Natural capital and distributive justice; a multidisciplinary, multi-scalar assessment

Abstract

People depend on natural capital goods and services for their well-being. However, throughout history the distribution of the benefits and burdens of natural capital exploitation has not been equal across people and groups. These unequal distributions can result in matching unequal distributions of human capability and quality of life. Within this thesis, I engage with distributive justice theories which allow for an examination of the fairness of distributive patterns and apply these insights to real world natural capital exploitation cases across diverse geographic scales and locations, using a range of methodological approaches. I use empirical research methods to describe distributions and use theoretical frameworks of distributive fairness to evaluate them.To do this, I sought to meaningfully engage with describing and evaluating the distribution of natural capital in a way that offers new links between theoretical perspectives and empirical applications; a critical synthesis for advancing knowledge on distributive justice. I therefore have pursued an overarching and primary research question: Is it possible to re-frame distributive justice theories in ways that are more amenable to (a diversity of) empirical research methods? To answer this research question, the thesis first presents new principles for examining natural capital distributive justice, developed through theoretical argumentation and presented in Chapter 1:P1: Social and economic inequalities, resulting from the utilisation of natural capital, are to be of the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.P2: Where harm is accepted as a tolerable by-product of natural capital use for the betterment of society, exposure levels of harm ought to be equal among all persons.P3: Where burdens upon any individual or exclusive group are the by-product of the use of natural capital for the betterment of another individual or exclusive group, burdens are to be accompanied by (at least) commensurate benefits.These principles provide a new theoretical contribution to the study of natural capital distributive justice in that they explain foundational principles from theories of justice in a form suitable for empirical interrogation. This potential of the new principles, then, is examined in the remainder of the thesis through multi-scalar cases.First, in Chapter 2, a systematic review of the natural capital distributive justice is presented in order to understand the breadth of literature of relevance to this thesis. I find this literature is rapidly growing, and somewhat diverse, but is dominated by particular geographies, methods, demographics, livelihood indicators, and topics. Overall, evidence indicates that natural capital distributive issues are inequitable, with over half of the literature yielding this result, but with many unclear determinations and only 2% of studies finding equitable distributions.Next, in Chapter 3, I statistically analysed the global distributions of benefits and burdens resulting from global greenhouse gas emissions. In this analysis I find an unjust inequity, which is globally pervasive, in which nations that have the greatest responsibility for climate change are also those that are the least vulnerable.Then, shifting scale from global to national, in Chapter 4 I present statistical modelling that examines Australia-wide the distributive relationships between industrial pollution and socioeconomic indicators. Through this detailed empirical analysis, I find little evidence of unfair distributions, a finding which does not align with existing research. This points to the importance of policy in shaping the equitability of outcomes and methodological design in how we establish evidence.Again, shifting scale from national to local scale, in Chapter 5 I present a qualitative study of the lived experiences of Cambodian subsistence fisher-people in the context of rapid anthropogenic environmental change. This study offers a rich and in-depth complement to the prior quantitative analyses that unpacks the ways in which natural capital distributive inequities affect some of the world’s most vulnerable people. I find that these communities have little capacity to respond to this change and are suffering unfair burdens as a result of economic activities from which they derive no benefit.Taken together, these studies demonstrate the multiple ways in which natural capital distributive justice can be examined across scales and with a range of methodological approaches. The thesis also contributes new understandings about pressing real-world distributive justice issues. In Chapter 6 I offer a synthesis of these findings, returning again to my principles for study of natural capital distributive justice. This thesis highlights the importance of continued scholarship on natural capital distributive justice, and I conclude that the four studies show that there are indeed ways in which theory and methods can be integrated to answer questions about distributive justice in real world settings. However, my research shows that there is no singular answer to the question of justice in natural capital distribution; outcomes are context dependent. Critically, I also conclude that natural capital distributive justice can be evaluated transparently and rigorously through empirical research supported by my distributive justice principles.