Fair adaptation to climate change

Paavola, Jouni and Adger, W. Neil (2006) Fair adaptation to climate change. Ecological Economics, 56 (4). pp. 594-609. ISSN 1873-6106

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This article identifies social justice dilemmas associated with the necessity to adapt to climate change, examines how they are currently addressed by the climate change regime, and proposes solutions to overcome prevailing gaps and ambiguities. We argue that the key justice dilemmas of adaptation include responsibility for climate change impacts, the level and burden sharing of assistance to vulnerable countries for adaptation, distribution of assistance between recipient countries and adaptation measures, and fair participation in planning and making decisions on adaptation. We demonstrate how the climate change regime largely omits responsibility but makes a general commitment to assistance. However, the regime has so far failed to operationalise assistance and has made only minor progress towards eliminating obstacles for fair participation. We propose the adoption of four principles for fair adaptation in the climate change regime. These include avoiding dangerous climate change, forward-looking responsibility, putting the most vulnerable first and equal participation of all. We argue that a safe maximum standard of 400–500 ppm of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and a carbon tax of $20–50 per carbon equivalent ton could provide the initial instruments for operationalising the principles.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2011 10:00
Last Modified:	14 Feb 2023 10:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/19639
DOI:	10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.03.015

Actions (login required)

View Item