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48 I.Wallimann-Helmeret al.
butnon-wrongfulactions),weareoperating in therealmofdistributive justicesince
theseundeservedbenefitsorharmsdemand redistribution (Meyer2004;Meyerand
Roser2010).Onthedistributional justiceapproachinthecaseofL&D,thesituation
of communities, who just happen to have “bad luck” to be living in regionsmore
heavily exposed to climate change, calls for an evening out of these undeserved
harms.
Hence, if necessary to avoid political deadlock in light of decision 1/CP.21 and
to secure assistance not only for the part of L&D that is anthropogenic, but for all
L&Dthreateningcountriesandcommunities,onemayspeakintermsofundeserved
harms rather thanfocusingonimpactsbroughtaboutbywrongfulemittersdemand-
ingcompensationfromthoseliable.AnyresponsibilitiesconcerningL&Dwouldthen
beunderstoodas responsibilities that fall into the categoryof redistribution. In this
manner,L&D-relatedresponsibilitieswouldberegardedasgroundedintheobjective
of levelling undeserved harms. So, on the one hand,what could be looked for are
waysofdifferentiatingresponsibilitieswithoutrelyingonthewrongfulnessofemis-
sions, liabilityandcompensation.However,ontheotherhand,asattributionresearch
matures and international climate policy develops, itmaybecomemore feasible to
rely on causal explanations to help determine the differentiation of responsibilities
in linewithacompensatoryapproach (BoranandHeath2016;ThompsonandOtto
2015; seechapterbyJamesetal. 2018), althoughdoingsomaybeambitiousat this
point (Huggel et al. 2013; Jameset al. 2014;Huggel et al. 2016).6
2.4 CategorisingL&DMeasures toDifferentiate
Responsibilities
Theprevious section leads toan important ethical consideration. Irrespectiveof the
justiceframeworkapplied, thefact thatdevelopingcountriescarrysuchalargeshare
of L&Dcries out for some kind of response. Such a responsemakes it necessary
to clarify two issues.On the onehand, it is necessary to be clear aboutwhat kinds
of L&D can become relevant since these determine what approaches and policy
measures are most appropriate for either compensation or redistribution. On the
otherhand,itisnecessarytodiscusshowresponsibilitiestoprovideassistanceshould
bedifferentiated.Before analysing thedifferentiationof responsibilities in thenext
section, here we discuss the first of these two issues. We argue that it makes a
significantdifferencewhichkindsofclimateL&Dareat stakesincedifferentkinds
of L&D demand different measures requiring varying forms of competence and
6To be sure, one implication of the distributive justice framing is that it brings legitimate claims
for assistance in case of climate L&D on a par with any other claims for assistance in case of
undeserved harmor evenmore generally anyundeserved socio-economic disadvantage. This can
be considered a strength of this alternative framing, because it shows that climate L&D cannot
be appropriately dealtwith in isolation (Caney2012;Wallimann-Helmer 2015).However, it also
points to theweakness of this framing, namely that it expands concerns aboutL&Dbeyondwhat
is currentlydealtwithunder theumbrellaof theUNFCCC.
Loss and Damage from Climate Change
Concepts, Methods and Policy Options
- Title
- Loss and Damage from Climate Change
- Subtitle
- Concepts, Methods and Policy Options
- Authors
- Reinhard Mechler
- Laurens M. Bouwer
- Thomas Schinko
- Swenja Surminski
- JoAnne Linnerooth-Bayer
- Publisher
- Springer Open
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-319-72026-5
- Size
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 580
- Keywords
- Environment, Climate change, Environmental law, Environmental policy, Risk management
- Categories
- International
- Naturwissenschaften Umwelt und Klima