Decolonizing the Atmosphere: The Climate Justice Movement on Climate Debt

Abstract

A central concept raised by the climate justice movement is climate debt. Here, the claims and warrants of the movement support for climate debt is identified through an argumentation analysis of their central manifestos. It is found that the climate debt claim is understood as primarily restorative, in the sense that the environmental space of the developing countries must be returned, “decolonized.” The damage caused by climate change also gives rise to a compensatory adaptation debt. The result is compared with an earlier study on ecological debt. Both concepts are framed within an unjust power relation between North and South, but there are differences. Ecological debt is mainly analyzed in terms of an unjust economic exploitation, which is congenial with its use as an argument for cancellation of Southern external debts; climate debt is rather seen as a violation of communal rights and territories, an argument for climate justice.

Keywords

environmental justice climate justice movements ecological debt climate debt sustainable development

Since about 2005, the climate change debate in and around the negotiations of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been increasingly politicized. Through the formation of the climate justice movement (CJM), the scope of the discourse has widened from mainly technomanagerial concerns over the Kyoto mechanisms to an array of social, economic, and environmental justice issues, ranging from economic distribution, ethnic rights, and gender equality to critical views on development and global trade policies (Bedall & Görg, 2014; Ciplet, Roberts, & Kahn, 2015, pp. 169–170).

One influential definition of climate justice, used in, for example, Bond’s (2014) overview, is made by Anne Petermann (2009): “Climate justice is the recognition that the historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialized countries of the global north” (pp. 135–136), whereas peasants, indigenous peoples, women, and so on has been disproportionaly affected. “These are also the people least responsible for climate change” (Bond, 2014, pp. 135–136).

Thus, climate debt—basically the idea that climate change is caused by rich people while mainly harming people that are poor, and therefore, the former should take the burden of mitigation and adaptation costs—is at the very core of climate justice.

Climate debt stems from the ecological debt concept, the history of which has already been outlined (see Martínez-Alier, 2002; Paredis, Goeminne, Vanhove, Maes, & Lambrecht, 2008; Roberts & Parks, 2007; Simms, 2009; Warlenius, Pierce, & Ramasar, 2015). The tandem notions of ecological and climate debt seem to function as beacons in critical discourses of climate and environmental change, judging from their status in recent publications by Naomi Klein (2014) and Pope Francis (2015).

This study has two overarching aims: First, there is a growing social science literature on CJM (see Primary Sources section), but despite the central role that climate debt has played for the movement, it is not the focus of any of these studies. By applying argumentation analysis to central CJM manifestos, I intend to identify and analyze their claims as well as the thoughts that underpin them. Thereby, our understanding of this pivotal movement is likely to be enhanced, and future elaborations by academics on the normative, legal, political, or quantitative aspects of climate debt can be based on a firmer knowledge of how the CJM conceives it. Second, there is a historical link between the environmental justice movement and the CJM (Dawson, 2010; Harlan et al., 2015; Schlosberg & Collins, 2014). The development from the former to the latter also brought about a shift in focus from ecological debt to climate debt. Our understanding of this historical development can be enhanced by comparing the results from this study with those of James Rice’s (2009) analysis of the nongovernmental organization (NGO) argument on ecological debt.

To enable a comparison with Rice’s results and add the data in his article to the data in this article, a similar method is applied, for example, a version of Toulmin’s argumentation analysis. Thereby, the conceptual development from ecological debt to climate debt can be captured, and the leverage of the study is enhanced. The other reason why argumentation analysis is used is that it helps provide a profound and clear understanding of the claims in the analyzed sources.

The Toulmin method is intratextual rather than contextual and descriptive rather than explanatory. This limits the ability to also provide rich contextualizations and causal explanations. The ambition is to provide a solid understanding of how climate debt is perceived by the CJM and to provide a stepping stone from which further analyses into motivations and explanations can depart. Meanwhile, I have to point to other sources—including my dissertation (Warlenius, 2017)—for a better understanding of why the CJM thinks and acts the way it does.

Methodological Approach

In the field of argumentation analysis, the Toulmin model (2003) is one of the most commonly used. It disentangles an argument into six dimensions. The claims, data, and warrants are the central components. The claim is the manifest standpoint that the sender wants the recipient to agree with. It is almost always based on some data or facts. Responding to a question on how the data lead to the claim, the sender needs to refer to some principles, generalizations, or premises. These are the warrants, which are presumed but not always expressed in the argument. If a warrant is supported by further data, this is called backing. The qualifier articulates the strength and probability of the claim, whereas a reservation indicates the conditions under which the claim does not hold.

In the following, a modified version of Toulmin’s model will be used. The claims, data, and warrants will be identified, but I have refrained from including the other three dimensions. The main reason is that I believe that to meet my aims, a focus on the core argument is sufficient, and little is gained by deconstructing the argument into their elements. In one case, however, I consider a qualification as central for understanding the claim, and it is therefore described in the text.

