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Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions

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In order to decide whether a comprehensive treaty covering all greenhouse gases is the best next step after UNCED, one needs to distinguish among the four questions about the international justice of such international arrangements: (1) What is a fair allocation of the costs of preventing the global warming that is still avoidable?; (2) What is a fair allocation of the costs of coping with the social consequences of the global warming that will not in fact be avoided?; (3) What background allocation of wealth would allow international bargaining (about issues like 1 and 2) to be a fair process?; and (4) What is a fair allocation of emissions of greenhouse gases (over the long-term and during the transition to the long-term allocation)? In answering each question we must specify from whom any transfers should come and to whom any transfers should go. As the grounds for the answers we usually face a choice between fault-based principles and no-fault principles.
... Many theorists accept that there is some limit on what costs we should accept when it comes to averting climatemediated harms (Duus-Otterström 2023; Rao and Baer 2012;Shue 1993;Vanderheiden 2008, p. 243). One way to demarcate that limit is through a distinction between luxury and substance emissions. ...
... As emissions themselves are of instrumental importance, Shue points out the importance of distinguishing "the fact that some sources [of greenhouse gas emissions] are essential and even urgent for the fulfilment of vital needs and other sources are inessential or even frivolous." (Shue 1993) For Shue those emissions that are necessary to protect a basic need are "subsistence" whereas everything else he calls "luxury". For healthcare, a dichotomy of luxury emissions on the one hand and subsistence on the other is a little coarse. ...
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Healthcare systems produce significant greenhouse gas emissions, raising an important question: should healthcare be treated like any other polluter when it comes to reducing its emissions, or is healthcare special because of its essential societal role? On one hand, reducing emissions is critical to combat climate change. On the other, healthcare depends on emissions to deliver vital services. The resulting tension surrounds an idea of healthcare exceptionalism and leads to the question I consider in this paper: to what extent (if any) should the valuable goals of healthcare form an exception to the burdens of reducing greenhouse gas emissions? The goals of this paper are twofold. One is to think about how to address the issue of healthcare exceptionalism. Second is to discuss the extent of healthcare’s climatic responsibilities. I examine two perspectives on healthcare exceptionalism. The first treats a responsibility to reduce emissions and the delivery of healthcare as separate issues, each governed by its own principle. I reject this view, proposing instead that we consider healthcare’s environmental responsibilities in conjunction with its essential functions. I defend an “inability to pay” principle, suggesting that while healthcare should indeed contribute to mitigating climate change, its obligations should be constrained by the necessity of maintaining its core goals like protecting health and preventing disease. Healthcare should be treated differently from other sectors, but not to the extent that it is entirely exempt from efforts to reduce emissions.
... First, meeting the needs of the poor within environmental limits requires the reduction of consumption by those who have more than enough. The meeting of subsistence emissions requires the reduction of private luxury emissions (Shue 1993). Second, the drive for the accumulation of capital requires the expansion of the frontiers for the extraction of resources which creates its own forms of injustice at the point of extraction, putting increasing pressure on environmental goods, and the dispossession of those whose livelihoods depend on them. ...
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This paper responds to Hahnel’s reply to my paper ‘Pluralism, ecology and planning’ in this special issue. It focuses on disagreements concerning value commensurability and growth. It defends the possibility of rational choices in the use of resources in the absence of value commensurability. It defends the claim that the systematic drive for growth in capitalism is a central source of environmental problems and of environmental injustice. It questions Hahnel’s assertion that substitution in production and consumption alone is the only strategy to achieve environmental sustainability. Substitution is necessary but not sufficient. Environmental limits require consumption and production corridors above sufficiency for all but below excess. Those corridors are a condition for meeting the needs of the poor within environmental limits. Both the examination of environmental problems in capitalism and democratic planning require forms of in-kind analysis defended by Neurath and Kapp to address the problem of meeting human needs within environmental limits.
... Deriving the emissions ceiling from emissions sufficientarianism falls short of two requirements Emissions sufficientarianism holds that no one should have fewer emissions allowances than they need to meet their subsistence needs. More specifically, an individual can be said to be morally entitled to a certain number of subsistence allowances if, given the opportunities and means available to them at a reasonable cost, they could not achieve subsistence with a lesser number of allowances (Duus-Otterström, 2023Gardiner, 2017: 445-449;Hayward, 2007;Shue, 1993Shue, , 2019Tank, 2024). 1 The moral entitlement to emit for subsistence might be thought to justify the moral prohibition against emitting for major luxuries, at least if certain empirical conditions are met. However, I will argue that this justification for the emissions ceiling is flawed. ...
