Climate justice

Climate Justice (Climate justice) is a normative political concept and part of environmental justice. It provides, inter alia, to be that of leading to global warming greenhouse gas emissions greatly reduced and also divided the world cater to all people. In addition, climate justice is to compensate for the unequal distribution of the consequences of global warming.

The term is hidden in part the idea of ​​contraction and convergence, which has been developed by various preparatory work in 1995 by the Global Commons Institute. In German-speaking climate justice was known until 2007 on the related concept of " carbon justice " to a wider public, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared him a potential cornerstone of a future global climate policy. So you also took up a claim of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai for a fair balance between rich and poor countries. Large parts of Africa about contribute little to greenhouse gas emissions per capita. The Heinrich Böll Foundation has presented an alternative approach to the concept of the Greenhouse Development Rights.

Climate justice would therefore be realized on the emission side, if every person would be entitled to a carbon budget in the amount of 1-2 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, with any necessary consideration of the so-called historical emissions of developed countries in detail is controversial. This value would enable many developing countries, a partly considerable increase in GHG emissions. For the main cause of climate change, the industrialized nations, however, this would amount to a reduction of up to 95%.

The proposal has been on the scientific symposium Global Sustainability - A Nobel Cause discussed from 8 to 10 October 2007 in Potsdam. In the Potsdam Memorandum worked there a development is required towards equal per capita emission rights, combined with simultaneously be achieved by reduction of the total emissions of greenhouse gases. "Carbon justice" is, according to the memorandum is one of eight key elements to achieve a stabilization of the climate.

Prior to the UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw Angela Merkel repeated on May 6, 2013 at the fourth Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin its appeal to a fair contract solution in climate policy:

" Let me come back to the question of justice. We know it 's about the two-degree target. We know at some point, how many CO2 emissions that means in relation to a particular year. We basically know that the long term if we look at the world's population, each inhabitant of this earth should emit about two tons of CO2. "

An allied nation was in the process India. India have accepted such participatory politics as a fair approach. However, Merkel conceded that meet the proposal either in Europe or in the U.S. or China with great approval, all of which have been more than two tons of carbon dioxide emissions per capita.

"And that basically means you should already begin to reduce. We accept das. industrialized countries, but a country like China says: Look once to me, how many decades you your CO2 emissions have increased; since we can not reduce start already at our economic level yet. - So you see, before what a great job we are. "

In her keynote speech to about 35 ministers from countries that together are responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse gases, Angela Merkel also called for a transfer of technology to countries that have not already participate in the benefits of industrialization:

" So we have to operate technology development, so are not opposites for these countries, the growth of prosperity, tackling climate change and social concerns. "

Additionally, environmental ethicists such as Felix Ekardt stand for climate justice. Some also call for a per capita redistribution of income ( eco bonus, Eng. Well as lump-sum bonus -payments or Green Check ) from emission certificates, green taxes or a carbon tax, as this in with the incentive taxes in Switzerland small scale is already being implemented.

External links and references

• Taz: The impact of the science of 11 October 2007
• Felix Ekardt: theory of sustainability. Legal, ethical and political approaches - using the example of climate change, resource scarcity and global trade. Baden -Baden: Nomos Verlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-8329-6032-2.
• Felix Ekardt ( eds.): Climate Justice. Ethical, legal, economic and transdisciplinary approaches. Marburg: Metropolis Verlag, 2012.