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Give it up for climate change : a defence of the beneficiary pays principle

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Page, Edward. (2012) Give it up for climate change : a defence of the beneficiary pays principle. International Theory, Vol.4 (No.2). pp. 300-330. ISSN 1752-9719

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S175297191200005X

Abstract

This article focuses on the normative problem of establishing how the burdens associated with implementing policies designed to prevent, or manage, climate change should be shared amongst states involved in ongoing international climate change negotiations. This problem has three key features: identifying the nature and extent of the burdens that need to be borne; identifying the type of agent that should be allocated these burdens; and distributing amongst the particular ‘tokens’ of the relevant ‘agent type’ climatic burdens according to principles that none could reasonably reject. The article defends a key role in climatic burden-sharing policy for the principle that states benefiting most from activities that cause climate change should bear the greatest burden in terms of the costs of preventing dangerous climate change. I outline two versions of this ‘beneficiary pays’ principle; examine the strengths and weakness of each version; and explore how the most plausible version (which I call the ‘unjust enrichment’ account) could be operationalized in the context of global climate governance.

Item Type:

Journal Article

Subjects:

J Political Science > JZ International relations
Q Science > QC Physics

Divisions:

Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Climatic changes -- Government policy, Climate change mitigation, International cooperation

Journal or Publication Title:

International Theory

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

ISSN:

1752-9719

Official Date:

July 2012

Dates:

Date	Event
July 2012	Published

Volume:

Vol.4

Number:

No.2

Number of Pages:

Page Range:

pp. 300-330

Identification Number:

10.1017/S175297191200005X

Status:

Peer Reviewed

Publication Status:

Published

Access rights to Published version:

Restricted or Subscription Access

Funder:

Uppsala universitet

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