Page - 48 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

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.