The Paris Agreement and Theories of Justice

As we seek to understand and assess the Paris Agreement over the coming months and years, we will continue to contemplate the critical underlying political and ethical question: who should be responsible? And to what degree should that responsibility take the form of direct action versus providing support in the form of financing, technology transfer, and capacity-building? As my Center for Progressive Reform colleague Noah Sachs has observed, the principle of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR) has been a consistent theme in all of the climate negotiations. But, what CBDR means - why and when responsibilities should be common, and why and when they should be differentiated -- is continually contested and continually shifting. I briefly highlight the allocation of responsibility in the Paris Agreement. Drawing upon two recent articles on adaptation justice, I then provide a short roadmap to the theories of justice at play in the international negotiations, theories relevant to determining responsibility for both mitigation and adaptation.