Constraining supply: a just response to a climate transition?

Abstract

Many authors have noted the potential economic and political advantages of supply side measures. But what is missing in this debate is an evaluation of the moral advantages of supply side constraints. This paper aims to fill that gap. Considering the moral advantages is important because of the role that moral considerations ought to play in a climate transition. No matter what technologies we choose or policy mechanisms we adopt to achieve a climate transition, each will produce benefits and burdens, and those benefits and burdens (particularly the burdens) will have to be paid for and shared by individuals or groups within society. Sharing benefits and burdens within (and between) societies is a question of distributive justice. I will argue that adopting supply side measures has the potential to make a climate transition significantly more just. My claim is that, especially in respect of fossil fuel exports, supply side measures have four distinct moral advantages: they target the right agents, allow us to rank our responses, deal with the problem of fossil fuel exports and may deliver an egalitarian dividend.