Here is an example of an analysis using the three components:
Industrialized countries have emitted most of the carbon emissions, while developing countries are most affected by climate change (data). Since the one who has messed up the climate system also should clean it up (warrant), industrialized countries owe developing countries a climate debt (claim).
Nine central CJM manifestos will be analyzed, a few main claims that are common to all or most of them are identified, and a synthesized definition is carved out. It should be noted that the Toulmin model is not an exact methodology. For instance, it would be cumbersome to discuss all possible claims in the documents analyzed, and which to choose is ultimately dependent on individual choices and interpretation (Boréus, 2017). To be able to discuss both similarities and differences, and for the reader to follow the process of synthesizing, I quote and refer generously to the primary sources.

In summary, the aims of this article are explorative rather than derived from theory, and the method is therefore mainly empirical and inductive. Yet, theories and principles are used to explain and contextualize the arguments and will be introduced as they appear.

Primary Sources

The CJM is considered a convergence of several movements with varied approaches to climate justice and climate debt (Garrelts & Dietz, 2014). The movements forming part of it include environmental NGOs, aid organizations, external debt cancellation networks, indigenous movements, some trade unions, and small-farmer’s movements. Other important members are Southern think tanks, of which, for instance, the Third World Network (TWN) tends to rather uncritically back Southern states within UNFCCC (Chatterton, Featherstone, and Routledge, 2013). Autonomous leftist groups in the North, such as the Climate Justice Alliance, represent a further component of the movement (Russel, 2012). On some occasions, configurations of parts or all of these movements have united behind manifestos on climate justice and climate debt. In the analysis, I will focus on these documents.

In the sampling strategy, two selection criteria are applied: first, their importance in the CJM, which is based on a historical analysis of the academic literature or on whether a significant amount of relevant organizations have signed them. Two of the texts (Number 5 and 8 later) are included because they are elaborations particularly on climate debt; they are not themselves historically important but are clearly rooted in the CJM. The second criterion is simply whether ecological debt or climate debt is mentioned. Three documents selected by the first criterion are thus disqualified for not fulfilling the second criterion. The selected (and deselected) documents are listed in Table 1.
Table 1.
Primary Sources.

Text Title Historical importance Mentions ED/CD

1 The Bali Principles of Climate Justice (International Climate Justice Network, 2002) High. Adopted by 14 relevant organizations that formed the International Climate Justice Network. Mentioned in climate justice historiographies such as Roberts and Parks (2009), Russel (2012, pp. 135–136), Chatterton et al. (2013), Tokar (2013), Bedall and Görg (2014), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and Ciplet et al. (2015, p. 169). Yes (ED)

2 The Climate Justice Declaration (Climate Justice Declaration, 2004) High. Adopted by a conference of the U.S. Environmental Justice movement and signed by a large number of both academics and activists from environmental justice and indigenous organizations. Referenced in Dorsey (2007), Roberts and Parks (2009), and Dawson (2010). Yes

3 Climate Justice Now! Founding Statement (Climate Justice Now, 2007) High. The first written expression of the international climate justice movement (cf. Harlan et al., 2015). The founding of the CJN! Network is mentioned in Roberts and Parks (2009), Bond and Dorsey (2010), Mueller (2012), Chatterton et al. (2013), Bond (2012, p. 187; 2014, p. 137), Russel (2012, p. 136), Tokar (2013), Bedall and Görg (2014), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and Ciplet et al. (2015, p. 170). Yes

4 Repay the Climate Debt. A Just and Effective Outcome for Copenhagen (Third World Network, 2009) Medium. A call drafted by Third World Network and signed by 254 relevant organizations. It was the first movement paper devoted specifically to climate debt, and although it is not referred to in the climate justice historiographies I have consulted, except for Hällström (2012, p. 41), it was broadly endorsed. Yes

5 Climate Debt: A Primer (Stilwell, 2009) Low. This is a more technical elaboration of (4), published by Third World Network and reproduced in Hällström (2012), but not formally adopted by the signatories of (4). (4) and (5) are collectively referred to as the TWN documents. Yes

6 People’s Declaration—System Change—Not Climate Change (KlimaForum, 2009) High. This declaration was processed within the Klimaforum09 alternative summit in Copenhagen and signed by over 300 organizations. Klimaforum09 or its final declaration is referred to in Mueller (2012), Chatterton et al. (2013), Bond (2012, p. 190), Russel (2012, p. 149), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins (2014). Yes

7 People’s Agreement (PWCCC, 2010a) High. The People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, PWCCC, in Cochabamba in April 2010, is the biggest and most influential gathering of the climate justice movement so far. Overall, 35,000 activists of which 10,000 from abroad joined it (Bond, 2014, p. 133). This is its final declaration. According to the official website, 241 organizations have signed it. It is referred to in Bond (2012, p. 153; 2014, p. 133), Mueller (2012), Russel (2012, pp. 169–175), Dawson (2013), Fabricant and Hicks (2013), Solón (2012), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins (2014). Yes

