Planet under Pressure

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the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change is another case of non-compliance, following decades of obstructing climate governance <strong>under</strong> the binding Kyoto Agreement. One way to strengthen existing environmental governance is for cases to be brought that hold some states or agents responsible for climate-related harms. To date, there has been a conspicuous absence of such cases concerning activities affecting climate change or biodiversity, such as building fossil fuel infrastructure or clearing ecosystems. For climate change, one key stumbling block seems to be the law’s difficulty in considering causally uncertain effects based upon probability estimates. Different climate models produce widely varying estimates of the effects of actions upon the global climate, and they cannot always be aggregated into compatible findings. Moreover, the standard model in law is for actions with clear causes to be attributed to actors who can be held responsible. Yet, uncertainty is unavoidable in estimating the sensitivity of the planet’s climate system to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, or in attributing the harmful effects of climate change to particular agents, given the problem of multiple causations. Among other things, addressing this challenge requires clarity on admissible scientific evidence. Recent research on attribution has proposed a modification of the standard criteria for determining risk attribution to capture the incentives of actors who might select climate models favorable to themselves, and to establish clear rules for determining admissible research as evidence that a climate risk has been exacerbated. Research on “carbon-majors,” that is, the corporations that have emitted the most CO 2 up until now, could also provide the basis for such claims. Short of international cases, there may be more immediate success in citizen-led cases against national governments, such as the successful case brought against the Dutch government. However, the Dutch constitution explicitly invites One way to strengthen existing environmental governance is for cases to be brought that hold some states or agents responsible for climate-related harms. such litigation through a constitutional requirement that the government secure a healthy environment – a provision that many constitutions lack. Nonetheless, as the climate crisis worsens, it is far from impossible for such cases to emerge. Obviously, such a development would be vigorously opposed by states worried about becoming newly liable. Although the spirit of existing laws against transboundary harm and actions affecting commons seems to apply to these issues equally strongly (if not more so), such an extension requires cases being brought in order to establish new precedents and interpretations. At a deeper level, it has been claimed for some time that more far-reaching changes to the international order of states are required. Although calls for the establishment of a “world state” are rare, a more promising proposal may be to extend the Common Heritage and Common Concern principles to recognize the entire planet as the “intangible common heritage of mankind.” This proposal is based upon an analogy of nested jurisdiction and overlapping ownership on the model of the condominium: States would enjoy ownership of their territories, just as individuals own their apartments, yet aspects such as windows or gardens can be owned collectively. In this way, it is claimed that effective global governance requires recognizing the Earth system as a legal entity in its own right, but in a way that does not require nullifying existing state sovereignty. Of course, such proposals raise profound moral and political questions. Yet, from a moral perspective, it is hard to find convincing moral reasons for states’ complete sovereignty over natural resources, whether one looks at securing the well-being of citizens, warding off threats, or even a historical relationship between people and places. The distribution of goods of global environmental significance imposes costs and benefits upon the providers of a resource and the beneficiaries. Yet, the distribution of rainforests, as with the distribution of coral reefs and deserts, depends on very specific biological and geological conditions, whereas the world map was determined by human occupations, migrations, and conquests, with little regard for ecological borders. As a result, from the perspective of any state, the presence of a rainforest within its borders is simply random chance. But states without rainforests have often cut down their forests and were never asked to consider the global consequences. For example, the United Kingdom today has little more than 2 percent of its original forests intact. Yet, nations with rainforests are being asked to preserve far more than 2 percent, and to do this because of global consequences. These double standards are at the heart of debates about sovereignty and the global commons. Perhaps until the Global North ramps up mitigation, rainforest countries are <strong>under</strong> no obligation to listen to their hypocritical demands. However, if all countries think this way, we ensure a world of runaway climate change and mass extinction, likely far beyond the ability of even the richest countries to adapt. Although Ecuador’s bid for funding to offset the lost revenue from oil extraction in its Amazonian Yasuní National Park failed amid accusations of environmental blackmail, it is far from clear that the principle at stake tells against Ecuador. Fairness was an additional reason for the failure of the IPOP: Indonesian policymakers consid- 40 Global Goals Yearbook 2020
