the long-term preservation of a good they can now call their own.
(21)
There are important public
goods, however, for which neither inducements to cooperation nor coercive
restrictions of access are advisable or practically feasible. This happens
when, for instance, no overseeing authority can be trusted either to disburse
inducements fairly or to properly enforce the sanctions threatened for
defection. Such conditions presently obtain among the nations of the world that
do not wish to grant international organizations, such as the United Nations,
adequate independent enforcement muscle of their own in the form of an army or
a police force, or of courts able to impose their own jurisdiction and
judgments on states. (This, for instance, is too often the fate of the United
Nations' own court--the International Court of Justice--designed to apply
international law to settle disputes between nations.)
The problem of dealing with the
likely harmful effects of climate change from global warming presents just such
a commons. In this case, the public good is constituted by our current global
weather patterns. For, much as we may enjoy maligning the weather we experience,
we still prefer it to the globally warmer weather patterns we are collectively
bringing about. The costs of maintaining this global public good are whatever
it would take for the current and future population of the earth to prevent the
changes in these weather patterns or else what it would take to deal with the
changes effectively so that the living conditions of those affected populations
were not worsened by climate changes. Climate change presents a commons
precisely because, on the one hand, it is in each person's or each nation's
interest that our climate patterns not be negatively affected by our greenhouse
gas emissions while, on the other hand, it is in each person's or nation's
interest to let others bear the burdens or costs of preserving this global
good.
Thus, even if action against
climate change today is thought worthwhile in the long run, its costs are such
that each national government would rather see other nations take action while
it avoids, as far as possible, making any such costly commitments. While it is
in the interest of everyone that this problem be dealt with in a timely
fashion, and while each nation would prefer that all act to deal with it
effectively, it is also in each nation's interest to do as little as it can get
away with doing. In short, nations face what is known as a commons, a
collective-action or "free-rider" problem. Dealing more effectively
with this aspect of the problem, in the absence of an international enforcing
authority, is a point in favor of the approach to be suggested below.
As if these prudential grounds
were not enough, nations may also claim moral grounds of justice or fairness
for hesitating or refusing to contribute to dealing with climate change. I will
discuss these below in considering the question of how the collective chore of
dealing with climate change should be divided.
Just how much harm and
suffering the damage from climate change causes is, to an important extent, up
to us to determine in how we adapt to the predicted effects of climate change.
Since we have moral obligations not to harm people, then, insofar as it is in
our power not to harm others inexcusably, we have moral obligations to deal
with climate change that is so likely to cause harm. This realization leads me
to rephrase the previous conclusion and hold that we should heed the more
sanguine reactions of many economists and conclude that a great deal of the
world's current greenhouse gas emissions will prove inexcusably maleficent
unless we do enough to deal with their maleficence--by mitigation or otherwise
adapting to it.
Moreover, I assume that this
matter is not one of applied "lifeboat ethics" (22)--in which each
nation attempts to cope by itself with its obligations not to cause harm to its
present or future citizens. In other words, I assume that this is not a matter
of extensive bilateral negotiations between "culprit" and
"victim nations." It is also certainly undesirable that the
international community wait to act until it has found out how to rightly
apportion responsibility for global warming, for the resulting climate change,
and so for the suffering to future people that will result from these
emissions. Still, whatever global measures the international community agrees
to undertake to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to set aside resources to
adapt to the predictable effects of this global warming, the question of a fair
international division of this chore will arise.
The Kyoto Protocol has met with
considerable objections for setting specific mandatory targets for greenhouse
gas emission reductions for developed countries. Some feel that other
mechanisms are preferable to these rigid targets. (23) But even if one were
persuaded by these arguments, one would still wish to adopt the public policy
that proved either most effective or least painful for one's nation in
achieving an emissions reduction target. Since emissions reductions (or
adaptation measures) still underlie the whole discussion regarding climate
change policy, I think it still makes most sense to start from what is required
of this planet's present human generation and then ask how this global task
should be divided among the earth's human population.
In the rest of this paper, I
assume that the nations of the world can come to some agreement, or perhaps
that a majority of its atmospheric scientists can come to some consensus, about
what needs to be done to deal with this problem. With this assumption in hand
we can ask, "How then should nations divide up this global bill--whatever
it turns out to be--for mitigating the effects of climate change and for
adapting to its effects?" (24)
2. How to Split the Bill for
Dealing with Climate Change?
Dealing with the problem of
climate change involves abating and adapting. Abatement involves reducing
emissions of greenhouse gases; adapting, instead, involves preparing in other
ways for those climate changes that we do not expect to get around to abating.
Adaptation is a cost, since resources that could have been used otherwise must
be put aside or invested in adaptation. Abatement, too, is a cost. Reducing
emissions typically involves foregoing those goods whose production involves
emissions as a by-product. This is not always the case, however. When greater
efficiency allows for reductions in emissions without any loss in productive
capacity, these reductions can be made with no regrets. Similar considerations
are tree of investments made in the sequestration of carbon dioxide in trees
and other plants. Since all measures requiring investments can be divided up
among nations, they are all matters for chore division.
If a cap in global emissions is
set, then shares of these emissions can be allocated to various countries
through a system of permits. This is the so-called allocation problem. Dealing
with global warming forces us to confront problems of allocation and problems
of chore division. Since both these sorts of problems can be solved according
to the same principles, I will deal with them together in' what follows.
I group the principal proposals
made for the allocation or chore division into two--just proposals and fair
proposals. This grouping highlights several differences in the moral concerns
that the two sorts of proposals attempt to address. I also argue for the
adoption of a fair division into equally burdensome shares because it offers
the best prospects of success at promoting international cooperation in
mitigation and adaptation. I conclude with some considerations about how to
measure burdensomeness.
The distinction I adopt between
just and fair proposals is, to some degree, a matter of expository convenience.