8 Final Conclusions Working Group 8—Climate Debt (PWCCC, 2010b) Medium. This is the outcome of the PWCCC working group that was especially devoted to climate debt. Together, (7) and (8) are referred to as the Cochabamba documents. Yes

9 Submission by the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (UNFCCC, 2010) Soon after PWCCC, Bolivia submitted a proposal on climate justice and climate debt repayment to the UNFCCC based on the outcome of the People’s conference. While formulated by a state, it reflects the movement’s standpoints (Bond, 2014, p. 134). It is mentioned in Bond (2014) and Russel, Pusey, and Sealey-Huggins (2012). Yes

10 Greenhouse Gangsters vs. Climate Justice (Bruno, Karliner, & Brotsky, 1999) High. Probably the first movement use of climate justice. Mentioned in Dorsey (2007), Roberts and Parks (2009), Russel (2012, p. 135), Bond (2014, p. 133), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins (2014). No

11 The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading (Durban Group for Climate Justice, 2004) High. A stepping stone in the formation of an international climate justice movement, prefiguring CJN! (3), entirely focused on carbon trading. Dorsey (2007), Bond (2012, p. 31; 2014, p. 133), Russel (2012, p. 136), Chatterton et al. (2013), Tokar (2013), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and reproduced in IICAT (2014). No

12 What Does Climate Justice Mean in Europe? (Climate Justice Alliance, 2010) Medium. A discussion paper circulated by the European-based, autonomous Climate Justice Alliance. Referred to in Russel (2012, p.164) and Tokar (2013), and reproduced in IICAT (2014). No

Note. Texts 10 to 12 fit the first sampling criterion (historical relevance), but not the second (mentions ecological or climate debt). Only 1 to 9 were therefore selected for the analysis. ED = ecological debt; CD = climate debt.

In the analysis, I will refer to these documents as (1), (2), and so forth. Two of them are short, and the concepts ecological/climate debt are mentioned only very briefly (2 and 3); four are general statements on climate justice that devote some sentences or paragraphs to ecological/climate debt (1, 6, 7, and 9), while three are elaborations specifically on climate debt originating from the CJM (4, 5, and 7). The last included paper (9) stands out for not being a movement paper but for being adopted by a state. It is included because it is directly based on the outcome of the People’s World Conference in 2010 and because Bolivia’s positions at this point coincided with those of the global movement, even though it tended to emphasize the right to development more strongly and was probably involved in the exclusion, from the Cochabamba statement, of the recurring climate justice demand of keeping existing fossil fuels in the ground (cf. Fabricant & Hicks, 2013; Mueller, 2012).

Analysis

Claim 1. Acknowledge Climate Debt

One set of claims in the analyzed documents is centered on the basic demand that the ecological debt or climate debt should be recognized and acknowledged. The central message is that industrialized countries, and sometimes also international organizations and transnational corporations, should recognize their climate debt as a first step to also repaying it (Claim 2).

Although precise definitions are rare, a rather uniform description of the concept can be synthesized from the documents. The very first declaration from 2002 defines the debt as what “industrialized governments and transnational corporations owe the rest of the world as a result of their appropriation of the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases” (1).

The definition is valid also for later manifestos except for two aspects. First, climate debt is generally attributed to countries—Northern governments (1, 2, and 8), “developed countries” (4 to 9), or “North” (3). Only in two cases (1 and 2) are corporations pointed out as responsible for climate debt. The claimants of the debt are referred to as “South” (3 and 6) or “developing countries” (4 to 9) but also “the victims of climate change” (1 and 2), “communities” (4, 5, and 8), “our children’s children and all living beings” (8), or “Mother Earth” (8, 9). Only two documents regard climate debt as exclusively bilateral (6 and 7), yet all texts except the first two seem to regard climate debt as primarily a country-to-country affair. In the claim as defined in Figure 1, corporations as debtors and future generations as claimants are put within brackets since they are not consensual parts of the claim.¹
Figure 1.
Claim 1. The first claim and the data and warrants supporting it.

The other main deviation from the first definition of climate debt in the Bali Principles is that another component has been added. Besides the “appropriation of the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases” (1), which in this article will be called the emissions debt, it has become increasingly clear that climate change cannot be fully reverted and therefore will require adaptation. The additional part of the climate debt is referred to as the adaptation debt. Thus, TWN defines climate debt as follows:
For their disproportionate contribution to the causes and consequences of climate change, developed countries owe a twofold climate debt to the poor majority;

For their excessive historical and current per person emissions—denying developing countries their fair share of atmospheric space—they have run up an “emissions debt” to developing countries; and

For their disproportionate contribution to the effects of climate change—requiring developing countries to adapt to rising climate impacts and damage—they have run up an “adaptation debt” to developing countries (4; cf. 5).

Other documents also differentiate between “mitigation and adaptation costs” (3) or “overconsumption of atmospheric space and adverse effects of climate change” (6). Moreover, in People’s Agreement and Bolivia’s submission, the climate debt can be divided into emission dimensions (“restore to developing countries the atmospheric space”) and adaptation (“assume adaptation debt”).

