One aspect of climate change is overlooked by politicians, commentators, and big NGOs alike: equity.
The suffering that climate change will bring is going to be visited primarily on the globe's most vulnerable populations -- the very people who have done the least to cause the problem. Any response to climate change that hopes to gain international legitimacy must take equity as a central organizing principle.
As I see it, climate equity involves two central issues. First, how the vulnerable and innocent can be protected from the ravages of climate change; second, how those most responsible for climate change can be assigned commensurate responsibility for solving the problem.
I want to do what I can to help move the issue of climate equity into the mainstream conversation. To that end, I've contacted several people who are active thinking, writing, and advocating around the issue. I've asked them each to send me answers to the following three questions:
- What would climate equity look like? What's the end state we're aiming for?
- What are the policy steps that start us down the road?
- What's needed, politically speaking, to marshal support for those policy steps?
I'll be publishing their answers over the coming weeks.
If you know of people doing good work in the area, let me know and I'll contact them -- the more voices involved in this conversation the better.
New interactive map shows devastating effects of global temperature rise
Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 9:45 am
15 Oct 2007
The reason that Al Gore and the status quo of energy companies, clothing companies, real estate owners and other fear Global Heating is because it makes their services far less necessary.
The poor of the world will benefit from
More arable land available
Less need for insulated housing
Better health because of milder winters
Less need for health care
Less need for heating energy
Less need and wear and tear on clothing
Shorter milder winters will benefit the poorest of the poor.
Gore is part of the group that owns Park Place and Boardwalk -- they want to make sure you keep landing on their hotels.
Global warming makes the board much bigger with lots more Baltic Avenues...and Gore doesn't want that to happen!
John Bailo
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jcwinnie Posted 11:05 am
15 Oct 2007
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Colin Wright Posted 11:22 am
15 Oct 2007
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sindark Posted 11:24 am
15 Oct 2007
For instance, see:
A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption
Shue argues that allowing climate change is to inflict harm on people vulnerable to us, but to whom we are invulnerable (future generations). As a result, climate inaction falls into the general moral category of the infliction of harm upon the defenceless.
a sibilant intake of breath
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:05 pm
15 Oct 2007
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:04 pm
15 Oct 2007
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In the belly Posted 1:06 pm
15 Oct 2007
Who are the doers of good work to contact? Maybe the many talented at the Times-Picayune or Douglas Brinkley for context, folks from Global Green or Mercy Corps or Common Ground for response.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:25 am
16 Oct 2007
Environmentalism prevents the latest GMO, agrichem technology from being used in food production and disease prevention (insect poisoning with DDT, for instance). That causes food shortage and disease outbreaks that kill millions.
The response. Climate equity.
Climate equity is another form of the idea that social and political policy ought to lift all boats, with more lift to those in poverty because they need it just to survive.
The problem is accepting the premise that stimulated the reponse. Buy the false premise that environmentalism amounts to genocide of the poor and it leads down all sorts of garden paths that pander to the nut wing's favorite causes.
The main all encompassing cause? As Grover Norquist puts it, to turn back the "socialist" policies started by Teddy Roosevelt and furthered by FDR. They want to bankrupt government and turn everything it does over to "contractors".
Turn defense over to Halliburton and Blackwater, turn the highways and ports over to the highest bidding foreign corporations (already in progress), and turn government policy making and lawmaking over to lobbyists for corporate power (mostly acomplished also). Sell national parks to the highest foreign bidders as vacation homes.
Not much more pandering to corporate power is needed to complete the transition. Don't say you weren't warned when the Blackwater highway patrol opens fire on your fanily on your next driving vacation. No whining. Your deaths will benefit the bottomline. Hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Erik Hoffner Posted 1:08 am
16 Oct 2007
Sheila Watt Cloutier is an obvious suggestion of whom to talk to.
Bikenibeu Paeniu, former prime minister of Tuvalu, is a good one, too. As PM he declared that his island nation would be the first to be lost to rising seas. He's now a member of parliament, and has made numerous statements on the issue of equity and climate.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Pangolin Posted 1:11 am
16 Oct 2007
India is currently building a fortified fence on it's border with Bangledesh. In Africa several million people are trying to rebuild their lives after flooding. Australia is refusing to take refugees from flooded islands in the Southern Pacific.
What we will do with environmental refugees whose lives have been destroyed by Climate Change is well demonstrated by the current state of the former residents of New Orleans. We may transport the survivors if we feel like it. Most will be left to their own devices and will die.