(25) The point of the distinction is to serve as a reminder that some proposals
call for allocating according to backward-looking or historical rectificatory
principles while other proposals appeal to forward-looking principles for the
promotion of well-being. The just principles are mainly principles of
rectificatory justice intended to restore an acceptable moral order that past
actions had disturbed. In contrast to these just principles stand fair
principles of chore division and allocation. These are forward-looking
principles. They do not take account of past behavior or of past benefits or
losses accrued, rather, they seek to maintain matters at least as morally
acceptable as they are found to be at present in the future. In so doing,
forward-looking principles of fair division can be faulted for taking the
status quo as morally acceptable.
Rectificatory principles of
allocation or chore division do not exhaust the category of relevant just
principles. There are also principles aiming at greater equality (among
potential recipients, in those respects affected by this division or
allocation). There are also weaker egalitarian principles that allocate or
divide in such a way as to mitigate the increases in inequality that would
otherwise result. This, for instance, was the ambition of the signatories of
the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982) concerning deep-sea mining. This treaty
stipulates that whenever a concern from a developed country stakes a mining
claim to one site on the deep sea bed, it must also indicate another site of
equal mining potential to be exploited for the benefit of developing countries
(through the offices of a duly formed U.N.-supervised "Enterprise").
The intent of this arrangement is clear: to ensure that the benefits of
deep-sea mining do not go only to those developed countries currently able to
exploit them. (26) Finally, we can also conceive of just equal opportunity
principles that would divide or allocate so as to equalize opportunities
afforded or curtailed by the good or chore in question across populations with
unequal prior opportunities. With one exception--equal per capita emissions
entitlements--little more will be said about these egalitarian just principles
of division or allocation in what follows. The debate about climate change has
not really been framed this way.
Meanwhile, principles of fair
division are, for the most part, various ways of trying to divide goods or
chores as if each party had equal title or claim to a share of the good or
chore in question. For this reason, it will be apparent that principles of fair
chore division are intuitively better suited, morally speaking, to divisions of
collective chores where each has an equally strong prima facie obligation to
contribute, such as, for instance, universal moral obligations of assistance
with famine relief.
Principles of fair chore
division are intuitively less well suited to collective obligations that are
crucially shaped by the history of their formation--for instance, obligations
stemming from past violations of other duties, such as duties of
non-maleficence. These last duties are intuitively better assigned according to
responsibility. Yet even if the industrialized nations' obligations to deal
with climate change should be, ideally, divided by responsibility, still we
have good practical reasons to divide them fairly instead. The main reason for
preferring a fair principle of division to a just one has to do with seeking
the best solution to the associated problem of collective action or of commons.
2.1. Just (backward-looking)
proposals
In matters of climate change,
the following proposals for allocation or chore division have garnered most
attention: (i) pay or contribute in proportion to the benefits received from
the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted; (ii) pay or contribute in proportion to
the GHGs emitted (in proportion to responsibility); and (iii) pay or contribute
on an equal per capita basis. This third proposal belongs to what I am calling
"fairness-based proposals," so I deal with it in the next section.
Here I argue that although each of the first two "just" principles is
admirable in its own way, neither is a serious candidate for an international
chore division for lacking the practical advantages of a (fair) division by
equal burdensomeness described in the subsequent section. (This section also
includes a different social-contract line of argument about just takings which
issues in obligations that are much like those of paying in proportion to
responsibility.)
a. Pay in proportion to the
benefits received from the GHGs emitted
This principle is reminiscent
of the Principle of Fair Play for political obligation. It allots shares in
proportion to the benefits derived from the emission of GHGs much as the
Principle of Fair Play requires contributions to the public good of the state
from those who have benefited from the existence of this state. (27) This
principle is intuitively plausible for placing the burdens of dealing with
climate change on those who have most benefited from the very cause of this
climate change: the greenhouse gases they have emitted.
This principle, however, also
has certain disadvantages. It penalizes the least beneficial GHG emissions just
as much as it penalizes the most beneficial emissions if one considers only
payments in fixed proportion to the benefits derived, regardless of the
quantities of gases emitted to derive them. Applying this principle, in short,
offers no incentive to emit GHGs efficiently and so to reduce wasteful
emitting. The principle can be adjusted to avoid this drawback to the extent
that payments are made proportional to the inefficiency of emissions made. But
even this revised principle still has the further considerable defect of not
taking into account the relative indispensability of these emissions, in the
sense discussed above. In fact, we could reach the morally counterintuitive
result that, insofar as indispensable or subsistence emissions bring the
greatest benefits, they turn out to be the most heavily costed and penalized by
this principle. Besides, if we assume that most GHG emissions have benefited
humans to some degree or other, then there will be little practical difference
between this principle and the next one, which is, perhaps, the most intuitive
principle of all regarding the division of costs of dealing with climate
change.
b. Pay in proportion to the
GHGs emitted, or in proportion to responsibility
This principle follows the lead
of "polluter pays" principles and reflects, to this extent, the
intuitive idea that those whose actions cause harm or disturbance are liable to
compensate for or rectify the ill done to those who have been affected. In its
crudest form--where nations should pay in proportion to their total historical
emissions--this principle, like its crude counterpart for paying according to
benefits received, would violate the idea that we can only be responsible for
what we were not excusably ignorant of. Since the IPCC was formed in 1998 and since
it issued its first report in 1990, we should perhaps limit responsibility to
emissions after 1990 and hold that the costs of dealing with climate change
should be allotted in proportion to a nation's share of the global greenhouse
gas emissions since 1990.
In requiring the developed
nations to foot most of the bill for dealing with climate change, this
principle recognizes their responsibility in causing the problem. To this
extent, this principle reflects our intuitive views about what justice demands.
This principle may also further reflect the demands of justice in requiring
more from those nations that are relatively better off, especially if we think
that they have been made better off by their use of the very energy whose
production released these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This principle
retains the defect of not taking account of the relative indispensability of
these emissions. Subsistence and luxury emissions are costed alike.
