The Problem

Evaluating climate change requires addressing equity issues both within intertemporal and intratemporal frameworks. Many debates in the issue topic of climate change relates to the future — do we have a duty towards protecting the environment for future generations? And how much will our actions today actually cost them? Then there is the problem of equitable distribution of this burden across different state, private and individual actors today, or intratermporal problems. Should rich countries bear the majority of the burden in stopping and reversing climate change, or do all states share equal responsibility?

Framing climate debates in terms of opportunity, not cost —

Ethical considerations are often imperfectly translated into formulaic solutions, telling us how much states are allowed to produce, but these solutions end up being highly disputed because ethics and notions of equity are inherently normative. Disputes lead to deadlocks, soft and inadequate demands, and failures in genuine international cooperation. These failures have disastrous consequences on the environment and marginalized communities who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Incorporating ethics into policymaking is difficult, but evading ethics in climate change discussion means accepting the most inequitable and unethical outcome — people living in the world’s poorest countries, islanders, smallholder farmers, fisheries and herders who rely heavily on natural resources, populations along the coast — people who did the least to contribute to climate change, will be the first to face extreme poverty, to be displaced and to suffer.

Rich states are more responsible for past emissions that created the climate problem today. They also will be the last to pay the price, poor communities in developing countries will be hit first. Earlier failed international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol emphasizes “common but differentiated responsibilities,” but the scale of the emission reductions required to halt climate change will undeniably require all hands on deck. It will require all states to reshape their economies around emission reductions and invest in greener sources of energy to continue sustainable development.

Climate expert Nicholas Stern argues that rigid formulas centered narrowly around emission quotas are ill-suited for solving equity problems and fails to capture the dynamic nature and potential of enacting climate-friendly policies, leading to stalemates and weak policy demands. He argues that while climate change will most certainly produce negative externalities in the future — ones that are so massive that it’s difficult to accurately estimate or quantify today —  centering climate discourse around developmental goals will better incentivize states. We should focus more on the positive externalities and public goods effective climate change responses can generate. Revolutionizing the ways we consume energy will not only reduce carbon emissions, but will also give us cleaner water and air, more energy security, more resilient economies, and can trigger cycles of innovation and economic development for all countries as they move towards low-carbon goals. Political discourse around climate should center around long-run opportunity rather than short-run costs.

States are the central agents of change —

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aims to achieve zero net emissions by 2050 and obliges states to enact state policies that domesticate international law. The top 10 global emitters of carbon dioxide — including China, the US, the EU, India, Russia, and Japan — collectively account for 70 percent of the world’s emissions. Until these countries make moves to accelerate their transition to a green economy, other developing countries are unlikely to reduce their carbon emissions. Coal fired power plants have pushed China past the US in emissions, but the US’s rolling back on industry regulations and environmental policies means the world’s largest economy is moving in the wrong direction. In addressing climate change, states must be the agents of change. Under the Paris Agreement, states must:

• “Prepare, communicate and maintain” successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

• “Pursue domestic mitigation measures” to achieve their NDCs

• Regularly report on their emissions and progress in achieving their NDCs

• “Represent a progression” from their last NDC and “reflect its highest possible ambition.”

But these are not legally binding obligations. Even with current NDCs, which are far from enough to achieve the goals of the climate agreement, big emission states are repeatedly falling short of their promises. In order to prevent the earth’s temperature from rising past dangerous thresholds, states must also strengthen their NDCs over time and increase their emission reduction targets.