Introduction: Normative and Conceptual Dimensions of the International Climate Negotiations

Abstract

The human costs of climate change are now widespread and severe. Communities across the globe are facing adverse climate impacts--including food and water insecurity, increased prevalence of tropical diseases, and the of lives and livelihoods--that will only escalate along with escalating global temperatures. Moreover, many regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate change--from Haiti to the Philippines and from Bangladesh to Sudan--are also relatively low emitters of greenhouse gases. Calls for an international response to climate change that is not only effective but also sensitive to moral concerns are therefore reaching a crescendo. For example, the 2013 U.N. climate negotiations in Warsaw, which commenced just days after the devastating Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines, saw a consuming focus on the issue of loss and damage--which refers to repairable damage or permanent due to the impacts of climate change--as well as demands for financial assistance from industrialized countries. Concerns about and damage and concerns about climate finance continued unabated during the 2014 climate negotiations in Lima and promise to continue as the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, work toward striking an international climate agreement during the 2015 negotiations in Paris. At the same time, the normative and conceptual landscapes of the negotiations are shifting and evolving. Developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia are now among the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, and there is growing recognition that the UNFCCC's categorization of countries into Annex I parties and non-Annex I parties--according to their states of development as of 1992--is too outmoded to serve as an organizing principle for a new climate agreement. China and the U.S., which have been notorious antagonists in the negotiations, recently came forward with a historic joint announcement on new greenhouse gas mitigation targets. Parties such as Mexico, Peru, and Colombia are aligning themselves with parties such as Japan, the E.U., and the U.S. as contributors of international climate finance and have made pledges to the nascent Green Climate Fund, which aims to help developing countries transition to pathways of low-carbon and climate-resilient growth. And all parties to the UNFCCC are currently grappling with how to represent concepts such as national responsibility and capability in the 2015 agreement. There is therefore a great need for philosophical analysis and the clarity it provides as we head toward Paris and aim for a durable, fair, and ambitious new climate regime. This volume is part of a growing body of research that engages with the normative and conceptual dimensions of the international climate negotiations and has the potential to shape a more reflective and successful climate policy. In this volume, each author draws substantive conclusions that arise in the context of a philosophical challenge, a worry about some feature of the negotiations that calls for detailed study. For example, we might wonder about the internal structure of the UNFCCC negotiation process, which requires consensus among the parties. Some have suggested that progress is largely made not in public negotiations, but in informal conversations and backroom meetings among key players. While there are practical problems with generating unanimity, especially when there is need for quick action, the drive toward agreement through unofficial channels is worrying. Jesse Vogel examines the methodological problems associated with the reliance of the negotiations on consensus and finds that the UNFCCC procedure is inefficient and unjust. …