Social Justice and Climate Change Governance

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Social Justice and Climate Change Governance
Royal Statistical Society9 March 2009

• Dr Jouni Paavola
• Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy
  (CCCEP)
• Sustainability Research Institute
• School of Earth and Environment
• University of Leeds

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Presentation outline

• What is governance?
• What is social justice?
• What is adaptation to climate change?
• Justice adaptation to climate change

www.cccep.ac.uk
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What is governance?

• Some distinguish between governance and
  government
• To govern to conduct policy affairs of a
  state to control or influence to constitute a
  rule, standard or principle
• Govt. is a part of governance
• Governance involves the creation enforcement of
  institutions
• Governance institutions range from local to
  global informal to formal

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Governance and justice

• Environmental governance institutions solve
  conflicts by creating, reaffirming or changing
  entitlements to environmental resources
• Entitlements determine which of the conflicting
  interests in environmental resources are realised
  and which are not
• Environmental governance is thus a matter of
  social (or environmental) justice rather than of
  economic efficiency
• Social justice encompasses both distributive and
  procedural justice

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Distributive justice

• DJ is concerned with the incidence of beneficial
  and adverse consequences
• Just deserts, equality, need, maximin
• Economic winners and losers framework too narrow
  and ethically problematic
• Economic, ecological, health and other impacts to
  be considered separately

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Procedural justice

• Procedural justice relates to the positioning of
  actors vis-à-vis decision-making and planning and
  encompasses
• Which parties and whose interests are recognised
  in environmental planning, decision-making and
  governance?
• Who can participate in environmental planning,
  decision-making and governance?
• What is the effective distribution of power in
  environmental planning, decision-making and
  governance?

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Distributive procedural justice

• Distributive and procedural justice are distinct
  areas of justice scholarship but intertwined in
  practice
• Distribution of income and wealth influences the
  ability of actors to participate in
  decision-making
• Voice in decision-making influences environmental
  plans and outcomes
• Reforms separating markets and political
  processes

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Adaptation to climate change

• Encompasses actions taken to avoid or to recover
  from harm caused by CC.
• Includes private and collective actions at local,
  national international levels
• Proactive and reactive measures
• public policies disaster management
• burden sharing arrangements insurance
• public goods services seasonal weather
  forecasts
• Investments flood protection
• behavioural changes migration

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Why adaptation matters?

• We have already committed next generations to
  adapt
• Even the most optimistic mitigation scenarios
  would cause significant climate change
• Just maintaining the atmospheric composition
  would change climate over the next centuries
• Ceasing to emit CO2 now would still mean decades
  of climate change

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Multi-level governance of adaptation

• UN Framework Convention for Climate Change
  (UNFCCC), its Protocols, Decisions of Conferences
  of the Parties, Vienna Convention on the Law of
  Treaties, and international custom
• Regional and national legislation regarding
  adaptation, natural disaster management and a
  number of other things including agriculture,
  land use planning etc..
• Local regulations

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Justice issues in adaptation
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Key issues in governance of adaptation

• Duty to assist vulnerable developing countries to
  adapt (Art. 4.4)
• Assistance framework funds
• Financial assistance?
• Capacity building
• Obligation to plan for adaptation (Art. 4.1)
• Impact assessments
• Vulnerability assessments
• Adaptation plans (NAPAs)
• Planning procedures (NAPAs)

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UNFCCC funds for assistance

• SCCF, LDCF, AF do already exist and function
• There is less than 300 million available for
  adaptation projects globally. There is no
  automatic replenishing of funds.
• Paavola and Adger (2006) suggest compensation and
  assistance flows to developing world should be in
  the range of 45-110 billion per annum.
• For comparison, current ODA is about 60 billion
  per annum globally.
• Shortage of funds will characterise adaptation in
  the years to come.
• Allocation of funds 1) between countries and 2)
  between types of projects becomes important. Are
  we going for
• greatest bang for the buck?
• Where need is?
• Minimisation of vulnerability?

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Vulnerability justice

• For social justice reasons, adaptation efforts
  should focus on most vulnerable groups?
• Vulnerability for the IPCC is a function of
  exposure, sensitivity adaptive capacity
• characteristics of people their situation that
  influence their capacity to anticipate, cope
  with, resist and recover from the impact of a
  natural hazard (or other stressor)
• Climate change impacts harm vulnerable groups
  more than others

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Differential Vulnerability I

• Climate related disasters do not affect GDP
  growth in developed countries noticeably.
• However, asset losses can amount to 3-4 of GDP
• In developing countries climate disasters tax
  10-25 of GDP
• In developed countries, most assets are insured.
  In developing countries, few of them are.

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Differential Vulnerability II

• Category 5 Hurricane Andrew killed 23 people in
  Florida in 1992
• Category 5 tropical cyclone killed 138 000 people
  in Bangladesh in 1991

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Conclusions

• Climate change has important social justice
  implications and therefore social justice is
  important for climate change governance
• While adaptation to climate change is being
  mainstreamed, as of yet insufficient attention
  has been placed on raising funds for assistance
  and clarifying principles and processes for their
  distribution.
• Lack of general progress in the global governance
  of atmospheric sinks is reflected in the number
  of unresolved justice issues.
• Notions of global benefits and additionality
  should not prevent vulnerability-based strategy
  for adaptation assistance.

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Social Justice and Climate Change Governance

• Dr Jouni Paavola
• Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy
  (CCCEP)
• Sustainability Research Institute
• School of Earth and Environment
• University of Leeds