Justice and the Assignment of the Intergenerational Costs of Climate Change

Matters of intergenerational justice are fundamental to discussions of justice and climate change. This is the case for several reasons. We are confident that our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are having an effect on the global climate system. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) six different climate models in their Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) predict global mean temperature increases ranging from 1.8°C to 4.0°C during this century.1 This is projected to increase global mean sea levels by 0.18 to 0.59 meters.2 The attendant weather changes are less certain, as is how they will vary from region to region. But some of the effects that AR4 predicts as very likely include hotter high temperatures, more frequent heat waves, and greater precipitation in high latitudes. Effects that it estimates as likely include decreased precipitation in the subtropics and increased intensity of tropical cyclones.3 The Third Assessment Report (TAR) warns of a weakening of the thermohaline circulation and its possible abrupt shutdown after 2100.4 Unlike TAR, however, AR4 does not discuss the probabilities of severe or catastrophic adverse effects. But this absence is the subject of controversy among climate scientists, some of whom charge that politically motivated redactions to AR4 occurred.5 The effects of anthropogenic climate change will produce costs for persons in the future who will have to adapt to the changes. Crops will need to be changed or farmers will have to move. For many people food security will be threatened; some will go hungry as a result; other will starve. Homes and communities will need to be moved as sea levels rise. Some houses will be wiped out by sudden extreme storms. TAR stresses the disproportionate costs of adaptation for lower-income populations and the risks to populations in low-lying coastal regions and small islands. In general it predicts that, “[t]he impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries, and thereby exacerbate inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources.”6 A recent study indicates that more than six hundred million people (ten percent of the world's population) live in low lying areas at higher risk to sea-level rises, and this amount is expected to increase as the urbanization of the global population continues.7 The effects of climate change and the costs of adapting to it can be mitigated by our policy choices. Such choices will produce mitigation costs for us as they will require significantly different energy production and use policies. Cleaner sources of energy are more expensive. The relative costs of the alternative sources of energy can be brought down by increasing the costs of using fossil fuels. But an increase in the absolute costs of energy is then guaranteed. It is highly unlikely that there will be significant mitigation without incurring such increased costs. The costs of adaptation and mitigation apply to a number of activities satisfying very important human interests, such as transportation, heating and cooling, shelter, food cultivation and production, security, income, government, and recreation. The assignment of the costs of mitigation and adaptation then is an important matter of justice. The matter of justice is between generations. It takes time to reduce global CO2 emissions. We have no experience of doing so yet. But even if we begin reducing, the IPCC projects that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to increase in the absence of very large emissions reductions.8 TAR holds that “[s]tabilization of CO2 concentrations at any level requires the eventual reduction of global CO2 net emissions to a small fraction of the current level.”9 The level at CO2 concentrations are will the assignment of a higher level will mitigation costs higher costs. In any even after concentrations of temperature will continue to by a of a for a or and sea levels will continue to for many The of intergenerational justice are fundamental to an of justice and climate change in the absence of an of to future any global for the mitigation costs of climate change a such as that the as a to the will be It be on the relative that of a their without an be no that the it to future generations. a on this of intergenerational an CO2 however, in the of a In this for the of the intergenerational costs of climate change. on the is a for several reasons. The among how to to intergenerational and how to of the between the of and costs. of that are to a of a that intergenerational costs. In for the intergenerational assignment of the costs of climate it is important to in that CO2 emissions are not of adapting to or climate of transportation, and we will have to for that CO2 it is the case that the the activities that have CO2 have important and that we continue to and that future will reduction in costs for future will costs for the and and a reduction in for the and This is important for reasons. is that it is to the costs that future will from to the in that to to our The is that in the absence of a significant change in the global the future poor can be expected to in the of adaptation and we our to the costs of mitigation will likely be to who are In the a on the intergenerational that we without some of the assignment of the costs and of adaptation and The that the assignment of the costs of mitigation and adaptation are of justice significantly any of the assignment of the intergenerational costs of climate change. 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future be the be on this But it is not the case that future persons are who greater costs of climate change than we our For they not have for does not the of in any so it is to the that of the absence of is not there is no for the or by that is an a or however, it that persons who their to that to a or requires the that it and the that the of have without then the case of of the in the during the time of not have for the of This is to of we the of such as the to very many of not The of people in the at the time of to have a even they not for This is to persons who that their of climate costs is The that in the case of any not for this does not from it to have an and from it in that Such in not to be The for so to be that that are to interests, that is the of that the of the of does not is in in the the are an not an to the is not to they can it even they not have for the The in the case of a not that a that for the not But the is more or less the does not to be a that in some the have 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will the of reduction of the of the costs of mitigation that will be than the of the costs that the future will for even if the costs are This is for reasons. 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