A quite different line of
reasoning about justice in the appropriation of natural resources leads to a
principle with very much the same results. This reasoning starts from the
thought that the earth's atmosphere has a capacity to absorb greenhouse gases
without sensibly warming the planet's average global temperature. Insofar as
our pre-global-warming global climate is a public good, then we can view
greenhouse gas emissions as appropriations of shares of this absorption
capacity and we can ask whether these appropriations are just. Since this
atmospheric absorption capacity is a condition of nature that preceded the
presence and the activity of humans, it constitutes a natural commons, much as
land has had in the eyes of philosophers interested in justifying property
rights to portions of land. So, just as John Locke and others have held that
each person has equal title to land that was previously common to all, we may
assume either that each individual has an equal title to this atmospheric
absorption capacity or, more usefully perhaps, that each human generation has
equal title to this capacity. Continuing this line of thinking (and omitting
matters of important detail) we may ask how much of this capacity a single
human generation is justly entitled to use up. Locke's answer for land was,
roughly, that one is entitled to as much of a natural good previously available
to all that left "enough and as good" for others. In a like manner,
we might hold that each generation may justly take or use up a share of this
atmospheric absorption capacity that leaves enough and as good absorption
capacity to future generations.
Since it is clear that the
present human generation has not left enough and as good an atmospheric
greenhouse gas absorption capacity for future generations, we can safely
conclude that the present generation's "taking" is unjust, and that
this generation owes future generations compensation for this unjust taking.
c. Pay in proportion to the
unjust taking of the planet's greenhouse gas absorption capacity
We should note two features of
the results of this argument and principle. First, the present generation need
not owe future generations the restoration of the excess of absorption capacity
taken if the present generation can leave "as good" for future
generations by other means. For instance, if the present generation were to
ensure that future generations would have the means to deal with the warmer
climate we have created such that no greater harm from weather events would
occur to them as were occurring prior to global warming, this would constitute
leaving "as good" for future generations. This could happen, for
instance, if present emissions resulted in enough technological progress and in
enough development of productive capital that future adaptation for future
generations enabled them to live at a level of well-being that is no less than
ours. Second, although this argument has been formulated for generations, it
may equally well be formulated for national generations or for smaller
groupings within each generation (for independent households, for instance).
Thus the unjustness of the taking may, and indeed presumably does, fall
unequally on all the humans of the current generation. Since emissions of
greenhouse gases are how we "take" a share of this absorption
capacity, greater emitters are taking more unjustly than lesser emitters. So
the duties to compensate or rectify or to otherwise make life "as
good" in this specific sense fall mainly on the greater emitters--the
populations of the developed countries above all. So it is that this principle
arrives at obligations that are not very different from those of the earlier
principle requiring paying in proportion to GHGs emitted.
d. Pay in proportion to one's
ability to pay
This principle is not, strictly
speaking, a backward-looking principle. It considers the current state of
affairs and divides costs accordingly. For this reason it should not be
considered in this section. On the other hand, this principle derives much of
its moral plausibility as a principle of cost- or chore-division from our
awareness of how nations came to have their current ability to pay. This
ability results, to a great extent, from economic development which, in turn,
resulted from or was, at any rate, accompanied by great greenhouse gas
emissions. Thus, this principle, although in theory not a backward-looking
principle and so not a just principle, according to my classification, is
mentioned here because its supporting arguments are clearly those of the first
two principles mentioned above. Only when economic development (and
accompanying ability to pay) will have become effectively uncoupled from
greenhouse gas emissions should this proposal to pay according to ability to
pay be taken under consideration on its own merits.
The point of offering this list
of just principles is to show the many ways in which one can reason morally to
the conclusion that, as a matter of justice, the developed nations should pay
for a lion's share of the bill of dealing with climate change. The developed
nations caused the problem, they benefited most from these emissions, they most
clearly violated the Lockean proviso to the just taking of goods previously
held in common, and they, more than other nations, have the means to pay for
the costs of dealing with the problem. So they, above all, should pay for most
of dealing with climate change. This much, for instance, seems to be reflected
in the Kyoto Protocol's approach, which requires emissions stabilization from
only developed countries and eastern European countries "undergoing the
process of transition to a market economy."
The largest drawback of
adopting any of these just principles of chore or cost division is a practical
one. As we have seen, dealing with climate change presents the nations of the
world with a commons. Each nation is (let us hope) genuinely concerned with
this problem, but each nation is also aware that it is in its interest not to
contribute or do its share, regardless of what other countries do. Admittedly,
describing the problem this way may exaggerate the negative. For instance,
international moral pressure is sometimes able to nudge a nation to conform its
behavior to internationally promoted standards. But this is not always true and
it is less likely to be true when the costs of contributing or conforming are high,
particularly when each nation suspects that every other nation is just as keen
to defect as it is. This problem of commons is exacerbated by the awareness
that there is no overseeing authority capable of altering the situation so as
to coerce contributions or to make contributions cost-effective for each
country. In short, in the absence of the appropriate international coercive
muscle, defection, however unjust it may be, is just too tempting.
Few are ready to speak what
they think in these matters. So it is that some have couched their resistance
to sticking to the terms of the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that this
Protocol doesn't deal justly or fairly with the problem. The Protocol is said
to be unjust because some developing nations (with the People's Republic of
China leading the way) may soon be contributing more to this problem than the
currently developed countries will. Some projections indicate that the total
emissions of developing nations will exceed those of developed countries in
about thirty years, unless these developing nations alter their current course
of industrial development. (28) So, by parity of reasoning about justice, these
developing nations should be prepared to make similar sacrifices, too, even if
this means slowing down their short-term economic development.
Even if the projections for
emissions on which the previous argument rests are found to be incorrect, still
the Kyoto Protocol is unfair, say some, including U.S. President George W.
Bush, since it calls for only the developed countries to act. This division of
burdens is obviously unfair and contributes to making the treaty "fatally
flawed." The apparent unfairness of the Kyoto Protocol should come as no
surprise, since the Protocol itself is clearly the result of the recognition
that the developed nations have been the largest contributors to the problem of
climate change. This recognition, moreover, had already been stated in the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change. All this makes it difficult not to
question the merits of using this obvious "unfairness" to justify
withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol talks, as President Bush did in March 2001.