Put the Carbon Back
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tidal Posted 1:36 am
16 Oct 2007
If you assign "responsibility" for, say, 70% of the accumulated greenhouse gases (or other environmental degradations/depletions) to the developed countries... and ask that they bear somewhat equitable and commensurate costs for same... Do they get any "credit" for the "global commons" of welfare "goods" that they have provided (albeit on the backs of fossil fuels, etc.)?
I am thinking of things like:
o immunizations, antibiotics, insulin, much of modern medicine in general;
o telephony and global communications infrastructure;
o the electric grid;
o modern refrigeration;
o etc.
One could argue that (a) the inventors are/have been properly compensated in the market, or (b) that these are not "net goods" (e.g. the electric grid contributed to fossil fuel consumption)... but I think it is more mainstream to consider these inventions, etc., as a positive legacy of the developed world that the "vulnerable and innocent" benefit from. If you are going to impose costs/responsibilities for environmental accumulated degradation, will there be room for some offsets to account for the "goods"?
Like I said, the thought is not fully formed, but I am certain that if you are going to engage in a topic as broad as "climate equity" it is going to come up... If you are going to consider negative externalities, do you need to account for positive externalities?
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Penfold007 Posted 2:13 am
16 Oct 2007
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Adi Posted 3:42 am
16 Oct 2007
I love what you're trying to do with this series and I agree with your objectives 100%, but one quibble... why call it climate "equity"? Lets go a step farther and call it climate justice! Climate change is the largest environmental justice challenge our planet has ever faced and the grassroots groups working on these issues see themselves as part of a climate JUSTICE movement, not a "climate equity" movement. The idea of climate justice is aspirational and I believe that is the term we should embrace - equity sounds weak in comparision. With that said...
There is a third dimension to climate (in)justice beyond disproportionate impacts and responsibilities, and that is the idea of who is involved in formulating solutions. The communities that are worst impacted by climate change (people of color, low-income, indigenous, developing nations - we have to name it) must have a seat at the policy-making table. Climate policy formulated poorly can actually create additional social, economic and environmental hardships for already marginalized communities and we must avoid this pitfall.
Finally, good people to talk to... the Indigenous Environmental Network (Tom Goldtooth) and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (Nia Robinson) are both doing fantastic grassroots climate justice work. Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC has been outspoken about the connections between climate change, development and poverty. Tomorrow the Global Development and Economic Institute at Tufts University is presenting an award to economists Jojo Kwame Sundaram and Steven DeCanio for their work on climate equity. The list could go on and on... I look forward to reading this series!
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Jacl Posted 10:22 pm
16 Oct 2007
* make a distinction between national social justice and global social justice
* realise that carbon isnt all climate isnt all environment isnt all sustainable development.
* "knee jerk responses" are not going to solve complex problems like climate change - this is the finding from our biggest supermarkets who until this week were firmly behind the food miles campaigns.
* Trade offs are hard but need to be made in order to move forward and aim for sustainable development. But how can you weigh or trade-off poor African farmers' livelihoods and your carbon footprint?
Other blogs are talking about these issues: see Tall Economist this month.[http://tall-economisy.blogspot.com]
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auggster Posted 7:55 am
30 Oct 2007
Global warming will not only heat things to the point of being mild, but quite past the point. It will do so, also, in unpredictable and uneven patterns, with severe consequences - as the earth climate forces struggle to balance itself against an increasingly disrupted and destabilized ecosystem.
On the contrary, heat is not, by definition, benign nor benevolent. Aside from the obvious and severe havoc wreaked on the ecosystem, there are severe health consequences as well - to dispute your #3 and #4 points. Lest we forget the health effects of extreme heat and heat waves - most recently, during the Chicago marathon? Dehydration, heat stroke, increased incidence of foodborne and waterborne disease, as well as expansion of malarial and other vector-borne disease zones, are just a few of the direct implications of increased "heat", particularly for those who may not be able to devote an even greater amount of limited incomes to pay for "air conditioning". Malnutrition and starvation will likely follow suit, especially as climate change alters growing conditions and water patterns to choke the yields of already strained fields. Less vegetation means less food for all as, surprisingly enough!, cows and pigs can't subsist on air, but instead, require fields on which to graze and grow their "feed".
And, if indeed "shorter milder winters" will benefit the poorest of the poor, why is it, in countries with virtually no winter to speak of, these effects are anticipated to have the most pronounced (and inequitable) impact?
Perhaps you should expand your horizons past those of the U.S.? as well as read up more on the topic before you rush to suspect others' motives, and jump on conspiracy theories accusing the "man"?
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Rob Burr Posted 8:46 am
05 Nov 2007
Robert Burr
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