This article from the Melbourne Journal of International Law sure has a great abstract:

“It will be difficult to find an agreed solution to climate change that does not engage with climate justice. It is generally regarded as naive, when considering international relations, to focus on justice, or to emphasize right over might. In the case of climate change – perhaps uniquely – even the powerful need a genuinely global solution, which cannot be achieved without an engagement with justice. In this instance, might needs right.

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A lengthy notice on a Chinese blog is a rare event.  In this case the blog, Chinese Walker, has the tagline “show you everything about China,” so we take it pretty seriously.  Dr. Yu Jie, in any case, is clearly a friend of GDRs, and as China Program Officer for the Heinrich Böll Foundation she has probably had ample occasion to think about the GDRs proposition.  Interestingly, she spends much of her time discussing its emphasis on inequality within countries.  As for example:

“Even before a consensus is reached on this framework, it is valuable to consider its emphasis on the responsibilities of rich and poor people, regardless of where they live. If emissions quotas become a scarce public commodity, the value of this proposal should become clear. Within any one country, the rich should allow the poor to increase their standard of living, while covering the costs of emissions reductions. This can be implemented at a national level before an international framework is adopted, and will be of benefit to domestic sustainable development policies.

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Timmons J. Roberts gives a useful primer on climate justice in his article The International Dimension of Climate Justice and the Need for International Adaptation Funding.  He explores the basic dynamic of unequal impacts from climate change, and identifies the key mechanisms for ensuring “reliable, adequate, and appropriate funding to help poor nations adapt to the worst elements of climate change.”

GDRs comes into the story by way of a typology of major adaptation funding proposals, and it is useful to have an overview of the key proposals to date.  Note that Timmons doesn’t compare the merits of each proposal, but at least he lays the groundwork for future inquiry.

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The Copenhagen Prognosis: toward a safe climate future is a brief, excellent compendium of the latest climate science, environmental vital signs more generally, and options for sustainable human development.   It was put together by an impressive collective of organizations – the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Energy and Resources Institute, the Potsdam Institute, and more.

GDRs is referenced as a framework for ensuring development justice alongside an aggressive emission reduction plan of action.  The report shows that without low-carbon development pathways, “the developing world is deeply and justifiably concerned that an inequitable climate regime will force a choice between development and climate protection.”  It’s only a shame that the report does not use the now widely accepted 350 ppm target as its basis of analysis.

For more detail, see the longer, more detailed, Copenhagen Diagnosis.

In the September 2009 issue of Ethics and International Affairs,  Darrel Moellendorf (a professional philosopher at the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at San Diego State University) examines the qualities of a legitimate post-2012 climate change treaty in the article Treaty Norms and Climate Change Mitigation.   Although published months ago, the article is still very timely (replace “Copenhagen” with “Mexico” and it’s practically new).

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