The data supporting the acknowledge climate debt claim belong to either one of two categories: the severity of climate change and the urgency to act on it or the unequal distribution of responsibility for climate change and vulnerability to its adverse effects. In the first category, representative statements include “climate change is a scientific reality” (1) that “threatens the balance of life on Earth” (4 and 5); there is but “a 50% chance that the damage caused to our Mother Earth would be totally irreversible” (9). In the second category, industrialized countries are shown to have caused climate change through their “excessive” (4 and 5) or “disproportionate” (9) contribution to climate change; they are the “principal” (4 and 5) or “main” (7) cause of climate change because of “their appropriation of the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases” (1; cf. 8) or, in a repeated metaphor, their “occupation,” “overconsumption” (6 and 8), or “excessive consumption” (4 and 5) of “atmospheric space” (4, 5, 7, 8, and 9). The bottom line of data in all the papers is that while the rich countries have caused climate change, the poor countries are the most exposed victims, and “[t]his basic and undeniable truth forms the foundation of the global climate justice movement” (5).

The main warrants, or principles, behind the Acknowledge climate debt claim are three. At the bottom of all ecological and climate debt claims lies a vision of ecological integrity: All humans share a planet that is vulnerable and needs to be treated with care. The frightening data on the state of the planet must therefore be acted upon. The texts are anthropocentric in the sense that their focus is on how people are affected by the adverse effects of climate change, yet several also have a tendency toward ecocentrism, as when referring to Mother Earth (1, 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9), sometimes as sacred (1) or as a living being (7 and 8).²

The remaining two warrants are used to link data on unequal contribution to climate change and inverse vulnerability to the claim that industrialized countries owe a climate debt. This is the principle of historical responsibility, which is closely related to the UNFCCC concept of common but differentiated responsibility. According to this principle, the one who has caused damage is also morally responsible for it. It incorporates strict liability: Causing damage is a sufficient criterion for responsibility, independent of premeditation. Direct references are made to both historical responsibility (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9) and common but differentiated responsibility (1, 2, 7, 8, and 9).

Finally, there is the idea that the climate system is a common, belonging to all and to be shared equally. A problem with the conventional global economic model is that “[t]his system is premised on the appropriation of local, national, and planetary commons by local and global elites” (6). In this context, the data on the “atmospheric space” being colonized, occupied, or disproportionately consumed make sense. It is assumed that the “excessive consumption, lifestyles and emissions” in the developed countries “are turning the Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases into a scarce and limited resource” (8). According to this principle, everyone has the right to an equal share of the atmospheric common. But the “excessive historical and current per person emissions” of the developed countries means “denying developing countries their fair [equitable (9)] share of atmospheric space,” and therefore, “they have run up an ‘emissions debt’” (5).³
Figure 2.
Claim 2. The second claim and supporting data and warrants.

Claim 2. Repay the Climate Debt

The second main claim is that the climate debt not only exists and should be acknowledged but also repaid (see Figure 2). Several means of debt repayment are proposed, and I divide them into claims for relating to the emissions debt and the adaptation debt, respectively.

First, it is very clear that the climate debt should be repaid to its full extent (cf. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 9). The TWN documents state that both the emission and the adaptation debts should be paid in full. It can be repaid in different forms, mainly through restoration or compensation. The implicit claim seems to be that losses that cannot be restored physically should be compensated economically or otherwise—also measures such as the removal of patents and intellectual property rights can be a repayment (6 to 8). That climate debt is not only about compensation is clearly expressed in the Cochabamba documents: “The focus must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings” (7, cf. 9).

Thus, I understand a restorative debt as the obligation to repay historical overuse of the carbon commons by freeing up the equivalent amount of sink capacity for the future use of the debtors through the reduction of creditor emissions to levels below their momentary per capita share of total sustainable emissions. It is physical because it is measured in a physical unit such as tons of greenhouse gases. The adaptation debt equals the needs of the affected countries for adaptation to climate change and catching-up development. It is mainly a compensatory debt measured in monetary value. It is compensatory because it likely cannot restore the damage done by climate change but can compensate for it and mitigate some of the problems.

The data supporting the repayment claims are largely the same as that for the recognition of the climate debt. If a debt exists, it is presumed that it should be settled. The dominant warrant reminds of the recognized Polluters Pay Principle or what is called Contributor Pays Principle within climate ethics (cf. Page, 2012): Developed countries should pay “[f]or their disproportionate contribution” (4) because they are “the main cause” (7).

Another important warrant motivating the acknowledgment of both the ecological and climate debt is a strive for global equality and a belief that economic and social development in poor countries and communities have been blocked by industrialized countries through different means—colonialism, imperialism, unjust trade policies, and now also refusal to take responsibility for climate change. I refer to this warrant as “the right to sustainable development.” In the texts analyzed, this effort to maintain or enhance welfare, yet with respect to the ecological integrity, is sometimes indicated by references to a just transition (1, 2, and 6), a right to sustainable energy (1, 3, and 4), or a need to “build the houses, schools, roads and infrastructure that the developed world already has” (4 and 5). Only in Bolivia’s submission is development explicitly framed as a rights issue, “the rights and aspirations of developing countries to development” and as their “first and overriding priorities” (9).