It is also interesting to note
that this appeal to the unfairness of the Kyoto Protocol' s objectives in order
to justify the U.S. pulling out of the talks assumes that matters of fairness
are more important than matters of justice. Surely this assumption requires
some argument and just as surely a persuasive argument requires some further
account of what would amount to a fair chore division in this case. The White
House has offered none. Besides, turning the discussion to the unfairness of
the treaty also turns the attention of the discussants away from considering
whether obligations to reduce the threat of climate change might not also arise
from considerations of rectificatory justice. Thus it seems that the focus on
unfairness has been used to mask or divert attention from responsibility for
the problems of climate change.
2.2. The case for a fair chore
division
a. Pay or contribute on an
equal per capita basis
This is surely the simplest
proposal based on grounds of fairness. In this approach, the allotted chores or
costs of the global collective effort required to deal with the effects of
global warming are allotted to nations based on an equal per capita division
for all persons on the globe. So, for instance, each human on our planet would
be assigned an equal share of the chore of dealing with climate change. This
division could result in each person having to cut back on her or his emissions
by the same amount, or it could offer each the same alternatives between
cutting back emissions or contributing to some Adaptation Fund of the sort
described above. Surely this proposal is unfeasible. If each Chinese and each
North American were asked to reduce their emissions in the same amount, when
per capita emissions are currently ten times higher in the U.S. than in China,
this would impose ridiculously unjust or unfair emissions cutbacks.
Alternatively, if humanity on
our planet, as a whole, chooses to cap its emissions--to allow itself to emit
only a certain amount of greenhouse gases each year--then this approach of
equal per capita division would hold that each person across the globe has an
equal emissions entitlement. Each nation, presumably, would then have emission
entitlements that are the aggregate of its residents' individual entitlements.
The great moral attraction of this per capita entitlement approach is its
egalitarian result of not making matters still worse for those who are
presently emitting the least (on average) and who are worst off economically.
(29)
The main disadvantages of this
approach are three. First, like all forward-looking principles of fair
division, it does not consider the justice of the present inequalities in
emissions or consumption levels. Second, it does not take into account the
relative need or indispensability of these emissions. In dividing emissions
entitlements into equal per capita shares, the populations of developing countries
whose current emissions are very low would suddenly find themselves with
emissions rights they cannot use while people of developing countries would be
undergoing great reductions in their standard of living to comply with their
emissions-rights restrictions. Neither scenario is particularly inviting nor
has much hope of ever being politically palatable. One importantly palliative
solution for emissions rights would be to allow for trading of these emissions
rights, once they have been fairly allotted. This solution, if it were
workable, would have the advantage of allowing everyone some time to adjust to
their new entitlements. On the other hand, it would still require vast
redistributions of income as developed countries rushed in to buy emissions rights
from developing countries. It is quite likely that the size of these transfers
of wealth and the disruptions they would create would be great enough to doom
this proposal by themselves. (A hunch: the transfers in wealth that occurred
following the OPEC price increase of 1973 may offer the closest comparison to
what would occur from allotting tradable emissions shares on an equal per
capita basis.) These considerations also highlight the third drawback of this
per capita approach: it does not take into account present levels of emissions
(or consumption).
These last two drawbacks
combine to produce the following realization. Although this principle of per
capita division is fair in giving the same thing to each, it is fair only in
that sense and that sense need not amount to the last word, or what we care
about most, in desiring a fair division of chores or of emissions rights.
What an equal per capita chore
division fails to achieve is a division that affects each person in the same
way or in the same amount. In particular, a per capita division places equal
burdens on each person, but it fails to allot equally burdensome chore-shares,
and, in matters of chore division, burdensomeness is the consideration that is
closest to our hearts so that an equally burdensome division is deemed the
fairest chore division.
The principal reason why we
dislike chores is that they burden us by requiring our time, effort, or
resources, which we feel we could employ more profitably in other ways. In
other words, chores burden us because of the opportunity costs they present,
that is, as a function of the difference in expected returns between the course
of action under consideration and that course of action, from among those open
to us, with the best expected returns for us (including doing nothing).
Thus, if we were to divide
chores in the way that treats everyone equally in the sense that (I suggest)
matters most to them, then we should be dividing the chore into equally
burdensome shares. But how do we do this? What are equally burdensome shares?
Insofar as it is the opportunity costs that chores present for us that concern
us most, an equally burdensome chore division is one in which each contributor
is asked to contribute chores with opportunity costs for her, him, or it (a
nation) that are the same as are the opportunity costs of the allotted chores
for every other contributor to this collective chore. These considerations lead
me to propose another principle of chore division--division into equally
burdensome shares.
b. Pay or contribute in inverse
proportion to relative burdensomeness
The idea here is for the whole
collective chore of what is to be done to deal with climate change, whether by
mitigation or by adaption, to be divided among the nations of the world into
shares such that each nation's share presents the same opportunity costs for
that nation as every other nation's share presents for it. There are several
important details concerning the nature of the opportunity costs in question
that I will address in the next part of the paper. For now I accentuate the
positive results of this proposal.
This principle of chore
division deals effectively with the defects of the other principles. First, it
takes account of indispensability by costing in inverse proportion to
burdensomeness, that is, to the opportunity costs associated with either
reducing emissions or with setting aside resources for adaptation. The same
holds true for financial set-asides for adaptation mechanisms. Projects with
the lowest or least beneficial returns for a nation present the lowest
opportunity costs and they will be the first to be set aside. Projects with the
highest beneficial returns for a nation present the highest opportunity costs and
will be the last to be required to be set aside.
Which emissions present highest
or lowest opportunity costs? The answer depends on how opportunity costs are
measured. If current market prices are used to measure these costs, then
forgoing luxury emissions may well present the highest opportunity costs. But
if any reasonable measure of human welfare is used instead of market prices,
then we can expect luxury emissions to have the lowest opportunity costs and so
to be the first to be sacrificed. Subsistence emissions, meanwhile, will have
the highest opportunity costs and so will be the last ones to be cut. (I say
more about this in section 2.3 below.)
Also, because this principle of
fair division looks at opportunity costs, it promotes efficiency. For, the more
efficient a particular use of greenhouse-gas emissions is, the higher are the
opportunity costs of reducing these particular emissions. The higher the
opportunity costs are, the less expendable these emissions are. In short, the
principle of fair division fares at least as well as the other approaches do on
these counts.
