Crossing the borders of justice : a philosophical study of climate change, justice and environment
Authors
Date
2011Discipline
FilosofiaPhilosophyKansainvälinen kehitystyö (maisteriohjelma)Master's Degree Programme in Development and International CooperationAccess restrictions
This material has a restricted access due to copyright reasons. It can be read at the workstation at Jyväskylä University Library reserved for the use of archival materials: https://kirjasto.jyu.fi/en/workspaces/facilities.
This thesis studies climate change as a problem of justice from the point of view of political philosophy, especially the distributive model of social justice. The main problem is to examine what justice in the context of climate change means and how it differs from and challenges the traditional ways of conceptualizing justice in terms of distribution. The main argument is that climate change is not simply a problem to be redressed by getting distributive aspects right, and in order to move on from remedial approaches towards preventing further damage it is necessary to discuss the issue in terms of refraining from harming.
Climate change is understood in this thesis as fundamentally a question of justice. Justice in this context requires not only fairer allocation of shares of atmospheric capacity to absorb emissions and more generally of ecological space, but also shifting focus to the structures that maintain and reproduce the inequalities in access to environmental goods and distribution of burdens related to climate change. Also participation, which pertains to the domain of procedural justice, of the most vulnerable and powerless people and countries is a crucial aspect of climate justice. Climate change has catalyzed diverse claims and conceptualizations of justice, which reflects the condition of radical heterogenization of justice discourse. A climate treaty cannot address all these legitimate concerns, but this should not be confused with the idea that we should level down the claims of justice.
While the idea of compensation of climate related damages is not entirely rejected, critical points about the possibility of compensating environmental goods such as atmospheric commons are raised. Compensatory justice has the same problem as distributive justice: it cannot create more of the depleted resource that is actually needed more than monetary compensation or substitute. In the discussion of the implications of scarcity on distribution and climate politics, the limitations of the ideas of distribution (as it is usually understood) and compensation become even more evident.
This thesis examines climate change as a form of doing harm. This is a relatively novel approach to climate change and justice, because usually the debates revolve around the distributive aspects and not on normative analysis of the actions that contribute to climate change itself. The viewpoint of harm opens new possibilities to examine justice in climate change.
...
Alternative title
Philosophical study of climate change, justice and environmentKeywords
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
- Pro gradu -tutkielmat [29524]
Related items
Showing items with similar title or keywords.
-
Putting global poverty in context : a philosophical essay on power, justice and economy
Eskelinen, Teppo (University of Jyväskylä, 2009)Teppo Eskelinen tarkastelee väitöskirjatyössään äärimmäiseen köyhyyteen sisältyviä eettisiä ongelmia yhteiskuntafilosofian näkökulmasta. Usein oletetaan, että maailman hyväosaisilla on moraalisia velvollisuuksia poistaa ... -
Justice in and to nature : an application of the broad framework of environmental and ecological justice
Kortetmäki, Teea (University of Jyväskylä, 2017)This dissertation applies and develops the broad framework of environmental and ecological justice. It is a new relational approach to justice, whose elements have been introduced by David Schlosberg in his works on ... -
Right to Food and Geoengineering
Kortetmäki, Teea; Oksanen, Markku (Springer, 2023)Climate change poses grave risks to food security, and mitigation and adaptation actions have so far been insufficient to lessen the risk of climate-induced violations of the right to food. Could safeguarding the right to ... -
Building up an ecologically sustainable and socially desirable post-COVID-19 future
Duflot, Rémi; Baumeister, Stefan; Burgas, Daniel; Eyvindson, Kyle; Triviño, María; Blattert, Clemens; Kuparinen, Anna; Potterf, Mária (Springer, 2021)COVID-19 crisis has emphasized how poorly prepared humanity is to cope with global disasters. However, this crisis also offers a unique opportunity to move towards a more sustainable and equitable future. Here, we identify ... -
Copenhagen failure : a rhetorical treatise of how speeches unite and divide mankind
Kortetmäki, Teea (2010)The purpose of this treatise is to analyse five of the Copenhagen Climate Convention's main speeches to see how they supported or weakened the agreement possibilities in the convention. Particular focus will be on the ...