Although the striving for development is a general warrant, the framing of it differs substantially. While the TWN documents are not problematizing it, People’s Agreement is very critical of the current development model, which is “patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings and nature.” The goal “is not a model of limitless and destructive development” but “a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings” based upon the “ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in the thought and practices of ‘Living Well’” and as recorded in the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth (7).

A specific warrant invoked for the repayment of the climate debt is an efficiency and expediency warrant. According to it, repaying the climate debt would facilitate a more effective negotiation process within UNFCCC. “Honoring these debts is not only right, it is the basis of a fair and effective solution to climate change” (4, cf. 8). This warrant responds to data on the strategic interests and relative strength of developing countries:
Poor countries and communities are unlikely to sit by while a wealthy minority continues to consume an excessive proportion of the Earth’s limited environmental space. Nor are they likely to ignore the wealthy’s historical responsibility for the causes and consequences of climate change. (5)
Repaying the debt is thus the most expedient way to reach an agreement.

Claim 2a. Repay the Emission Debt

The emissions debt is a physical debt and is first about restoring or “decolonizing” the atmospheric space “occupied” by developed countries’ historical and current emissions. It should be done “through the deepest possible domestic reductions, and by committing to assigned amounts of emissions that reflect the full measure of their historical and continued excessive contributions to climate change” (5). By cutting domestic emissions, countries with an historical overuse of the atmospheric common will pay its debt by freeing up “space” for developing countries to fill with their emissions.

There is an ambiguity here that is not fully resolved in the documents. If defined as earlier, the emission debt can only be repaid in the very long term. Even if industrialized countries cut their emissions dramatically, the global sinks would still be overcrowded with their historical emissions. Very low emissions would have to be maintained for perhaps hundreds of years before those of the developing countries could catch up. This slow restoration of the global sinks would be an obstacle to development in the South. Therefore, it would seem more practical to swap parts of the restorative debt into a compensatory debt. As defined earlier, a restorative debt means the obligation of the creditor to cut current emissions to below its per capita share of sustainable emissions to free up space for debtor emissions. A compensatory debt repayment would mean to transfer finance or technology that enables the same degree of “development” that the restorative debt repayment would amount to, but without the emissions normally attached to it (“leap frog development” in UNFCCC lingo). The result of such a debt swap would, ideally, be a faster development in debtor countries and an easier transition path for creditor countries.⁴ If the emission debt repayment claim is understood as a right to equally large per capita emissions, the proposed swap represents a deviation. But there are good reasons to instead focus on, for example, energy rights or development rights (cf. Shue, 2013). In practice, this pragmatic stance is taken by TWN: While it mentions only two parts of the debt (emission debt and adaptation debt), both to be repaid fully, also a third kind of debt repayment is proposed: “the financing and technology required to cover the additional costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change” (4, 5). To consider this a debt repayment does not make sense—the debt is already fully repaid—unless TWN assumes that the other debt repayments will be incomplete, presumably that the emission debt is impossible or impractical to pay back only through physical restoration.

One of the Cochabamba documents is more frank about this. It assumes that “[e]ven in the case of the deepest possible emissions reductions and removals by rich countries, poor countries will face climate-related challenges to their development” (8). Thereby, the responsibility emerges to compensate this injustice. Honoring the emission debt is seen not only as returning atmospheric space but also as “reflecting the loss of development opportunities due to the costs and technological demands to developing countries to live within a restricted atmospheric space” (8). Actually, besides demands for drastic cuts in emissions, there are wide calls for compensation in the form of the global North financing mitigation efforts in the South (3 to 8). Note that this is not similar to carbon trading, where the financing of mitigation actions abroad compensates for continued emissions domestically, but an additional duty in excess of domestic reductions.

The conclusion is that the claim to repay the emission debt in full needs a qualification: The part of the emission debt that is not possible or practical to restore through emission cuts should be paid for by other means such as compensation for mitigation costs. Although the emission debt is physical, its repayment needs to be divided into a restorative physical part and a compensatory monetary part. Although TWN is ambiguous, I consider it appropriate to include the compensation qualification in the general claim in Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Claim 2a. Part A of the second claim and supporting data and warrants.

The data supporting the repayment of the emission debt are that the historical overuse of the atmosphere has turned “Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases into a scarce and limited resource” (8). This forces developing countries to “live within a restricted atmospheric space” (7 and 8) and to cope with the “two-fold barrier to their development – mitigating and adapting to climate change – which were not present for developed countries during the course of their development” (4). Thus, “the twin constraints of a more hostile climate and restricted atmospheric space” must be honored by the obligation of the developed countries to provide “the full incremental costs of emission reductions undertaken in developing countries” (5).

