¹ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “Report of the Conference of the Parties on its thirteenth session, held in Bali from 3 to 15 December 2007,” Addendum, Decision 1/CP/13; available at unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php(accessed October 21, 2008).Google Scholar

² Ibid., p.3.Google Scholar

³ “Parts per million” in this context is the ratio of the number of greenhouse gas molecules to the total number of molecules of air.Google Scholar

⁴ See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Summary for Policymakers,” inSolomon, S. et al. , eds., Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p.2; available at http:\\www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf(accessed October 15, 2008).Google Scholar

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⁶ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 1992; available at unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1349.php(accessed October 15, 2008).Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid., art. 2.Google Scholar

⁹ Compare Darrel Moellendorf, “A Normative Account of Dangerous Climate Change” (unpublished).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Stephen H. Schneider and Janica Lane discuss mitigation under 3.5 degrees Celsius as the goal in their “An Overview of ‘Dangerous’ Climate Change,” inJoachim Schellnhuber, Hans et al. , eds., Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 7–24.Google Scholar Yu. A. Izrael and S. M. Semenov advocate a goal of 2.5 degrees in their “Critical Levels of Greenhouse Gases, Stabilization Scenarios, and Implications for the Global Decisions,” in the same volume, pp. 73–79.

¹¹ Throughout this paper, “degrees” is used in reference to degrees Celsius.Google Scholar

¹² For the EU's view, see Commission of the European Communities, “Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Limiting Global Climate Change to 2 Degrees Celsius, The Way Ahead for 2020 and Beyond,” October 1, 2007; available at http:\\eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0002:FIN:EN:PDF(accessed May 4, 2009). For the United Nations Development Programme's advocacy of this goal, see their Human Development Report 2007/2008; available at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/(accessed December 15, 2008). See also the 2008 WIDER lecture, “The Climate Challenge,” by UNDP head Kemal Derviş;available at http:\\www.wider.unu.edu/home/news/en_GB/annual-lecture-online-print/(accessed October 16, 2008). The ITUC's endorsement of the 2 degree limit is found in its submission to the Working Group; available at http:\\www.unfccc.int/resource/docs/2008/smsn/ngo/052.pdf(accessed May 25, 2009). Christian Aid's position is discussed at http:\\www.christianaid.org.uk/ActNow/Countdown-to-Copenhagen-climate-change/Copenhagen-QandA.aspx(accessed February 2, 2009). Greenpeace endorses the 2 degree limit in its proposal to the Working Group; available at unfccc.int/resource/docs/2008/smsn/ngo/095.pdf(accessed May 25, 2009).Google Scholar

¹³ IPCC, “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers,” pp. 20–21; available at http:\\www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf(accessed October 15, 2008).Google Scholar

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¹⁵ For the claim that emissions must be reduced to zero, seeEdmonds, Jae andSmith, Steven J., “The Technology of Two Degrees,” inSchellnhuber, et al. , eds., Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, p.388.Google Scholar

¹⁶ UNFCCC (see note 7).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ibid.Google Scholar

¹⁸ The first norm seems to be applying to states what Tony Honoré refers to as outcome responsibility, “being responsible for the good and harm we bring about by what we do.” See hisResponsibility and Fault (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 1999), p.14.Google Scholar

¹⁹ “Title of the Post-2012 Agreement”; available at unfccc.int/files/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/australia280509.pdf (accessed May 28, 2009).

²⁰ Traxler, Martino, “Fair Chore Division for Climate Change,” Social Theory and Practice 28, (2002), pp. 101–34.Traxler's principle of burden equalization in eschewing equalizing percentages of CO₂ reductions is distinct from John Stuart Mill's principle of equality of sacrifice in taxation, which holds that people should be taxed at equal rates. SeeStuart Mill, John, Principles of Political EconomyCrossRefGoogle Scholar, Pt. II, Bk. V, chap. II: “Setting out, then, from the maxim that equal sacrifices ought to be demanded from all, we have next to inquire whether this is in fact done, by making each contribute the same percentage on his pecuniary means.” Mill contends that generally it is so done. I am indebted to an anonymous referee for alerting me to Mill's discussion. The Mill text is available in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume III (1848); available at oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt &staticfile=show.php%3Fperson=21 &Itemid=28 (accessed April 25, 2009).

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²² Ibid., p.133.Google Scholar

²³ The Human Development Index was developed by the United Nations Development Programme under the guidance of Sen's capabilities framework. It assesses average human well-being within states by combining measures of income, health, and education. The UNDP's Measuring Human Development: A Primer is available at hdr.undp.org/en/reports/publications/title,4182,en.html(accessed October 21, 2008).Google Scholar

²⁴ The 2007–2008 Human Development Index rankings are available at hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/(accessed October 21, 2008).Google Scholar

²⁵ This is a basic moral point made admirably clear byShue, Henryin“Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions,” Law and Policy 15, (1993), pp. 39–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ United States Energy Information Administration (USEIA) data; available at http:\\www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html(accessed December 9, 2008).Google Scholar

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³⁰ Annex-1 countries are the countries indentified by the Kyoto Protocol as having a responsibility to reduce emissions. These are only countries of the developed world.Google Scholar

³¹ UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/2008, pp. 229–32.Google Scholar

³² See the Centre for Science and the Environment at http:\\www.cseindia.org and the Global Commons Institute at http:\\www.gci.org.uk. The view is defended in Agarwal, Anil andNarain, Sunita, Global Warming in an Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism (New Delhi: Centre for Science and the Environment, 1991),Google Scholar and in Athanasiou, Tom andBaer, Paul, Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2002).Google Scholar The principle has received some, but not a great deal of, philosophical attention. See, e.g., Jamieson, Dale, “Climate Change and Global Environmental Justice,” inMiller, Clark A. andEdwards, Paul N., eds., Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 287–307Google Scholar; and Singer, Peter, One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 14–50.Google Scholar

³³ Chair, Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention, “Negotiating Text” (see note 30).Google Scholar

³⁴ Singer, , One World, p.36.Google Scholar

³⁵ U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base”; available at http:\\www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpop.html(accessed October 20, 2008).Google Scholar

³⁶ USEIA data.Google Scholar

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³⁸ Ibid.Google Scholar

³⁹ Hansen, James et al. , “Target Atmospheric CO₂: Where Should Humanity Aim?” p.13; available at http:\\www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf(accessed January 30, 2009).Google Scholar

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⁴¹ See Baer, Paul et al. , The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework: The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation, Christian Aid, EcoEquity, and the Stockholm Environment Institute, 2008);available at http:\\www.ecoequity.org/docs/TheGDRsFramework.pdf(accessed December 9, 2008.) This is a particularly important proposal in virtue of its explicit attempt to satisfy the three UNFCCC norms that I have been employing.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., p.55.Google Scholar

⁴³ IPCC, “Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers,” pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ This is well documented in the UNDP's Human Development Report 2007/2008. See note 14 and in the IPCC's “Fourth Assessment Report.” See “IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers,” inParry, M. L. et al. , eds., Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar; available at http:\\www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-spm.pdf (accessed May 27, 2009). But for another report, see the World Health Organization's submission to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action; available at unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/smsn/igo/047.pdf (accessed May 27, 2009).

⁴⁵ See, e.g., Athanasiou and Baer, Dead Heat.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Stephen M. Gardiner has perspicaciously analyzed this intergenerational collective action problem in a set of papers. See his “The Real Tragedy of the Commons,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 30 no. 4 (2001), pp. 387–416; and “The Global Warming Tragedy and the Dangerous Illusion of the Kyoto Protocol,” Ethics & International Affairs 18 no. 1 (2004), pp. 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar