Climate change and social justice

September 13 2012

John O Neill, University of Manchester

Martin O’Neill, University of York

Dimensions of climate justice Justice in responsibility for and benefits

from greenhouse gas emissions Justice in the distribution of the welfare

impacts of climate change Justice in the distribution of costs and

burdens of mitigation policies Justice in the distribution of the costs and

burdens of adaptation policies Procedural justice: who has voice and

power in the formation of responses to climate change?

Scope of injustice1. International2. National3. Inter-generational4. Intra-generational Different dimensions of climate change can

become more or less salient at different scales. For example

International: historical responsibilities National: fairness and distributional consequences of

reliance on a market-based insurance regime that differentiates according to risk and which leaves those who are poor as more likely to be uninsured.

Compounded injustice Those who whose responsibility for

greenhouse gas emissions are relatively low, are often those

who face the most serious negative impacts,

on whom the burdens of both mitigation and adaptation fall most heavily,

who have least voice in the development of policy responses.

Selected reports on climate justice in the UK

1. Differential responsibilities (E. Fahmy, et al. The distribution of UK household CO2 emissions)

2. Differential impacts on well-being (S. Lindley et al. Climate change, justice and vulnerability)

3. Adaptation policy and justice (J. O’Neill and M. O’Neill Social justice and the future of flood insurance)

4. Procedural Justice (D, Bell Are climate policies fairly made?)

1. Differential Responsibilities by income

From S. Abdallah et al. 2011 The distribution of total greenhouse gas emissions by households in the UK, and some implications for social policy CASE LSE

GHG per pound

From S. Abdallah et al. 2011 The distribution of total greenhouse gas emissions by households in the UK, and some implications for social policy CASE LSE

Summary Emissions in private transport, in particular

air, and personal services (hotels, meals out etc) are significantly correlated with income.

Emissions per pound are higher in lower incomes.

Mitigation policies that simply raise the costs of emissions will fall disproportionately on those with lower incomes despite the fact that they are least responsible for emissions.

2. Differential impacts on well-being Climate disadvantage 1. Exposure: Likelihood and severity of the

weather related event – flood, heatwave. 2. Vulnerability: The conversion of the weather

related event into losses in well-being Climate disadvantage is a function of 1 and 2.

Vulnerability Vulnerability is a matter of how external stresses

impact on well-being. An individual or group is of greater vulnerability if they are less able to respond to stresses placed on well-being.

The central question: how is vulnerability distributed across different individuals and groups?

However, the characterisation of vulnerability raises a number of prior questions:

1. How should well-being be conceptualised and measured?

2. What factors are relevant to understanding how external stresses convert into changes in well-being?

How should well-being be conceptualised and measured? Resource index: Resources people have –

problems of uneven conversion. Subjective welfare: Life satisfaction and

subjective happiness – problems of adaptation.

‘Capabilities’ and ‘functionings’: what valuable things people are able to do and be.

Full range of losses in well-being need to be captured.

Well-being Full range of impacts on well-being: loss of life, damage

to health, the loss of income, social dislocation and displacement, loss of the capacity to control daily routines and to plan for the future, disruption of social relations, psychological stress etc.

‘The process of recovery is one that carries with it the challenge of adjusting to displacement (caravans, living upstairs, rented accommodation, living with family), managing the process of physical recovery (loss adjustors, insurance companies, builders, retailers), trying to maintain ‘normality’ in everyday life (work, school, child care, illness, deaths, births, celebrations) and trying to rebuild social life (adjust to a new home, new community relations, build trust in the future).’ (Whittle et al. 2010 p. 3).

Heatwave conversion factors Personal factors - biological sensitivities. Environmental factors: Physical attributes of

the neighbourhood, such as the amount of green space, and characteristics of the housing such as the elevations of residential buildings.

Social factors Chicago heat wave (Klinenberg, 2002). Social

isolation and the fear of crime was a major factor in risks of harm. Old people died alone. They died in rooms with windows and doors locked from fear of crime. Old people were often unwilling to risk leaving the home to keep cool.

Institutional: Largest percentage increase in UK of deaths of the over-75s by place of residence was in nursing homes (Brown and Walker, 2008).

Flooding conversion factors Personal factors: biophysical Environmental factors: physical characteristics of

housing e.g. basement accommodation and street level accommodation will suffer worse than others - and of the neighbourhood, such as drainage and green space.

Social factors: Low income households are less able to take measures to

make property resilient to flooding and to take out insurance.

‘Of people in low and very low-income households, one-third of all UK households, 69 per cent are in social housing. Of this 29 per cent have no insurance at all and 50 per cent do not have home contents insurance as opposed to 1 in 5 of those on average income.’ (Pitt, 2008, 9.28)

Social networks affect the ability of residents to respond to flooding for example through providing social supports, a response network and by improving knowledge bases.

3. Adaptation policy and justice: the case of flood insurance What principles of justice should govern flood

insurance? Two models of insurance

1. Individualist, risk-sensitive insurance, provided through a market in which individuals’ payments are proportional to their level of risk

2. Solidaristic, risk-insensitive insurance, in which those at lower risk contribute to the support of those at higher risk

The UK is currently moving towards an increasingly individualistic, market-based approach to flood insurance, in contrast to the more solidaristic approaches in most comparable countries.

Is this fair or equitable?

4. Procedural Justice What is the scope of participation? Who

participates? Who decides who participates?

What is the form of the participation? What rules govern ‘participation’ and

decision-making? Who has the power to set the agenda? How is power over decisions distributed?

[Based on D. Bell Procedural Justice and Domestic Climate Policies Manchester University 5.3.2010]

Are climate policies fairly made? Everyone who is affected by a decision should have

some power in the decision-making process. Local policies and decisions relating to emissions

reductions are likely to have impacts on people beyond the local community. Fairness requires that non-locals affected by those decisions should have some power in making those decisions.

In most cases, some people will be more affected by a decision than other people. Decision-making processes should be designed to distribute power in proportion to stakes – the more that anyone has at stake in a decision, the more power they should have in making that decision.

Since the least well-off people will often be most affected by decisions to do with climate change, they should often have the most power in making climate policies and decisions.

(D. Bell Are climate policies fairly made? p.1)