Warrants supporting emissions debt repayment are the same as earlier, but additionally, a right to emit greenhouse gases is mobilized.⁵ This right is sometimes outspoken, as when repayment of the emission debt is motivated by restoring “the environmental space needed” to develop (5) and “the need for adequate development space” (8); it is nothing less than “an inalienable fundamental right of all nations and peoples” (9). It is also indicated by the fact that the manifestos rarely demand a full phase out of fossil fuels (only 1 and 6 do) but focus on an overall reduction and redistribution of emissions, from North to South. This is clearly stated in Bolivia’s submission: A “just, fair and equitable right of developing country Parties to achieve development in harmony with nature making use of the atmospheric space and resources” (9, my emphasis).

Given the urgency of acting on climate change, the right-to-emit warrant is contested, however. The Bali Principles state “the need to reduce with an aim to eliminate the production of greenhouse gases” (1), and KlimaForum09 demands “[a] complete abandonment of fossil fuels within the next 30 years” (6), which can be seen as contradicting the “right to emit” warrant. Therefore, it is put within brackets. It should also be noted that although cumulative emissions should be distributed equally, they should not in total exceed what can be considered a sustainable limit; “equilibrium with Mother Earth” should also be considered (8).
Figure 4.
Claim 2b. Part B of the second claim and supporting data and warrants.

Claim 2b. Repay the Adaptation Debt

The adaptation debt should be repaid “by committing to full financing and compensation for the adverse effects of climate change on all affected countries, groups and people” (4) by “providing the means to prevent, minimize, and deal with damages” (7 to 9), and “provide compensation for those harms that cannot be avoided” (5). The adaptation debt addresses “the damage arising from their [developed countries’] excessive emissions and from the lost opportunities of people to “live well” (8; cf. the notion “buen vivir” discussed in, for example, Gudynas, 2011). It is stated clearly that it is not only “countries” that should receive compensation for adaptation, but all “those impoverished” (6); the debt should be honored also “to vulnerable communities in their own countries [i.e., ‘the countries that have over-consumed the atmospheric space’], to our children’s children and to all living beings in our shared home – Mother Earth” (8).

KlimaForum09 proposes a “global and democratic fund … to give direct support to the victims of climate change,” with the reservation that “International financial institutions, donor agencies, and trade mechanisms should have no part in reparations” (6). Moreover, the People’s Agreement and Bolivia’s submission demand a new adaptation fund that works in a “sovereign, transparent, and equitable manner” (7 and 9), and Climate Justice Now! calls for “[h]uge financial transfers from North to South … for adaptation and mitigation costs” (3). According to Bolivia, the huge transfers should “be equivalent to at least 6% of the GNP of developed country Parties comprising 3% for adaptation, 1% for mitigation, 1% for technology development and transfer and 1% for capacity building” (9).

But the adaptation debt is not entirely monetary. The People’s Agreement also demands that the developed countries
[a]ssume responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people that will be forced to migrate due to the climate change caused by these countries, and eliminate their restrictive immigration policies, offering migrants a decent life with full human rights guarantees in their countries. (7, cf. 8 and 9)
Also in developing countries, human rights should be preserved, most notably the “rights of indigenous people” (8 and 9). Other types of demands are “patent-free technologies” (6) and to “remove barriers such as intellectual property rights” (8) alongside “additional unconditional financial resources to enable technology transfer, capacity building and adaptation” (8).

To support the adaptation debt repayment claim, data are presented on how poor communities and countries are most affected by climate change for which they have no or very little responsibility. Mentioned are, for instance, farmers, indigenous or poor communities, women, people relying on scarce water resources, and communities susceptible to health impacts (5). The impacts threaten their development ambitions or even the very existence of their countries. Entities such as “island states, coastal ecosystems … biodiversity and future generations and other groups” are also threatened (8).

Warrants supporting the repay-the-adaptation-debt claim are the same as mentioned earlier (see Figure 4 for the entire argument).
Figure 5.
Claim 3. The third claim and supporting data and warrants.

Claim 3. The Climate Debt Is Part of a Wider Ecological Debt

A final main claim, repeated in most of the documents analyzed, is that climate debt is only a part of a wider ecological and perhaps also social and economic debt, which the industrialized countries owe the developing countries and “Mother Earth.” It serves to put climate debt in a wider context and tradition but is not very elaborated (see Figure 5).

TWN claims that “climate debt is a component of a larger ecological debt” and that “any effort to advance the cause of climate justice must be rooted in a broader effort to promote ecological and social justice between rich and poor, developed and developing countries” (5). The Cochabamba documents state that the climate debt should be honored “as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth” (7 and 8). In widening the context further, climate debt repayment is seen as a way to “partly address historical injustices associated to inequitable industrialization and climate change, originating in the genocide of indigenous nations, transatlantic slave trade, colonial era, and invasions” (6). Another way to honor the broader debt would be to adopt and implement “the United Nations Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth” (7), drafted in Cochabamba.

