Climate Justice Beyond the State

Description

Virtually every figure in the climate justice literature agrees that states are presently failing to discharge their duties to take action on climate change. Few, however, have attempted to think through what follows from that fact from a moral point of view. In Climate Justice Beyond the State, Lachlan Umbers and Jeremy Moss argue that states’ failures to take action on climate change have important implications for the duties of the most important actors states contain within them – sub-national political communities, corporations, and individuals – actors that have been largely neglected in the climate justice literature, to date. Sub-national political communities and corporations, they argue, have duties to immediately, aggressively, and unilaterally reduce their emissions. Individuals, on the other hand, have duties to help promote collective action on climate change. Along the way, they contribute to a range of important contemporary debates, including those over the nature of collective duties, what agents are required to do under conditions of partial compliance, and the requirements of fairness. Targeted at academic philosophers working on climate justice, this book will also be of great interest to students and scholars of global justice, applied ethics, political philosophy, and environmental humanities. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Impending crisis, global intransigence Climate justice and the state Climate justice beyond the state Overview 1 The climate duties of sub-national political communities The devolution principle National-level duties Sub-national political communities’ devolved duties Partial compliance Carbon leakage Conclusion 2 The climate duties of corporations The contributions and capacities of the carbon majors The duties of the carbon majors in practice Conclusion 3 The climate duties of individuals Duties to promote collective action The act-consequentialist approach Free-riding Moral free-riding Objections Conclusion Conclusion Motivational concerns Unilateralism Institution-level implications Individual-level implications Final thoughts Bibliography Index