The seventeenth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – meeting in Durban, South Africa, in 2011 – agreed on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which contains a commitment “to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties.” The negotiations around such a protocol will be conducted within the framework of norms expressed in the Convention. Analogous to a game, these norms are the rules according to which the parties to the Convention have agreed to play when deliberating about joint action and supplemental treaties, such as the one they committed to develop in the Durban Platform. If taken seriously, the norms would play an important role in constraining negotiations, thereby narrowing the range of disagreement.

This chapter discusses one especially important norm for the morality of climate change policy expressed in the Convention; the right to sustainable development is stated in Article 3, paragraph 4:

Sustainable development is understood in many different ways. But in the context of the Convention and other related UN resolutions, its meaning is fairly determinate. I call the conception of the right to sustainable development more or less fixed by this context the institutional conception of the right to sustainable development in order to distinguish it from the many other understandings of sustainable development in use.

It is widely appreciated that climate change is a moral problem, but perhaps not so well understood is that even identifying climate change as dangerous necessarily involves a moral judgment. This is surprising because it means that moral judgments enter into climate change policy discussions very early on, already at the point of identifying when, or what kind of, climate change is dangerous.

The stated central objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” If we suppose that this is the principal objective of international climate change negotiations and policy formation, we are left with some obvious questions: What is dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system? How is it to be identified so that policy can be crafted to avoid it?

When someone at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association referred to the confluence of Hurricane Sandy with a polar trough just before Halloween as a “Frankenstorm,” it may have been largely owing to the storm's intensity and timing. But “Frankenstorm” produces another association: This monster, like the one in Mary Shelley's novel, may have been human created.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), summarizing data gained from countless observations, has reported that over the hundred-year period from 1906 to 2005, the average global surface temperature increased 0.74°C. Although the oceans have warmed less quickly than land areas, they have been taking in more than 80 percent of the heat being added to the climate system. Warm ocean waters are the energy supply for cyclones. This is why such storms lose force when they run aground. And according to the IPCC, “[t]here is observational evidence of an increase in intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970.”

1. “Sweet are the uses of adversity,

2. Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

3. Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”

4. – William Shakespeare

In Chapter 1, my concern was with the identification of the danger that climate change poses to humans and our societies. When the risks of climate change are imposed on people who are impoverished, but there are mitigation alternatives that would avoid that, then climate change is dangerous and should, as a matter of morality, be avoided. The basis for this account of danger is the inherent dignity of persons and the ideal of taking one another as coauthors of the rules of our common life. At the end of Chapter 1, I noted that climate change raises other considerations of value that are not well understood according to the framework of that chapter. A pluralism about values comes to the fore as we attempt to understand what is at risk in our changing climate.

Climate scientists, ecologists, oceanographers, and field biologists tell us that nonhuman life is also in peril because of climate change. This is often represented by the iconic picture of the lonesome polar bear on a diminished ice sheet surrounded by frigid seas. Where will that bear go when the polar ice has melted? However, the danger that concerns scientists is not to that individual bear, but to Ursus maritimus, his species, and hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of other species that comprise terrestrial biodiversity. The enormous diversity of species – what scientists refer to as “biodiversity” – will be compromised as ecosystems approach new equilibrium points caused by changing precipitation and storm patterns, adjustments to seasonal calendars, and altered mean temperatures. Species are, and will continue to be, under new stresses. In all likelihood a great many, perhaps a majority, will not survive.

Our vision

As a diverse group of concerned world citizens and advocates, we stand in defense of a global climate system that is safe for all of humanity. We demand a world where our children and future generations are assured of fair and just opportunities for social stability, employment, a healthy planet and prosperity.

We are united in the need for an urgent response to the climate crisis – a response informed by the current impacts of climate change and the science that points to the possibility of a global temperature increase of 4°C by the end of this century. The economic and social costs of climate impacts on people, their rights, their homes, their food security and the ecosystems on which they depend cannot be ignored any longer. Nor can we overlook the injustice faced by the poorest and most vulnerable who bear a disproportionate burden from the impacts of climate change.

This reality drives our vision of climate justice. It puts people at the centre and delivers results for the climate, for human rights, and for development.Our vision acknowledges the injustices caused by climate change and the responsibility of those who have caused it. It requires us to build a common future based on justice for those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and a just transition to a safe and secure society and planet for everyone.

Eric A. Posner and David Weisbach's central argument against the right to sustainable development is perhaps charitably made fully explicit as follows: (1) States act (almost) only on their perceived interests. Therefore, (2) a policy is feasible only if it is in the perceived interests of all of the states making the policy. (3) Policy pursuing the right to sustainable development necessarily involves international redistribution. (4) International redistribution is not in the perceived interests of states out of which resources would flow. Therefore, (5) a policy pursuing the right to sustainable development is infeasible. However, because this does not establish that international Paretianism is feasible, more must be said to avoid the tragic situation in which there are no feasible policies. Thus, the argument continues. (6) International Paretianism is in the perceived interests of all states making policy. Therefore, (7) international Paretianism is feasible. In this appendix I shall discuss three problems that render this argument unsound.

The most significant problem with the argument is logical. It does not rule out the possibility of the tragic situation; this is because the inference to (7) is invalid. To see this, focus your attention on premises (2) and (6). Premise (2) states what must be the case if a policy is to be feasible. In other words, it states a necessary condition of feasibility. Premise (6) states that international Paretianism meets the necessary condition. It does not follow that international Paretianism is feasible.

Climate change poses risks of catastrophic changes to human communities and ecosystems. Left unmitigated, the risks of climate change are dangerous, in particular to persons who will be made especially vulnerable by the conspiracy of poverty and geography: those residing in huge mega deltas in North Africa and East Asia, or living along major glacier-fed rivers in Asia and South America, or engaged in subsistence agriculture in the arid regions of central and southern Africa. Climate change also threatens mass extinctions of species. But one thing undeniably true about the future climate is that we do not have detailed knowledge about how different it will be from our present climate. That truth gives us pause. If we don't know, how can we plan for adaptation? Why should we take action to mitigate climate change? If this question is asked rhetorically, it sounds like a form of climate change skepticism. The claim that we do not know exactly what is in store for us if climate change is left unmitigated is not false. But the policy conclusion drawn by climate change skeptics most certainly is.