Evaluating European Climate Change Policy: An Ecological Justice Approach

Abstract

To date, the concept of ecological justice, when applied to international climate change policy, has largely focused on the North-South dichotomy and has yet to be extended to Central and Eastern European countries. This article argues that current formulations of climate change policy cannot address potential issues of ecological injustice to Central and Eastern European countries. Several Central and Eastern European countries recently joined the European Union, but ecological justice discourse in the EU is shown to be underdeveloped. Although the analysis argues that equal per capita emissions is a socially and ecologically useful starting point for EU climate policy, it is further argued that bringing pertinent regional concerns into the discussion can enhance efforts to realize just outcomes to the climate problem.