Equity, environmental justice and sustainability: incomplete approaches in climate change politics

Abstract

The diversity of the different takes on the ethical concepts of equity and environmental justice in the environmental literature requires that a unifying framework, to properly map their theoretical and conceptual loci in environmental ethics, is defined. Specifically, the concepts of equity and environmental justice have often been conflated into one even though they rest on different philosophical foundations and have different denotations, connotations and implications. The inconsistent use of these constructs is perverse in both scholarly discussions and global environmental policy formulation and detracts from conceptual clarity and their analytical usefulness. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide a mapping of the different takes to the moral aspects of global environmental decisions. Attempt is made to clarify the conceptual and philosophical denotations of environmental justice and equity from the point of view of philosophy, law and moral ethics. Our analysis leads to the construing of environmental justice as a broad overarching concept encompassing all justice issues in environmental decision-making, including both procedural and distributive justice, which is what is usually meant by equity. The resulting framework allows us to grasp the competing, conflicting and incomplete approaches to environmental justice as captured in the North–South conceptions of the construct more effectively. It is our hope that our conclusions would be valuable to researchers of global environmental change and politics.