Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Edited by Clare Heyward and Dominic Roser

Features original contributions from leading experts in the field of climate change
Explores the topic of climate justice in non-ideal circumstances
Provides firm grounding in theory combined with practical application
Explores the role of moral language and theory in climate politics

Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Edited by Clare Heyward and Dominic Roser

Description

Climate change is a pressing international political issue, for which a practical but principled solution is urgently required. Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World aims to make normative theorising on climate justice more relevant and applicable to political realities and public policy.

The motivation behind this edited collection is that normative theorising has something to offer even in an imperfect world mired by partial compliance and unfavourable circumstances. In the last years, a lively debate has sprung up in political philosophy about non-ideal theory and there has also been an upsurge of interest in the various normative issues raised by climate change such as intergenerational justice, transnational harm, collective action, or risk assessment. However, there has been little systematic discussion of the links between climate justice and non-ideal theory even though the former would seem like a paradigm example of the relevance of the latter. The aim of this edited volume is to address this. In doing so, the volume presents original work from leading experts on climate ethics, including several who have participated in climate policy.

The first part of the book discusses those facets of the debate on climate justice that become relevant due to the shortcomings of current global action on climate change. The second part makes specific suggestions for adjusting current policies and negotiating procedures in ways that are feasible in the relatively short term while still decreasing the distance between current climate policy and the ideal. The chapters in the third and final part reflect upon how philosophical work can be brought to bear on the debates in climate science, communication, and politics.

Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Edited by Clare Heyward and Dominic Roser

Introduction
Part I: Facing Reality: Responding to an Unjust World
1. Climate Change and Non-Ideal Theory: Six Ways of Responding to Non-Compliance, Simon Caney
2. A Climate of Disorder: What to do About the Obstacles to Effective Climate Politics, Aaron Maltais
3. Difference-Making and Individuals' Climate-Related Obligations, Holly Lawford-Smith
4. Reducing Injustice within the Bounds of Motivation, Dominic Roser
5. Taking UNFCCC Norms Seriously, Darrel Moellendorf
Part II: Less Injustice: Steps in the Right Direction
6. Justice and Choice of Legal Instrument under the Durban Mandate: Ideal and Not So Ideal Legal Forms, Peter Lawrence
7. Emissions Trading Schemes in a 'Non-Ideal' World, Jonathan Aldred
8. A Responsible Path: Advancing a Full-Participation Climate Regime through Enhanced Action on Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, Andrew Light and Gwynne Taraska
9. Climate Justice for LDCs Through Global Decisions, Achala Abeysinghe and Saleemul Huq
10. A Free Movement Passport for the Territorially Dispossessed, Clare Heyward and Jorgen Odalen
Part III: Dealing with Controversy: The Role of Moral Claims
11. Aristotle on the Ethics of Communicating Climate Change, Melissa Lane and Michael Lamb
12. Moral Language in Climate Politics, Jonathan Pickering
13. The Costs of Moralizing: How About a 'Government House Climate Ethics'?, Christian Seidel
14. Principles or Pathways? Improving the Contribution of Philosophical Ethics to Climate Policy, Martin Kowarsch and Ottmar Edenhofer

Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Edited by Clare Heyward and Dominic Roser

Author Information

Clare Heyward is a Leverhulme Early Career Researcher at the University of Warwick. Before joining the University of Warwick, she was James Martin Research Fellow on the Oxford Geoengineering Programme. Clare is interested in issues of global distributive justice and intergenerational justice, especially those connected to climate change.

Dominic Roser is Research Fellow in the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations at the University of Oxford. With a background in philosophy and economics, his research is located in contemporary political philosophy. His work focuses on various aspects of the debate on climate ethics such as intergenerational justice, global justice, non-ideal theory, risk, human rights, and the normative foundations of climate economics. Together with Christian Seidel, he has co-authored an introduction to climate ethics and he has collaborated in various interdisciplinary and policy-relevant projects.

Contributors:

Achala Chandani Abeysinghe, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London.
Jonathan Aldred, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.
Simon Caney, Magdalen College, University of Oxford.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Technical University (TU) Berlin.
Clare Heyward, University of Warwick.
Saleemul Huq, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London.
Martin Kowarsch, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) Berlin.
Michael Lamb, Manchester College, University of Oxford.
Melissa Lane, Princeton University.
Holly Lawford-Smith, University of Sheffield.
Peter Lawrence, University of Tasmania Law School.
Andrew Light, George Mason University.
Aaron Maltais, Stockholm University.
Darrel Moellendorf, Johann Wolfgang Universität Frankfurt am Main.
Jörgen Ödalen, Linköping University, Sweden.
Jonathan Pickering, University of Canberra, Australia.
Dominic Roser, University of Oxford.
Christian Seidel, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Gwynne Taraska, Center for American Progress, USA.

Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Edited by Clare Heyward and Dominic Roser

Reviews and Awards

"Collectively, the chapters provide an effective treatment of normative issues in climate politics and policy, with a uniformly strong set of contributions that are coherently organized and well informed by the realities of climate politics as well as the methods of and debates within political theory and applied ethics, and so the book should be of interest and use to scholars both of justice and of environmental politics and governance. While the separate chapters only occasionally address one another directly, they speak to common themes and could thus prove suitable for use in graduate-level teaching, as well as provide a primer on current questions in and approaches to the scholarly field of climate justice, with the variety of normative theories and methods that Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World seeks to apply to this important contemporary environmental problem." -- Perspectives on Politics