Abstract
This Chapter presents a framework of justice for international adaptation funding. It opens with investigation of justice in international adaptation funding, whose main dimensions are explored in light of the broad definition of it adopted. The Chapter then develops a framework for both procedural and distributive justice in funding adaptation at the international level by defining fairness and equity criteria based on two significant liberal theories of justice: John Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness, and Amartya Sen’s capability approach. Specifically, procedural justice can be operationalized through the fairness criteria of Inclusion of all countries, Possibilities to specify the terms of participation, and Commitment to assistance from richer to poorer. Distributive justice is operationalized on the burden-sharing side by the equity criterion of Differentiated historical responsibility, and on the allocation side by that of Lack of human security.
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Notes
- 1.
It should be briefly explained why it is argued here that the atmospheric capacity to absorb GHG is a basic right, that is, the minimum reasonable demand that every subject makes on the rest of humanity. The atmosphere’s capacity for absorption can be conceptualized as an ecological space which enables humankind to live in an ‘environment adequate for their health and well-being’ (Hayward, 2007, p. 440) thanks to the preservation of climate stability. Therefore just access to the atmosphere, be it egalitarian, prioritarian or sufficientarian, and the consequent provision of climate stability, relates to the appropriation of it by humans. In this sense a universalized just access to the atmosphere is a basic right, that is a condition sine qua non for erecting fuller systems of non-basic rights, and ultimately a matter of basic justice, as the Inuit petition referred to in Chapter 5 underlines. From a slightly different perspective, a just access to the atmosphere can also be seen as a development right of poorer countries (Baer et al., 2008), as long as current economic and social patterns of development are still largely based on carbon-emitting energy services.
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- 3.
It is however true that Rawls paid scarce attention to the environment and treated it as an extension to his theory of justice. Environmental goods may in fact be pursued only within the primary schemes that Rawlsian distributive justice requires.
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Grasso, M. (2010). The Framework of Justice. In: Justice in Funding Adaptation under the International Climate Change Regime. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3439-7_4
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