An 'Ideal' Normative Theory for Greenhouse Negotiations?

Abstract

By the end of the 1980s public opinion became aware of the possible threat of global climate change caused by the so-called greenhouse effect. Researchers of different scientific disciplines started warning that the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases like for instance carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) might cause irreversible changes to the global climate system in the future. If nothing is undertaken to curb greenhouse gas emissions today, global climate change might place a considerable burden upon future generations, especially in developing countries. In the first section we review some of the scientific evidence for past and projected future climate change. The emphasis will be on the extreme long-term perspective of the greenhouse problem. As such, the greenhouse problem definitely classifies as a “time bomb” which is passed on from the current generation to many generations to come. We also address the issue of the distribution of the cost of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies and review the current status of the international climate policy negotiations, in particular the ratification status of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Section two concentrates on a normative framework for the greenhouse problem and analyzes this from an ‘ideal’ (cf. Rawls) point of view. We shall defend in this section our preferential option for the poor and develop a welfare-theoretic framework that starts from the preference option for the poor and is close in spirit to the Rawlsian difference principle. Within this framework, arguments of historic responsibility and past emissions cannot be used as basis for the distribution of climate change mitigation or adaptation efforts.