Governance and Climate Justice

Abstract

Governance and Mapping Climate Justice proposes a 3-dimensional environmental justice approach to share economic benefits and the burden of climate change right, just and fair around the globe. Scientific data is backed by ethical imperatives. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) gains and losses of a warming globe are captured to be distributed unequal around the world. The ethical climatorial imperative demands for an equalization of the gains of climate change around the globe in order to offset losses incurred due to climate change (Kant, 1783/1993; Puaschunder, 2017b, c; Rawls, 1971). 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 disposable 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 caused climate change (Puaschunder, 2017c). Secondly, fair climate change change burden sharing between countries ensures those countries benefiting more from a warmer environment also bear a higher responsibility regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts (Puaschunder, forthcoming). Thirdly, climate justice over time is proposed in an innovative climate change burden sharing bonds strategy, which distributes the benefits and burdens of a warming earth Pareto-optimal among generations (Puaschunder, 2016a). All these recommendations are aimed at sharing the burden but also the benefits of climate change within society in an economically efficient, legally equitable and practically feasible way now and also between generations.