There are some data that put climate debt in a wider, ecological, and social context. Country-based ecological footprints are compared with show that the world suffers from “excessive pollution and overuse by the wealthy of the goods and services provided by nature” (5), yet the ecological footprint, as used here, is a noncumulative measure and thus does not effectively support the claim of an ecological debt.

Although rather laconic in the documents analyzed, some warrants situate the climate debt claim in a wider context of socially radical, sometimes socialist, egalitarian, ecological, and indigenous political traditions. For instance, it is stated that a consequence of the large ecological footprints of countries in the North is that “any effort to advance the cause of climate justice must be rooted in a broader effort to promote ecological and social justice between rich and poor, developed and developing countries” (5). When discussing the roots of climate change, both the People’s Agreement and Bolivia point to “the capitalist system” (7 and 9), which is “separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature” (7) but is also “patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings” (7): Therefore, it is “imperative that we forge a new system” based on “balance with nature” and “equity among human beings” (7 and 9). Although the main tendency is to frame climate debt as a North-South conflict, pointing to unsustainable development models or the capitalist system unties the strict geopolitical focus. Assigning responsibility directly to the South is, however, rare, yet “elites within the South” (1) and “local … elites” (6) are mentioned.

A Comparison With Ecological Debt Claims

James Rice (2009) analyzes eight documents on ecological debt adopted by different NGOs and uses Toulmin’s model to identify four main claims in the ecological debt discourse. The documents are about one decade older than those on climate debt, with a median of about 2000 and 2009, respectively.⁶ I will first examine how climate debt is conceptualized within the ecological debt discourse and then proceed to discuss how the four ecological debt claims relate to the climate debt claims in this article.

The first and most central of the ecological debt claims in Rice’s analysis is that the Northern development model is predicated on a “socio-ecological subsidy” imposed on the countries in the global South, defined as “the underpayment and, at times, explicit looting of the natural resource assets of Southern countries” (Rice, 2009). Warrants legitimizing the claim are ecologically unequal exchange, foreign direct investments, North’s failure to stay within its designated “environmental space” that inhibits an equitable use of it by the South. The “environmental space” warrant is conceptualized in a way that is similar to how the emission debt is described in the CJM manifestos: “Northern countries appropriate a disproportionate share of the assimilative or sink-capacity of global ecosystems.” Backing of this warrant “includes evidence of the disproportionate emissions of greenhouse gases within Northern countries, contributing to global climate change” (Rice, 2009). There is no explicit mention of a climate debt in the article, but one of the analyzed articles, by Friends of the Earth in Australia, comes close:
The idea of a Carbon Debt is based upon the same theory as that of the Ecological Debt. That is, those countries that are using more than their fair share of carbon allocation are running up a debt to those countries that are using less than their fair allocation. (Rice, 2009)
Interestingly, the phenomenon that CJM refers to as the emission debt is here seen as backing data of a warrant or principle (appropriation of environmental space) legitimizing the claim of a socio-ecological subsidy. So even if the conceptualization of an emission debt existed within the ecological debt discourse, it was still peripheral. A major shift in how to evaluate the importance of climate debt thus seems to have occurred during the 2000s. The adaptation debt, the other part of the climate debt claim, is entirely absent in Rice’s analysis and therefore appears to be of a later date.