To clarify, this principle of
division by equal burdensomeness would first require countries to act in those
ways whose opportunity costs are lowest. This means that so-called "no-regrets"
emissions savings are most encouraged (since they don't really cost anyone
anything anyway). Which emissions would go next depends on how these
opportunity costs are being estimated. If opportunity costs were measured in
monetary amounts, as they are ordinarily measured in project evaluations by
economic institutions, then the next emissions cuts would be those with the
smallest monetary costs. The danger in this case is that subsistence or
near-subsistence emissions might well be called for next, before cuts in luxury
emissions are called for. The reason for this would be that cuts in luxury
emissions may well cost more (monetarily) than would the more needed
subsistence or near-subsistence emissions. Thus an approach that is intended to
equalize the burdensomeness of dealing with climate change could easily result
in a division which would require cuts in subsistence emissions--the most
precious emissions to human well-being--before they require cuts in luxury
emissions--the least precious emissions to human well-being. For this reason it
is clear that the measure of opportunity costs must not be the standard
currently used in the financial cost/benefit analysis; instead, a measure of
opportunity costs in terms of human welfare must be adopted.
If, then, opportunity costs
were measured in terms of human welfare, rather than in monetary terms, what
cuts would occur next? In this case, presumably, nations with substantial
luxury emissions will reduce those next because the opportunity costs in terms of
human well-being of these cuts would be lowest. Next, countries with
quasi-luxury emissions will be required to cut those next, as they have the
next best opportunity costs. The idea is to keep requiring cuts in emissions
(or savings for adaptation measures) with progressively greater opportunity
costs or burdensomeness (in terms of human well-being) until the global chore
of dealing with climate change has been completed with every nation being
required to make equally burdensome sacrifices. So it should go in each
country.
Can the total of what is needed
to deal with the problem of climate change be so great that it will require
great sacrifices by poor or developing nations? In this division scheme, every
country is required to make sacrifices that are equally burdensome. This means
that the opportunity costs for each country are supposed to be the same. This,
unfortunately, means that, quite possibly, one (developed) country's aggregate
opportunity costs from luxury and near-luxury cuts could be equaled in a
developing country only if it makes cuts in near-subsistence emissions. What
about cuts in subsistence emissions, proper? These should not be called for,
because, as I argued above, when emissions and spending are rationally
compelling, they are morally excused. This is the point at which this principle
of fair division meets the two arguments for our having obligations to deal
with climate change: no one and no country can be morally required to make cuts
to its subsistence emissions. Besides, it makes no sense to attempt to enforce
such cuts anyway.
So, for all its attractions,
and even when opportunity costs are measured in terms of human well-being
rather than in straightforward monetary terms, this scheme for chore division
can weigh more heavily on developing countries than on developed countries,
because it may require them to make cuts in near-subsistence emissions.
To recap, chore or cost
division by equal burdensomeness allocates to each nation equally burdensome
shares of what has been collectively decided needs to be done to deal with the
problem of climate change. This does not mean that each nation is allotted the
same amount to do (nor that it shoulders costs of the same dollar value). On
the contrary, because this fair chore division uses opportunity costs to
determine equally burdensome shares and because luxury emissions are currently
very unevenly distributed across nations, those nations with more luxury
emissions will be required to do or spend more. Fair chore division requires sacrifices
or emissions cuts from everyone. Cooperation from poor or less economically
developed countries is required only when rich or developed countries have to
make equally painful contributions. However, because these opportunity costs
are aggregated by nation, this fair division scheme may well require cuts to
near-subsistence for some before it requires them of others.
This principle of contribution
in inverse proportion to relative burdensomeness has three further advantages.
First, because it is not backward-looking--because it does not consider past
emitting behavior--it avoids allotting responsibility for their past actions to
the various parties in question. It thus avoids a predictable occasion for
recrimination and ill will to which such judgments would most likely give rise
at international negotiations where national contributions would be
apportioned. I consider this an advantage, though it would be viewed as a most
conspicuous drawback by those, for instance, who believe that (backward-looking)
considerations of justice are being improperly neglected. Undoubtedly, a fully
moral treatment of this question would take account of both fairness and
justice and would, presumably, take account of fairness once questions of
justice have been settled. It is entirely conceivable that, at least to some
degree, these considerations of justice can find a translation into different
proportional allocations. Such a translation would require a prior
international agreement on which considerations of justice to consider and then
an agreement on how to translate these considerations into proportional
allocations. In practice, requiring an agreement by which to implement a
division into justly proportional shares would amount to holding the question
of division hostage to reaching a prior international agreement on what
constitutes international distributive justice and on how to compensate for
this injustice in this fair division. Since I doubt that such an agreement is
likely in our lifetime, I conclude that insisting on this requirement would
amount to putting off any implementation concerning climate change
indefinitely. That would be a shame, I think. Plain equally burdensome chore
division, complicated enough as it is, seems greatly preferable if we want to see
anything done at all. Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus--let justice be done, even
if the world perish--just does not seem to be an especially appealing principle
for developing countries who stand to be the first and worst victims of climate
change.
On the other hand, it is also
clear that some of the largest developing countries currently wield
considerable threat potential--for instance, China threatens to vastly increase
the amount of coal it burns, and Brazil more or less controls the fate of
perhaps the greatest carbon sink on land: the Amazon. So if, for instance,
these countries wish to see current economic inequalities addressed in
international negotiations, perhaps their best bet is to insist that they be
addressed at climate change talks where they have considerable leverage. Some
of these countries may find the egalitarian features of this approach no more
palatable than developing countries might.
The second advantage of this
principle of fair division is one that it shares with all principles of fair
division. It offers to all a point or position by which to measure the fairness
and unfairness of resolutions reached in international bargaining sessions from
positions of unequal bargaining strength. (30) I doubt that the nations of the
world will easily agree to divvy up the costs of dealing with climate change
just as this principle of fair division would tell them to. But insofar as this
principle serves to indicate to all what is fair in principle (in this sense of
fairness), it should help everyone appreciate the unfairness or iniquity of
other bargaining outcomes. That is a morally useful measure to have, I think,
especially if it can help weaker nations obtain a fairer deal.