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In this article, I discuss whether, in addition to pricing emissions, we should prohibit a specific category of luxury emissions, those arising from goods and services that only the richest can afford. In the first part, I ask whether a justification for such a prohibition can be derived from emissions sufficientarianism. I argue that emissions sufficientarianism does not explain why we should prohibit only high-wealth emissions and not also the recursive production of emissions that are neither high-wealth nor subsistence. Moreover, it does not provide a reason why we should prevent the production of high-wealth emissions by those who have offset them ex ante. In the second part, I ask whether a justification for the prohibition of high-wealth emissions can be based on emissions limitarianism. I argue that emissions limitarianism can explain why we should prohibit only high-wealth emissions, but it cannot account for why high-wealth emissions are bad even if they are offset ex ante. In the third part, I use two arguments, positional consumption and moral disengagement, to explain why carbon offsetting cannot be used as a means of circumventing the emissions ceiling. I conclude with a brief overview of the policy implications of this normative discussion.
... However, sometimes taking the risk of being overly demanding is acceptable when compared with what is at stake, for example avoiding runaway climate change (Lenton and others 2019). Further, we acknowledge that an undifferentiated targeting of emitters could in some cases result in highly demanding recommendations, given the important moral difference between subsistence and luxury emissions (Shue 1993). Subsistence emissions are those emissions necessary to reach a 'minimally decent standard of living' (Shue 1993: 42) by satisfying basic needs such as consuming healthy food, sheltering, and enjoying minimal education. ...
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Climate change is to a large extent a collective action problem, but many believe that individual action is also required. But what if no individual contribution to climate change is necessary nor sufficient to cause climate change-induced harms? This issue is known as the problem of inconsequentialism . It is particularly problematic for act consequentialism because the theory does not seem to judge such inconsequential contributions negatively. In this paper, we apply Henry Sidgwick's idea of esoteric morality to climate change and assess whether what we call a climate esoteric morality could help to deal with the problem of inconsequentialism from an act consequentialist perspective. Consequentialists ought then to promote what we call nonconsequentialist faux principles ; exaggerate existing consequentialist principles that pro tanto forbid contributing to climate change whenever strictly consequentialist principles fail to do so; and refrain from criticising nonconsequentialist principles that forbid contributing to climate change.
... Welfare? All of these have been discussed (see, e.g., Shue 1993;Schuppert 2011;Sachs 2014). ...
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Global climate change is a multigenerational challenge that raises significant questions of intergenerational ethics. What do we owe to future generations? How should we think about intergenerational relations in the context of climate change? Many common moral theories—particularly those that assume a shared community of contemporaries who have the capacity to make agreements among themselves—encounter challenges in relation to intergenerational ethics. These challenges include the nonexistence and nonidentity problems, as well as issues involving power asymmetries, motivation, and accountability. This review suggests that the prominence of generational individualism—in which generations are conceptualized as distinct and potentially in conflict—can be an impediment to the robust consideration of future generations in climate ethics and policy. Conceptions of intergenerational ethics that emphasize transgenerational community and mutual flourishing over time may help to temper generational individualism, alleviating “intergenerational buck passing” on climate change and supporting climate action that takes past, present, and future generations more fully into account.
... This trend of unfairness has been attributed mainly to human greed and the quest for power (Hunter, 2009). From generation to generation, the poor and less developed have always borne the negative consequences of the extravagant lifestyles of the rich (Shue, 1993). Social and political policies have structured an unfair world. ...
Article
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... In early debates, justice concerns were largely conceptualized in terms of burden sharing for mitigating, which includes questions of compensation and the distribution of responsibilities when it comes to the cost of climate change (Ikeme, 2003). This also includes systemic injustices, which relate to patterns of inequity due to historical developments and power relations (Shue, 1993). ...
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This paper evaluates the relevance of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in addressing justice within the Anthropocene, focusing on climate change. The Anthropocene marks a period of significant human impact on ecosystems, highlighted by the Trinity Test and the Great Acceleration. The study examines three policy paths: sustainable development, a steady-state economy, and degrowth. While Rawls's influence on political theory is undeniable, critiques by Katrina Forrester suggest his framework may overlook crucial issues like power dynamics. This paper argues for the continued relevance of Rawls's focus on moral psychology and motivation, particularly in intergenerational justice. It narrows the scope to motivations for caring about future generations and reassesses Rawls's assumptions about economic growth. Through the concept of "theodicy of difference," it challenges the notion that Rawls presupposed growth, ultimately supporting the applicability of his theory in contemporary environmental discussions.
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