Global Leadership and Followership on Climate Justice

Abstract

Climate Justice requires global leadership and followership to share economics benefits and the burden of climate change right, just and fair around the globe. Theoretical foundations and macroeconomic modelling are justified and grounded on ethical imperatives. Building on the categorical imperative (Kant, 1783/1993) to only engage in actions one would want to have incurred onto onself and Rawls (1971) veil of ignorance to evaluate ethical dilemmas without considering if one is on the benefitting or suffering edge of the implications, the ethical climatorial imperative demands for an equalization of the gains of climate change around the globe in order to offset for climate change losses (Puaschunder, 2017). Today’s climate stability leadership will determine the following generations’ living conditions. Based on the Athenian city state oath of to leave a city not only not less but greater and more beautiful than it was found, the current generation is in the lead of improving the climate stabilization for future generations to come. The global leadership and followership model thereby introduces climate justice within society, between countries and over time. This novel global leadership and followership analysis of climate gains and losses determining global warming leaders and followers based on ethical imperatives is an innovative climate justice approaches to implement climate stabilization financialization in order to aid global governance policy makers to efficiently herald climate justice in the 21st century. First, climate justice within a country should pay tribute to the fact that low- and high-income households carry the same burden proportional to their dispensable income, for instance, enabled through a progressive carbon taxation, consumption tax to curb harmful behavior and/or corporate inheritance tax to reap benefits of past wealth accumulation that may have offset climate change. Secondly, fair climate change burden sharing between countries ensures those countries benefiting from a warmer environment also bear a higher responsibility regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Macroeconomic modeling of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) change prospects in the wake of global warming reveal climate winners and losers. Based on the starting mean climate temperatures and GDP compositions of each country in the world as well as climate change temperature projections in the future and temperature peak conditions for GDP production; climate change gains and losses outlined helps find ways how to share the benefits and burdens of global warming in a fair way around the world. Thirdly, climate justice over time is proposed in an innovative tax-and-bonds climate change burden sharing strategy in order to share the burdens and benefits of a warming globe equally between generations. All these recommendations are aimed at ensuring to share the climate change benefits and burdens within society in an economically efficient, legally equitable and practically feasible way now and also between generations.