Seite - 45 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

2 TheEthicalChallenges in theContextofClimateLossandDamage 45 Table2.2 Overview of differences between analysing L&Dwithin a framing of compensatory justiceanddistributive justice Compensatory justice Distributive justice Scope Differentiating responsibilities in lightof compensatory reasons and liability L&Dunderstoodasundeserved harmdemanding redistribution toevenout thisunfairness Redistributionbasedon Wrongful emitting Undeservedharms Temporal context Backward-looking Forward-looking Implementationhorizon Long-term,onceattribution challengescanbe tackled Short- tomedium-term,while attributionchallenges still exist andareamainbarrier ciaryofemissionsasresponsibleforprovidingcompensation.ThisistheBeneficiary PaysPrinciple(BPP).Intheliterature,bothprinciplesmostoftenidentifyindividuals as responsibilitybearers.But theycanalsorefer tocorporationsorcountries.This is why sometimes a third principle in some sense combining thefirst two is invoked. TheCommunityPaysPrinciple (CoPP)ascribestheresponsibilityforcompensation to the polluting andbenefitting community.All three principles assign liability for compensationeither to thepolluters (PPP), thebeneficiaries (BPP)or communities (CoPP).3 They hold that by emitting, these differing agents acquire responsibility tomakewhole again those harmed by the consequences of their emissions. Thus, decision1/CP.21seemstosuggest, theseagentsbecomeliable tocompensatefor the L&Dtheyarecontributing tocausing. It is important to note that on ethical grounds compensatory duties for climate L&Daremoredifficult to justify thanitatfirstappears.Thereareat least threebasic problemsforjustifyingcompensationforL&D(MeyerandRoser2010;Meyer2013; Kolstadet al. 2015): a.Potential dutybearersmightnothavewrongfully emitted by exceeding their fair shares of emissions and thus have not acquired any legitimate compensatoryduties; b.Potential dutybearersmighthavebeen (blamelessly) igno- rant about the harmfulness of their emissions and can therefore not be said to be (fully) responsible to compensate; and c. Potential recipientsmight be said not to bewrongfully harmed since they are onlywrongfully harmed if they areworse off due to (wrongful) emissions than theywould otherwise be or if they fall below a specified thresholdofharmdue to (wrongful) emissions (orboth).4 3Althoughwediscuss these threeprinciples asprinciples identifying thebearers of compensatory duties, these principles, and especially the beneficiary pays principle have also be shown to be important in identifying the bearers of duties of distributive justice (seeMeyer and Sanklecha 2017). 4By such a threshold of harm, wemean that there is some sufficient (not necessarily minimal) level ofwell-being and any individual who falls below that is thereby harmed, regardless of the counterfactual arrangements (cf. Meyer 2003). In other words, individuals could be harmed by beingbelowthethresholdevenif theyhadneverhadtheir interests thwartedbyanyotherparticular individual.