Justice in adaptation to climate change

1. Justice in adaptation to climate change Neil Adger Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK n.adger@uea.ac.uk

2. Linking justice and environmental change ‘There will be no lasting peace while there is appalling injustice and poverty. There will be no genuine security if the planet is ravaged by climate change’ Tony Blair - ‘Concerted international effort necessary to fight climate change’ 24th February 2003.

3. What is justice? • Distributive justice or equity - the distribution of beneficial and adverse consequences (welfare, impacts, etc.) of an act or choice. • Procedural justice - the way in which decisions are made. Whose interests count? Who can participate?How is power distributed among those that can participate? Distributive and procedural justice can focus on one overarching consequence or principle, or acknowledge multiple consequences or principles

4. Dilemmas of Climate Justice Mitigation issues • Historical responsibility (international) • Burden sharing rules (international) • Impacts of domestic mitigation measures (local scale) Impact and adaptation issues • Spatial distribution of impacts (local to global) • Social distribution of resilience and adaptive capacity (local to global) • Threats to non-human species (universal)

5. Analysing justice in climate change adaptation Two year strategic assessment examining: Justice in international conventions Justice in adaptation policies Justice in everyday adaptation actions

6. What is adaptation? • Adaptation is (usually) purposive action • Adaptation is ‘adjustment in ecological, social or economic systems in response to actual or expected climate stimuli and their effects or impacts. … to moderate damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change’

7. Justice criteria • Utilitarianism – e.g. Pareto rules on maximising aggregate welfare • Rawlsian – maximin / difference principles • Simple equality – distribution according to even division across population • Desert – fairness determined by contribution to public good

8. Justice and the atoll island nations With global sea level rise, when will islands be uninhabitable (what criteria)? There are five nations wholly atolls. Expectations and risk – impacts of expectations of abandonment on investment, and insurance. Sustainable utilisation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources – utilise to extinction and deplete to zero Expectations of future over-exploitation leads to breakdown in present day collective action Source: Barnett and Adger (2003) Climatic Change 61, 321-337

9. Justice and the atoll island nations Global action as implied by Rawls ‘Theory of Justice’ 1 just actions - maximise the welfare of the most vulnerable application of difference principle to global action would lead all countries acting as if their states would cease to exist 2 Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’ states would act as if there were an no prior knowledge of which state disappears? 3 But Rawls’ theories hold only for individuals, not collective action, imply risk aversion in decision-making, etc Source: Barnett and Adger (2003)

10. Justice in the Context of Adaptation

11. World development Indicators derived from: Global greenhouse gases Legitimacy of the sources of information Global climate models Regionalisation Behavioural change observed through markets or other collective action Impacts Vulnerability (physical) Experienced or perceived dangerous climate change Expert’s dangerous climate change Determinants Vulnerability (social) Trust in regulators and other authorities Adaptive capacity Amount of information available Indicators based on: Personal experience and recall (e.g. of extreme events) Technology Economic resources Information & skills Infrastructure Wealth and health Equity Institutions Internal definition External definition Values and worldviews Components of external and internal definitions of dangerous climate change Source: Dessai et al. (2003) at www.tyndall.ac.uk

12. Physical thresholds for externally defined dangerous climate change L Large-scale eradication of coral reef systems (O’Neill and Oppenheimer, 2002) 2.       Disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Vaughan and Spouge, 2002) 3.       Breakdown of the thermohaline circulation (Rahmstorf, 2000) 4.       Qualitative modification of crucial climate-system patterns such as ENSO and NAO 5.       Climate change exceeding the rate at which biomes can migrate (Malcom and Markham, 2000)

13. Social thresholds for externally defined dangerous climate change .       Depopulation of sovereign atoll countries 8.   Additional millions of people at risk from water shortage, malaria, hunger and coastal flooding 9.       Destabilisation of international order by environmental refugees and emergence of conflicts 1 World impacts exceeding a threshold percentage of GDP

14. Observations on Justice in Local Adaptation

15. Observations on Justice in International Law on Adaptation

16. Towards a ranking of principles consistent with sustainable development

17. Implications of this ranking

18. Judging whether adaptation is sustainable Justice is one element Efficiency(e.g. cost effectiveness) Effectiveness (e.g. reduction of risk, impact on well-being) Equity Legitimacy Justice

19. Conclusions • Justice has distributive and procedural implications: 1 for the UNFCCC rules 2 for national planning for adaptation 3 for regulation of individual adaptation actions • Justice in mitigation is mirrored in justice in adaptation • Pluralism is necessary for multi-dimension, multi-values area of adaptation • Monism more desirable for international law