It is time to ensure climate justice

According to many including the United Nations (UN) Secretary General, human-induced climate change is an ‘existential threat.’ It is a threat to the continued existence of our species. The developed countries are largely responsible for carbon emissions and global warming and climate-induced disasters.
But the adverse consequences of climate change are disproportionately borne by low-income countries and their people although they are least responsible for the problem. This situation raises the question of climate justice.
Climate justice entails ensuring representation, inclusion, and protection of the rights of those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Solutions must promote equity. As climate change is an existential threat to mankind, everyone must do their part to address it. But the burden should not be borne by those that have contributed the least. If the countries who contributed the least to GHG emissions are asked to bear the consequences, it would be a climate injustice. The world’s richest 10 per cent are responsible for 50 per cent of GHG emissions.
Defining Climate justice: Climate justice is the principle that the benefits derived from activities that cause climate change and the consequences of climate change should be distributed fairly. It also means that countries that are benefited from unrestricted carbon emissions have the greatest responsibility to not only stop emissions (stop warming the planet), but also to help other countries adapt to climate change and develop economically with clean technologies.
Countries least responsible for climate change (or crisis) bear its effects (burden) most acutely. This is a kind of climate injustice. The Least developed countries are least contributors to climate change, but they are taking the brunt of the effects of climate change. There are four types of climate injustices as discussed below.
ADAPTATION NEEDS BEYOND CAPACITY: Most emissions in the past have been caused by the richest countries that have the most resources and capacity to adapt to climate change. But other countries including Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are asked to adapt beyond their capacities for damages/sufferings caused by the huge emission by developed world. Responsibility for human-caused climate change is thus distributed unevenly. This is another injustice.
INTERGENERATIONAL CLIMATE INJUSTICE (INEQUITY): Children born today will need to emit eight times less CO2 than their grandparents in order to keep us at just a 1.5o increase in global temperature (Carbon Brief estimates). Younger generations will have to spend a considerable part of their lives dealing with land loss and degradation, fewer resources, and health issues resulting from climate change extremes. This is also a climate injustice.
PLANETARY OVERSHOOT: Overuse of natural resources by developed countries like USA, Germany is also a kind of climate injustice for countries who are not overusing natural resources (e.g., Bangladesh). Rich countries including the US, EU countries, Australia and middle-income countries such as China, India etc. overuse natural resource and are responsible for the majority of global ecological damage caused by the over exploitation. These countries are also overshooting planetary boundaries (PB) which are essential for sustaining life on Earth. There are nine PBs: climate change, biodiversity (biosphere integrity), ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol pollution, freshwater uses (the revised freshwater use boundary has retained consumptive use of blue water from rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and renewable groundwater storesas the global-level control variable and 4000 km3/year as the value of the boundary). This PB may be somewhat higher or lower depending on rivers’ ecological flow requirements. There are also PBs like biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land-system change, and release of novel chemicals. Climate change represents just one of nine critical PBs. These boundaries aid to reduce harm, increase well-being, and reflect substantive and procedural justice.
Planetary Boundary Framework (2009, updated in 2015; these are estimates) suggests that we are alreadyliving outside the safe zone for at least four of the nine PBs [these are: climate change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows (Earth’s nitrogen and phosphorous cycles) and land-system change], putting Earth on course for disruptive changes in our life support system.Of the four boundaries that are reported to have already been exceeded, climate change and biosphere integrity are considered “core” planetary boundaries as either one, on its own, could change the course of Earth’s trajectory and endanger humanity. For example, climate change-a planetary boundary, is triggered by increasing atmospheric carbon emissions, but that excess carbon also causes ocean acidification- a second PB. This (i.e., ocean acidification) in turn, impacts marine species like corals and fish, destabilising biodiversity, another PB.
The third major update to the Planetary Boundary framework (2023) indicated that six boundaries are now transgressed, and pressure is increasing on all boundary processes except ozone depletion. Such planetary overshooting hampers the concept of sustainable consumption and production.