Finally, there is a third and
most important reason for preferring this kind of principle of division in the
version requiring a division into equally burdensome shares. As I mentioned
above, dealing with the adverse consequences of global warming presents nations
with a common-stype problem of collective action and, under suitable
conditions, an equally burdensome chore division holds the promise of giving
each nation no stronger reasons to defect from doing its (fair) share than it
gives any other nation. This result, in turn, would place the most moral
pressure possible on each nation to do its part. This is a precious result in
dealing with problems of commons for which enforcement is impractical,
unadvisable, or unacceptable.
What are these suitable
conditions? (1) that the terms of this fair division can be made public; (2)
that cooperation or defection can be monitored and recorded publicly; (3) that
each nation be satisfied that this division is truly an equally burdensome one
(or as close to a truly equally burdensome one as can be hoped for in
practice).
Under these conditions, the
broadcasting of the results of an equally burdensome division and the public
monitoring of compliance could prove particularly useful in assuring better
cooperation whenever nations wish to avoid public embarrassment and where
defecting would prove embarrassing. No nation would have a better excuse for
defecting than any other nation had, at least not in terms of what it costs to
cooperate. So when the burdensomeness is equal, defecting when others cooperate
simply indicates ill will or not wanting to do one's fair share. In this
manner, this kind of chore division would place the most moral pressure
possible on each nation to do its part. This pressure is the pressure that
comes from knowing that each nation's interests are being given equal concern
and that defecting means treating one's own condition differently in the
absence of better prudential (or non-moral) reasons for doing so. This, I
think, is a precious result in dealing with problems of commons for which
enforcement is unadvisable or unacceptable. It is an important reason for
advocating efforts to "crunch numbers" to make public what such a
division would look like.
Furthermore, consistency
suggests that this principle of fair division also be employed in determining
in a fair way the allocations of greenhouse-gas emission rights (tradable or
not), since these rights should rest on considerations of the relative
indispensability and efficiency of these emissions and since these aspects are
reflected in the estimation of the opportunity costs used to determine a fair
division into equally burdensome shares. One might urge, further, that
emissions rights be made tradable.
The main reason for making
these emissions rights tradable would be to promote greater Pareto-efficiency
in the use of these emissions from the baseline allocation set out by this kind
of fair division of emissions rights. A Pareto-efficient division (with respect
to this kind of fair division) is any chore- or cost-division such that at
least one nation is better off than it would be by the terms of this fair
division without any other nation being less well off than it would be by these
fair terms. Since no one should be interested in keeping others less well off
for no reason, and since trading can lead to greater Pareto-efficiency, it
makes sense to allow for trading of fairly allotted shares to reduce the
overall sacrifice being made in dealing with climate change. But
Pareto-efficiency is not a guaranteed outcome of trading. For instance, trading
in monopolistic and oligopolistic markets--markets dominated by one or a few
agents--tends away from Pareto-efficiency. The current distribution of
international wealth and buying power may thus lead a free market in tradable
emissions rights away from Pareto-efficiency. The Pareto-efficiency of free
markets is not assured, moreover, unless all agents are acting prudently or in
their self-interest. But we are, after all, discussing allocations to nations,
and nations need not all act prudently. Governmental errors and political
corruption should make us cautious of allowing a fully free market for these
emissions rights. (31) In short, other conditions may have to be set out to
ensure that the trading in question is Pareto-efficient. The details of this
question are best suited to another occasion.
The possibility of governmental
mistakes and corruption leads me to another cautionary remark. This principle
of fair chore division is intended to be fair to nation-states, since these
are, presumably, the agents who will negotiate the terms of a possible chore
division regarding climate change. But nothing said here ensures that the
burdens that each nation takes on will be shared fairly among its citizens.
International fairness is entirely compatible with considerable intra-national
or domestic unfairness.
Overall, it seems that the
greatest threat to the adoption of some procedure for arriving at fairer
chore-division results than would be reached by conventional fist-thumping
during sessions of international bargaining is that some nations or their
representatives will view these fair chore-division procedures as depriving
them of the opportunity to exercise their bargaining clout to the advantage of
their country. It is to be hoped that this risk will be averted in international
discussions of what to do about global warming. Much will depend on the degree
to which the representatives of various nations are interested in arriving at
international agreements that no one has stronger reasons to back out off I
have argued that these agreements are most likely to be found in agreements
which divide burdens into equally burdensome shares.
2.3. Opportunity costs
The proposed method of fair
chore division into equally burdensome shares estimates burdensomeness in terms
of the relative opportunity costs, that is, in terms of the opportunity costs
that the chore-share in question presents for the nation to which it is
assigned. Each country is to be assigned a share that requires an equal level
of effort or that bring equal pain to each country. In one way, there is
nothing mysterious to the notion of opportunity costs in this international
setting. These opportunity costs are the sorts of things that are evaluated by
means of the standard cost/benefit analyses carded out by international
financial institutions such as the World Bank. Opportunity costs measure the
difference in returns (to the country in question) of using its resources to
deal with climate change rather than of using them in other, presumably more
remunerative or beneficial ways. This is the burden a country shoulders: the
opportunity for improvement it misses. At least three questions remain: Are
these measures reliable? Are they measuring the right thing? Are they
susceptible of an international consensus?
The measure of opportunity
costs may easily be faulted. Like all macro-economic measuring tools, they are
complicated enough and approximate enough to lack precision or reliability.
Besides, they are subject to disagreement. The accounting practices used to estimate
these opportunity costs may not meet with an international consensus. In
particular, different national governments and administrations need not share
their views as to what constitutes a genuine benefit for their people, much
less need they agree about how much of a benefit a particular project amounts
to. Yet this approach requires them to agree to both. We find here reproduced
at the international level the situation we find both within a nation and among
individual persons: each group, community, or individual may evaluate the
benefits or utility of a particular thing quite differently. Moreover, just as
may occur among groups and individuals, the estimations that particular nations
make of the benefits or losses associated with a particular project or cost may
seem utterly exotic or unreasonable to other nations. The French, for instance,
may deem it a national catastrophe if even a rather obscure variety of goat
cheese were forever to disappear, while the rest of the world may esteem that
loss to be utterly insignificant, at best.