ered it unfair for Indonesia to submit to stringent deforestation conditions, when other states were free to do as they pleased. So if Ecuador is to forego the same kind of fossil fuel extraction that countries in the Global North have long availed themselves of (and continue to do so, despite current warnings of a climate emergency), fair compensation and development aid for non-carbon projects would seem to be the only just outcome. It is morally intolerable that a single nation could endanger all of humanity by using natural resources in ways that are still legally within their power. At least in theory, Brazil could decide to cut down all of the trees on its territory. The architects of such a plan would likely not survive long, but the mere possibility that one rogue country could decide to act in ways that endanger all is an affront to the post-war order that the permanent sovereignty principle was supposed to protect. However, research suggests that much less than this would be enough for a global catastrophe: If the Amazon lost between 20 and 25 percent of its trees, the entire ecosystem would pass an irreversible “tipping point,” leading to its collapse. Humanity simply cannot afford another decade of complacency on international rule-making. Addressing global environmental challenges requires finding a way around sovereignty concerns, whether real or imagined, while ensuring the protection of the global environmental commons. Dr. Dominic Lenzi Philosopher Working Group on Scientific Assessments, Ethics and Policy (SEP) Global Goals Yearbook 2020 41
Page 1 and 2: GLOBAL GOALS GLOBAL GOALS YEARBOOK
Page 3 and 4: H.E. António Guterres The Covid-19
Page 5 and 6: 26 Interview with EU Commissioner P
Page 7 and 8: JULY High-level Political Forum, in
Page 9 and 10: OCTOBER UN Biodiversity Conference
Page 11 and 12: RESILIENCE Resilience in the Time o
Page 13 and 14: RESILIENCE THE DISCOURSE ON VULNERA
Page 15 and 16: RESILIENCE How does resilience work
Page 17 and 18: The Planetary Momentum RESILIENCE A
Page 19 and 20: RESILIENCE Degrees of globalization
Page 21 and 22: RESILIENCE Where digitization will
Page 23 and 24: RESILIENCE Professor Rosa, in your
Page 25 and 26: RESILIENCE since we’re no longer
Page 27 and 28: POLITICAL LESSONS The EU RECOVERY a
Page 29 and 30: POLITICAL LESSONS sustainability is
Page 31 and 32: POLITICAL LESSONS health, economic,
Page 33 and 34: POLITICAL LESSONS 2. situation to l
Page 35 and 36: POLITICAL LESSONS 8. The empowermen
Page 37 and 38: POLITICAL LESSONS Several months ag
Page 39: POLITICAL LESSONS share the mineral
Page 43 and 44: ECONOMIC LESSONS The world as we kn
Page 45 and 46: ECONOMIC LESSONS mal, and the whole
Page 47 and 48: ECONOMIC LESSONS with funding going
Page 49 and 50: ECONOMIC LESSONS We are going to do
Page 51 and 52: ECONOMIC LESSONS Prior to the pande
Page 53 and 54: ECONOMIC LESSONS Case in point: In
Page 55 and 56: ECONOMIC LESSONS 2. System crash: P
Page 57 and 58: ECONOMIC LESSONS Impact Map for Sce
Page 59 and 60: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS 1 out of 4 amphi
Page 61 and 62: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS Mayibout 2 is no
Page 63 and 64: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS “We cut the tr
Page 65 and 66: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS Brian Bird, a re
Page 67 and 68: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS There comes a po
Page 69 and 70: uilt Columbia Maryland, which was t
Page 71 and 72: Global Goals Yearbook 2020 71
Page 73 and 74: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS What determines
Page 75 and 76: ECOLOGICAL LESSONS its head? The sa
Page 77 and 78: GOOD PRACTICE 84 Bayer 86 Beaulieu
Page 79 and 80: Having our customers are at the hea
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Page 83 and 84: with an initial capacity that enabl
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www.business-keeper.com health and
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Building upon our commitment to the
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edge on the main recycling pathways
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ACCELERATION IN DEVELOPMENT OF RENE
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several ways. It can reduce the req
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heat must be cooled, which itself i
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they could cope with immobilization
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At Inditex, we focus on our clients
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system in a controlled manner, virt
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GOOD PRACTICE 118 macondo foundatio
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and procuring renewable energies at
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ainfall collected brine solution co
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Crowdsourcing discovers the “wisd
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from its supply chain - by 30 perce
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as well as questions of good corpor
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4. You are responsible for a) ESG t
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a significant reduction in CO 2 emi
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engaged in this fight, the company
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SUSTAINABLE CONCEPTS FOR HEAT ENGIN
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tion model, farmers have a sustaina
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national and local governments, inc
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than in winter. This also pushes CO
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produce solutions to problems of pe
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tially the same - reduces the abili
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The Asian pogonia The Japanese snip
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policymakers as well as leading org
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Symrise contributes to the followin
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INNOVATION IN CLIMATE PROTECTION 05
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The new Wilopark of all electricity
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REVIEW Only ten years remain to imp
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REVIEW Global Goals Yearbook 2020 1
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REVIEW Another very successful work
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REVIEW Global Goals Yearbook 2020 1
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REVIEW About the Global Goals Forum
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The United Nations Environment Prog
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CDP is a not-for-profit charity tha
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GLOBAL GOALS YEARBOOK
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