Suchergebnisse

Examines climate change governance in relation to ethicsThis book evaluates the global response to climate change from a cosmopolitan justice perspective. Going above and beyond existing studies, Alix Dietzel neatly illustrates that climate justice theory can be used to normatively assess and compare both state (multilateral) and non-state (transnational) climate change governance – in other words, that theory and practice can be bridged.Investigating the role of states, cities, corporations, and non-governmental organisations in the post-Paris Agreement era, Dietzel provides fresh insight into the 'big picture' of climate change (mis)management and the injustices that come along with it. These insights allow her to make recommendations for change that should be of keen interest to climate justice scholars and climate governance practitioners alike

AbstractThe Paris Agreement was largely viewed as a resounding success by those who took part in its negotiation. This paper examines whether these claims hold up to closer scrutiny. More specifically, the paper will assess whether the Paris Agreement protects the human right to health. Considering that the widely celebrated 1.5°C target aims to protect present and future generations from the effects of climate change, which include substantial threats to human health, this is an especially pertinent area of study for climate justice theorists. Despite the threats climate change poses to human health, the subject of health has been somewhat neglected among climate justice scholars and policy makers alike. This paper illustrates that a focus on health can reveal much about the inadequacies of the Paris Agreement and multilateral climate change governance more widely. Unfolding in two parts, the paper first focuses on human health, explaining how this is threated by climate change and why a human rights based climate justice approach can highlight the importance of these threats and define what is morally required of policy makers. Part two of the paper turns to the assessment of the Paris Agreement, focusing on whether the policy makers who negotiated the Agreement have met these requirements. By briefly examining what has been promised in the Convention and what has been achieved under the Kyoto Protocol to date, the paper is able to assess whether the Paris Agreement represents a significant departure from the so far inadequate response to the climate change problem. It will be illustrated that although there has been a small step forward, the Paris Agreement cannot be said to represent a just response which protects the right to health of present and future generations.

The city of Bristol, UK, set out to pursue a just transition to climate change in 2020. This paper explores what happened next. We set out to study how just transition is unfolding politically on the ground, focusing on procedural justice. Over the course of a year, we conducted interviews and observations to study decision making at three levels – public sector, private sector and civil society. We found that not only is it difficult to define what just transition means, even for experts, but that the process of deciding how to pursue such a transition is highly exclusionary, especially to women and ethnic minorities. We therefore argue there is an urgency to revise decision-making procedures and ensure that there is ample opportunity to feed into decision-making processes by those who are typically excluded. Inclusive decision making must be embedded into the process of just transition from the beginning and throughout its implementation – it is not a step that can be 'ticked off' and then abandoned, but rather an ongoing process that must be consistently returned to. Finally, we conclude that cities have the unique opportunity to pilot bottom-up participatory approaches and to feed into the process of how a just transition might be pursued at the global level – for example, through their participation in the United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) processes.