The simplest solution to this
problem may be to measure the values of projects in actual or expected market
prices. This is most likely the simplest procedure. It is also, arguably, the
procedure that most faithfully reflects people's actual tastes and preferences.
But if opportunity costs are measured in predicted market values, they will
value the goods, services, and lives of people iniquitously. For instance,
since caviar is an expensive luxury good, cutbacks in caviar will result in
monetarily substantial opportunity costs, while cutbacks in, say, such staples
as cassava or taro root may not. This is a serious problem for our purposes,
since cassava and taro root are subsistence crops and caviar is not. For
monetarily equal sacrifices in terms of caviar and in terms of cassava or taro
would not amount to equal sacrifices in terms of human well-being. So, in order
to avoid the distortion introduced by measuring opportunity costs according to
market prices, what is needed is a measure of opportunity costs that reflects
the costs in terms of human well-being rather than in monetary costs. Many such
proposals have been made and the details of this question are better suited to
another occasion. (32) My purpose here is to flag the need for a different sort
of accounting of opportunity costs that reflects these real human costs better
than standard accounting practices in monetary amounts tend to do.
These reservations are not
sufficient reasons to despair of finding an international consensus on such
matters of opportunity-cost accounting. In the first place, these are matters
suited to negotiation and compromise agreements concerning the uniform
international standards to be used for these purposes. The risk is that in these
negotiations the better negotiators or those with more leverage will introduce
elements of inequality that favor their own countries. Still, a useful, single,
globally adopted measure may yet be achievable. Second, even if no consensus on
a single global measure were forthcoming, there still might be ways of
estimating costs that avoided the worst of these potential disagreements. For
instance, the parties may all agree on what constitutes physical harm or on
what subsistence or near-subsistence conditions amount to. Third, even where
disagreements remain, it may be enough if all agree on where or what they
disagree about and if each agrees to allow the others to see things their way
when it comes to their estimation of their own opportunity costs. In this case,
while one nation may deem what it is being asked to do more onerous than what
another nation is asked to do, we may hope that it will be content to cooperate
with the reassurance that the other nation deems its own share at least as
onerous by its lights as the first nation deems its share, by its own lights.
Most economists and
mathematicians who work on chore division are suspicious of using subjective or
variable evaluation methods in procedures for fair divisions such as I just
described. They fear that recipients will falsely declare their own preferences
or opportunity-cost estimates in order to manipulate the division to obtain
shares that they prefer to the ones that they would obtain by declaring their
true opportunity costs. This manipulability of fair division through false
declarations of preferences or opportunity costs is more than a merely
theoretical concern, but still it need not make all manner of fair division
unusable. (33)
Whether the risk of
manipulation will sink this procedure for chore division of the collective or
global task of dealing with climate change will depend on whether nations
perceive that the shares they have each been allotted are roughly as burdensome
as other nations find their respective shares. For those are the conditions
under which no nation is perceived to have better (prudential) reasons not to
do its fair share than any other nation has.
Conclusion
How should the "bill"
of dealing with climate change be split up among the nations of the world? I
have argued that there are strong practical reasons for agreeing to divide this
bill or these chores fairly--into equally burdensome shares--even though the
evidence for maleficence and so for a just division according to responsibility
is very strong. Since a just treatment of this problem can be expected to lead
to international defections in the face of a commons, a fair division into
equally burdensome shares is the best solution available for ensuring
international cooperation in dealing with climate change. (34)
(1) See, for instance, David G.
Victor, The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2001), p. 47.
(2) Here I follow Derek Parfit
in thinking we can avoid futurity or future identity problems and that we may
properly speak of obligations to potential victims by denying that wrongs
require victims. See Derek Parfit, "Energy and the Further Future: The
Identity Problem," in Douglas MacLean and Peter G. Brown (eds.), Energy
and the Future (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1983), pp. 166-79.
(3) We may have similar moral
duties toward non-human living things; most likely we have such duties toward
sentient beings. Whether we do is a topic for another occasion.
(4) The "Summary for
Policymakers" approved (that is to say, consensually agreed upon) at the
plenary meeting of the IPCC Working Group 1 in Madrid, 27-29 November 1995,
states that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human
influence on global climate" mainly through the emissions of greenhouse
gases, carbon dioxide in particular. See IPCC, Climate Change 1995: The Science
of Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 4. The
IPCC's subsequent Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001, once again unanimously
approved, states that "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the
warming observed over the last fifty years is attributable to human
activities." The TAR also forecasts a greater increase of global average
temperature (3-11[degrees]F) than did the 1995 Report (2-6[degrees]F).
(5) Text transcribed from an
Associated Press video-clip: http://play.rbn.com/?url=ap/
nynyt/g2demand/0607us_environ_v.rm&proto=rtsp&mode=compact.
(6) Henry Shue,
"Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions," Law and Policy 15
(1993): 39-59.
(7) Where the present harm from
not emitting is conspicuous enough, we would be at least as unrealistic,
unreasonable, and irrational to expect present people to allow present harm and
suffering to kith and kin in order to avoid future suffering to strangers as
Bernard Williams thinks one would be to even consider saving a stranger's life
when one's own spouse's life is also in danger (and is equally easy to rescue).
See Bernard Williams, "Persons, Character and Morality," in Moral
Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 1-19.
(8) This is the other face of
Henry Shue's coinage in "Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions."
(9) Peter Singer, "Famine,
Affluence, and Morality," Philosophy & Public Affairs 1 (1972):
229-43.
(10) In keeping with the
argument of this paper, I would argue that this responsibility is inversely
proportional to the relative burdensomeness of dealing with this future harm.
(11) "Never before had a
single conference seen so many of the world's leaders," writes John
Houghton, co-chairman of the Science Assessment Group of the IPCC in Global
Warming: The Complete Briefing (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1994), p. 8.
