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In Defense of Climate Debt Ethics: a Response to Olivier Godard

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In Defense of Climate Debt Ethics: a Response to Olivier Godard Working Papers in Human Ecology No. 5 Human Ecology Division Lund University In Defense of Climate Debt Ethics: A Response to Olivier Godard Rikard Warlenius 1 Previous titles published in the series Working Papers in Human Ecology: 1. Alf Hornborg: Ecology as Semiotics. Outlines of a Contextualist Paradigm for Human Ecology. 1996. 2. Per-A. Johansson; Evolution, Ecology, and Society. A Heuristic, Ontological Framework. 1997. 3. Mikael Kurkiala: Cosmology, Social Change, and Human-Environmental Relations Among the Lakota in the 18th and 19th Centuries. 2002. 4. Thomas Malm: Mo'ui. Tongan Names for Plants and Animals. 2007. In defense of climate debt ethics: A response to Olivier Godard Working Papers in Human Ecology no. 5. ISSN 1402-6902 © Rikard Warlenius, 2013 This publication can be downloaded for free at: http://www.hek.lu.se 2 Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 4 Part I: Background ........................................................................................................................ 8 The “Progressive Destruction” of the UNFCCC Negotiations ............................................. 8 LULUCF and the “Balanced Picture” ................................................................................. 10 An Ecological Debt “Doctrine”? ......................................................................................... 12 Legal Aspects and Kicking Dead Horses ............................................................................ 13 Part II: Analysis of Godard's Ethical Arguments ........................................................................ 17 Problems of Collective Responsibility ................................................................................ 17 The Democratic Proviso ............................................................................................. 18 Non-Responsibility for Past Emissions .................................................................... 20 The Problem of Ignorance .................................................................................................. 22 Contra the Beneficiary Argument ...................................................................................... 24 Uncertain Benefits ..................................................................................................... 24 Unequal Distribution does not Equal Wrongfulness ............................................... 28 Theoretical Puzzles ............................................................................................................. 30 The Nonidentity Problem ......................................................................................... 30 What is Damage? ....................................................................................................... 32 “Retrospective Illusion” ............................................................................................. 33 The Case for 'Grandfathering' ............................................................................................ 35 Methodological Problems .......................................................................................... 35 Acquired Rights and the Lockean Proviso ................................................................ 37 Final remarks: Alternative Justices and Alternatives to Justice ............................................... 45 References ................................................................................................................................... 48 3 Introduction In Ecological Debt and Historical Responsibility Revisited – The Case of Climate Change, Professor Olivier Godard, Senior Researcher at l'Ecole Polytechnique, rejects the claim of numerous scholars, governments and NGOs that developed countries owe an ecological debt, and as part of it, a climate debt, to developing countries due to the formers' historical emissions of greenhouse gases above the earth's absorbtive capacity. Professor Godard offers this rejection despite the fact that it is these historical emissions that are predominantly responsible for currently observed anthropogenic climate changes. Godard is of course not original in making this claim—all industrialized countries have in practice denied any historical responsibility, or ecological debt. For example, the US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern clearly argued from this claim during the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit when he said, “We absolutely recognize our historic role in putting emissions in the atmosphere, up there, but the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just categorically reject that” (Reuters 2009). Within political theory, however, Godard's and Stern's standpoints are very uncommon. There is a “surprisingly convergence of philosophical writers on the subject,” according to one of the most important of them, Stephen M Gardiner (2004), who goes on to state that “[such writers] are virtually unanimous in their conclusion that the developed countries should take the lead role in bearing the costs of climate change,” the main reason being that developed countries are responsible for a very large part of historical emissions. There are “notable differences about its justification, form and extent,” but nonetheless there is “agreement on the fact of responsibility” for past emissions (Ibid). Thus, among political theorists Godard should be seen as being quite alone in his dismissal of historical responsibility as such. Therefore, and also because his rejection is a lot more extensive and sophisticated than Stern's, the detailed response attempted here is warranted. Godard's paper is full of arguments and accusations, but my ambition here is not to comment on all of them, even though I have attempted to rebut the most important ones. Instead, the first part of this response comments on some of the more controversial claims Godard makes concerning history, natural science, politics and law, while the second part, which is where the main effort has been put, focuses on the ethics and justice arguments that form the heart of Godard’s argument. While most of Godard's paper aims at absolving industrialized countries from accusations that they 4 have a significant climate responsibility, he also goes so far as to blame the current stalemate in climate negotiations on developing countries—another of countless example of blaming the victims, this time of climate change for climate change.1 Godard's hypothesis is that developing countries are seduced by tempting rhetoric—the “inappropriate beliefs” of climate debt—and therefore set out to upset negotiations. His research question boils down to whether the negative evolution of climate negotiations since 2005 is “a case of progressive destruction of the possibilities of reaching a sound agreement?” (Godard 2012:1-2). This distribution of blame for climate change is rooted in a very controversial view of the very chemical contribution to climate change as “balanced” between industrialized and developed countries. In this way, part one of this paper contextualizes both this charge of a “progressive destruction” as well as the “balanced picture” of climate responsibility. Part one also provides further remarks on Godard's derogatory description of the “climate debt doctrine” and presents what are in my view better definitions. Finally, it deconstructs Godard's legal analysis of the historical responsibility claim.2 Ultimately, however, Godard’s research question asking who is to blame for the current negotiation stalemate is as much an ethical as an empirical question, which means that to be able to answer it a valuation of what ought to be done must be made. This valuation requires a comparison between this ought and what the negotiating parties have actually done (or committed themselves to do) to this point. Based on the premise that the partners which have failed to do what they ought to do are to blame, the ethical investigation of Godard's text—called “From the Standpoint of Moral Reflection” (Ibid: 8-20)—therefore corresponds with the goal of answering his primary research question. It is by defying the ethics of historical responsibility, which are defended by South, and embracing the ethics of grandfathering, favored by the North, that Godard seeks to verify his hypothesis. In the second part of this paper, I will make an attempt to falsify Godard’s hypothesis, argument by argument. I will show that his hypothesis is organized around ethical Godard’s debatable claims: about collective responsibility in space and time, problems of ignorance, the relevance of the beneficiary argument and some lingering philosophical “puzzles.” Finally, Godard's main alternative to the 1 Both sympathizer's of the climate debt concept and climate vulnerability are unproportionately concentrated to the 2 Godard's paper also includes a general discussion on “What does debt mean?” (Godard 2012: 4-6) which we do not fully agree on but find it less prioritized to comment on. That it ends with an astonishing quote should be noted, though: “in other words, the ecological debt construct tends dangerously to be the expression of a historically regressive movement against basic concepts of modernity” (Godard 2012: 6). 5 ecological debt perspective—grandfathering—is discussed. If Godard’s ethical claims can be successfully rejected, then it will follow that the current stalemate in negotiations cannot
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