EFFECT OF TRANSGRESSING PLANETARY BOUNDARIES: Countries who are least responsible for exceeding our planetary boundaries are most likely to be affected by planetary overshoot. The overall goal is striving for a good life for all within planetary boundaries. In recent years there has been an increasing focus on the concept of just transition to achieve this. The concept of just transition has been introduced as an overarching framework to guide our transformation into ecological societies in a socially just and equitable way. In a situation of transgression of planetary boundaries, the only way to fulfil the needs of people of low-income countries is to share our planetary resources more fairly. Scholars like Jason Hickel and Julia Steinberger have observed that it was perfectly possible to allow all the people on this planet to thrive if we embrace the concept of self-sufficiency. Ghandi once noted, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”. It is thus necessary to make a paradigm shift from business-as-usual to something that respects planetary boundaries.
Such overshooting of several planetary boundaries (caused by over extraction of resources-resulting in emissions) is driving a crisis of ecological breakdown. Among the countries, the USA is the single largest contributor to excess resource use and is responsible for 27 per cent of the total world resource. The EU countries and the UK together are responsible for 25 per cent of the world total of excess resource use. China is responsible for 15 per cent, and the rest of the Global South (i.e., the low-income and middle-income countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia) is responsible for 8 per cent. Most countries in the Global South (including India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and other large populous countries) are within their fair shares of the planetary boundary. These countries bear no responsibility for excess resource use.
High-income nations need to urgently reduce their aggregate resource use to sustainable levels. On average, resource use needs to decline by at least 70 per cent to reach the sustainable range. Nations also need to learn to respect the planetary boundaries.
Packaging Development finance as climate finance:  The Paris Agreement affirms the importance of financial support from rich to poorer countries. Developed countries made commitment in 2015 to jointly deliver $100 billion/year in climate finance to developing countries by 2020. According to OECD (2022), in 2020, rich nations mobilised $83.3 billion of climate finance. They have fallen almost $17bn short of their pledge. Further, there is no consensus in defining climate finance. In the absence of such a definition, it is impossible to count the amount given as climate finance. Moreover, the promised $100 bn is yet to be generated. Further, development finance often counts towards climate finance. The packaging of development finance with climate finance and not providing the promised climate finance also amounts to climate injustice.  Another concern is that 71 per cent of climate finance in 2019 was distributed as loans rather than grants counting loans as climate finance is also a kind of climate injustice, according to an analysis published in BBC online. Because such loans will have to be paid back with interest.
Needed Imperatives: Mainstreaming climate change action into national policies, strategies, and plans, and improving education, awareness and human and institutional capacity for climate change mitigation are the subject matter of SDG 13 (‘Climate action’). Climate vulnerable countries need requisite finance and technology to address the adverse consequences caused by climate change. Planetary justice and climate equity demands this assistance to be provided by countries who are largely responsible for emissions and global warming. In other words, overshooting countries should be held liable for the costs of climate-related damages (reparations), wherever they occur, in proportion to their responsibility for total excess emissions. Such financial support to help people adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change is another integral part of the justice discourse. To ensure climate justice, it is imperative to ensure that decisions on Climate Change are participatory, transparent and accountable. The voices of the most vulnerable to climate change must be heard and acted upon to promote climate justice. Sharing of benefits and burdens equitably i.e., acceptance of common but differentiated responsibilities principle is a necessity.
To conclude, humanity must respect the nice planetary boundaries to keep the planet habitable. The overshooting countries have a moral responsibility to minimise/end their carbon emissions faster than the global average rate – a principle that is termed as “common but differentiated responsibility” in the Paris Agreement.
Dr Mohamad Abu Yusuf, Director General, Monitoring Cell, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance. ma_yusuf@hotmail.com [The author benefited from his discussion with Mr Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP, Special Envoy to the Honourable Prime Minister for climate change. He also attributes Steffen, Will, et al. “Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet.” Science 347.6223 (2015): 1259855 as a reference.]