(12) See Michael Grubb,
"Seeking Fair Weather: Ethics and the International Debate on Climate
Change," International Affairs 71 (1995): 463-96, p. 476.
(13) At the July 2001 Bonn
talks on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol (the sixth session of the
Conference of the Parties, part two), agreement was reached on the creation of
a special climate change (adaptation) fund. The money for this fund is to come
from voluntary contributions and from a share of the proceeds on the clean
development mechanism (by which developed countries can earn emissions credits
for greenhouse-gas-emissions-reducing projects in developing countries).
Needless to say, these funds will barely begin to offset the expected costs of
climate change in the developing world.
(14) See, for instance, Andrew
L. Strauss, "Suing the United States for Global Warming Emissions:
Discussion Paper for In the Red Conference, London, July 10, 2001"
(unpublished ms., 2001, Widener University School of Law).
(15) William Nordhaus,
"Reflections on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic
Perspectives 7, No. 4 (Autumn 1993): 11-15, pp. 22-23.
(16) William Nordhaus and
Joseph Boyer, Warming the World: Economic Models of Global Warming (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 2000). (Pp. 9-11 of the manuscript edition is available at
http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/homepage.htm.)
(17) Ibid., pp. 9-13.
(18) Not all philosophers agree
that the world faces a commons in dealing with climate change. For instance,
Jeremy Waldron (inspired by Jean Hampton, Hobbes and the Social Contract
Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986)) has argued that dealing
with climate change is not a multi-person prisoners' dilemma (= tragedy of the
commons) but that it is, instead, a battle-of-the-sexes collective action
problem. (See "Who Is to Stop Polluting? Different Kinds of Free-Rider
Problem," written for The Program on Ethics and Public Life at Cornell
University, June-July 1990.) I disagree with Waldron, but that is of little
consequence as neither outcome takes anything away from the practical advantages
of the approach to the allocation problem for climate change by way of an
equally burdensome fair chore division.
(19) Sometimes our enjoyment of
a good reduces the subsequent enjoyment of others not by diminishing the good
in question but, instead, by incrementally hindering, however slightly, the
access others have to their enjoyment of this good. This occurrence gives rise
to a commons concerning the choice of whether or not to contribute to the costs
of maintaining equal or adequate future access to the good.
(20) Garrett Hardin,
"Tragedy of the Commons," Science, 13 December 1968 (vol. 162, no.
3859): 1243-48.
(21) Privatization does not
always work. The early, influential environmentalist Aldo Leopold, for one,
recognized this for the farming practices of privately owned plots in Wisconsin
up through the 1940s. See A Sand County Almanac (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1949), pp. 207-10 of the 1989 commemorative edition.
(22) See Garrett Hardin,
"Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor," Psychology
Today 8 (September 1974): 38-43, 124-26; and "Living in a Lifeboat,"
Bioscience 24 (October 1974): 561-68.
(23) See, for instance, Victor,
Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol.
(24) For a thoughtful and full
overview of this question, see Grubb, "Seeking Fair Weather."
(25) For some discussion of the
overlap between our notions of justice and fairness, see my "On Fairness
in Collective Action," forthcoming in the Selected Proceedings of the 28th
Conference on Value Inquiry: Values in an Age of Globalization. For weightier
considerations, consult Thomas M. Franck, Fairness in International Law and
Institutions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).
(26) See The Law of the Sea
Treaty (http://www.un.org/Depts/los/index.htm), and Robert L. Simon,
"Troubled Waters: Global Justice and Ocean Resources," in Tom Regan
(ed.), Earthbound (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1984), pp. 179-213.
(27) The Principle of Fair Play
for political obligation holds, roughly, that if we have benefited from
political goods that others have created and maintained, we are thereby placed
under an obligation to cooperate in contributing to the upkeep of those
beneficial political goods and so to obey the laws of the state from whose
existence we have benefited. This principle was introduced in its contemporary
form by H.L.A. Hart in "Are There Any Natural Rights?" The
Philosophical Review 64 (1955): 175-91, p. 185. See also John Rawls, A Theory
of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), [subsections]
18, 52; and A. John Simmons, The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992). For concerns closer to the present
ones, see Scott C. Lowe, "Free Riders, `Fair Share', and The Principle of
Fair Play," Public Affairs Quarterly 10 (1996): 49-62.
(28) "Emissions from the
developing world are rising rapidly and, within the next three decades, are
likely to exceed those from industrialized nations." Victor, Collapse of
the Kyoto Protocol, p. x.
(29) Anil Agarwal of the Centre
for Science and Environment in New Delhi is a leading proponent of this
approach (see http://www.oneworld.org/cse).
(30) For concern with the
problem of bargaining for a fair agreement under conditions of great
inequality, see Henry Shue, "Avoidable Necessity: Global Warming,
International Fairness, and Alternative Energy," in Ian Shapiro and Judith
Wagner DeCew (eds.), Theory and Practice (NOMOS XXXVII) (New York: New York
University Press, 1995), pp. 239-64.
(31) A recent case of international-agency
paternalism in response to apparently insufficiently self-interested
governmental decision-making occurred when the World Bank threatened to cut off
Georgia from its financial assistance if it did not negotiate higher tariffs
for transit fees from a proposed gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey.
See Douglas Frantz, "World Bank Intervenes in Georgia's Deal on Fees for
Caspian Gas Pipeline," The New York Times, August 26, 2001, I-4.
(32) For one starting place for
such discussions, see Amartya K. Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Random
House, 1999), or his Inequality Reexamined (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992).
(33) For more on fair division
see Steven J. Brams and Alan D. Taylor, Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to
Dispute Resolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
(34) This paper owes a great
deal to audiences at Ohio University, Athens, the 28th Conference on Value
Inquiry at Lamar University, and the Georgia Philosophical Association Fall
2000 Meeting at Emory University; to discussions with Henry Shue and with Clark
Wolf; and to the very helpful comments of two reviewers for this journal, one
of whom is owed twofold thanks.
Martino Traxler
Department of Philosophy
Agnes Scott College
mtraxler@agnesscott.edu
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