Since carbon or climate debt is often regarded as integral to ecological debt, it is reasonable to assume that the four claims identified by Rice on ecological debt also appear in documents on climate debt. The four claims are quoted and analyzed later.
Claim 1. Northern development and present disproportionate production and consumption are founded on a socio-ecological “subsidy” imposed upon Southern countries.
As mentioned, this key claim is defined as the underpayment or, sometimes, the explicit looting of Southern countries’ resources; as the “unequal and undervalued exchange of natural resources and labor power” (Rice, 2009). While “underpayment” and “undervalued exchange” refer to trade within the economic process, although biased and exploitative, “explicit looting” refers to extraeconomic processes such as of colonial violence. This division is reminiscent of the dual character of accumulation as either economic or expropriative (Luxemburg, 2003, p. 432). Ecological debt is accrued through both forms but mainly the first, which is indicated by the term socioecological subsidy that brings to mind an unjust economic relation, but not direct expropriation. For climate debt, however, the latter form is in focus. It accrues through appropriation (1 and 5) or occupation (4, 7, 8, and 9) of the common atmospheric space. Thus, while both concepts are framed within the notion of unjust power relations between North and South, there are differences in how this power inequality is played out. The discursive shift—from intra- to extraeconomic emphasis—is likely the result of conceptual differences, where ecological debt is mainly (but not only) the result of unfair trade between countries, while climate debt is the nontraded result of overuse of the carbon commons, imprecating adverse effects of climate change. From this perspective, the economic lingo of “debt” and “subsidy” arguably fits better within the first, exploitative-economic form, while the result of an expropriation of commons could just as well be termed calls for indemnity or reparation.
Claim 2. The Southern external financial debt should be cancelled because it promotes the socioecological subsidy.
The claim to cancel the Southern external financial debt is present in only two of the analyzed texts on climate debt and not very emphasized in either. In Climate Justice Now!, debt cancellation is listed as one of several ways to finance the “huge financial transfers from North to South” (3). In a rather long list of debt repayment measures, “immediately cancelling external debt” is also one of the demands in (8). This indicates that the claim to cancel external debt has largely been lost when the focus changed from ecological debt to climate debt. This is interesting because the demand for external debt relief was one of the “cradles” of the ecological debt claim and a decisive reason for the development and coining of the ecological debt notion (Warlenius et al., 2015). Perhaps this development is a result of the decreasing activity of the movement for debt relief after its heroic mobilization to the 2000 UN Millenium Summit.
Claim 3. Levels of Northern production and consumption are unsustainable over the long term because they are predicated on the socio-ecological subsidy.
In the climate justice argument for climate debt, what is primarily considered as unsustainable are the emissions of developed countries, while the mechanisms behind these excess emissions are less emphasized. Therefore, claims for lowering the levels of production and consumption in Northern countries are largely, although not entirely, absent. There are references to “unsustainable production, consumption and lifestyles” (1), “excessive consumption, lifestyles and emissions” (8), and “unsustainable patterns of consumption and production” (9). Note, however, that only in (8) are the actual levels of consumption questioned, while in the other cases, it is their sustainability. The tendency in the ecological debt context that “levels of Northern production and consumption” are criticized for being unsustainable has been substituted, in the climate debt discourse, by references to sustainable production/consumption and excess emissions. This shift may be interpreted as a political shift from a degrowth narrative to an ecological modernization one, likely to focus directly on emissions rather than on questioning the very system of rising production and consumption. Yet, such an interpretation is contradicted by the framing of climate debt as a question of power relations and by the identification of capitalism as the root cause of climate change (7 to 9). I therefore interpret it as mainly a rhetorical shift. The link between emissions and climate change is so obvious that it might seem unnecessary to challenge the levels of production and consumption directly. The fundamental argument, that it is the North that must adjust and adapt rather than the South, prevails anyway.
Claim 4. Equity for present generations and rational obligations to future generations demands that Northern countries begin paying back the accrued socio-ecological subsidy, an obligation that can be defined as an “ecological debt.”
Rice’s fourth claim of a repayment duty is clearly transferred from the ecological debt discourse to the climate debt claim. In both cases, the equity argument for both present and future generations is emphasized. One notable difference is that in Rice’s analysis of ecological debt claims, the only concrete form of repayment mentioned is the cancellation of external debts, while in the climate debt discourse, sophisticated distinctions between restorative and compensatory measures as well as mitigative and adaptive measures can be derived.

Discussion and Conclusion

This article aims at enhancing the understanding of the CJM by analyzing its core demand of climate debt and by comparing it with the ecological debt claim to understand more of its historical development. During the 2000s, the focus of the environmental justice movement shifted from ecological debt and external debt toward climate change. In that context, climate debt was developed out of the ecological debt discourse and evolved into what has been analyzed in this article. While the primary objective of the ecological debt concept was external debt relief, the primary objective of climate debt is, I would argue, climate justice: To push for a “recognition that the historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialized countries of the global north” (Petermann, 2009). As discussed in the previous section, the economic context surrounding ecological debt was largely lost since the accrual of climate debt is conceptualized as expropriative, rather than exploitative.

Even though this shift of context makes the concept of climate debt partly misleading, I would argue that the analysis—summarized in Figures 1 through 5—shows that CJM clearly has the ambition to make climate debt a concrete, well-defined, thought-through, and usable concept. The climate debt is seen as twofold, where the emissions debt is mainly biophysical and the adaption debt mainly pecuniary. The conceptualization is quite complex but follows logically from the standard division of climate change politics in mitigation and adaptation. Remaining problems are not, I believe, mainly conceptual but related to the application of the model on the real world.

In the real world, cumulative emissions are so large that the acute mission is to drastically reduce all emissions. This makes it almost impossible to expect a full repayment of the emission debts in biophysical terms, which have given rise to ideas of compensatory measures. Yet, in the analyzed documents, this dilemma is not fully acknowledged or solved. Here, more work by both activists and scholars would be useful.

In the real world, further, cumulative emissions are so unequally distributed that a full recognition of the climate debt claims would have radical consequences: massive investments in mitigation and massive transfers of resources from North to South. This is a paradox. Climate debt is, at first sight, not very radical. It is simply asking the one who caused the mess to clean it up—a principle that is easily derived from commonsense ethics and is well established in environmental politics. Yet, that it would be a consensual principle is delusory: Because of the magnitude of the mess and the skewness of responsibility, it would have drastic effects. The industrialized countries are of course aware of this and have therefore resisted it forcefully. Despite massive mobilization of both movements and Southern governments, the results, in terms of influencing the UNFCCC negotiations, are bleak. There are no references to climate debt or historical liabilities in the agreements.

Yet, this delusion is also the concept’s major asset. Climate debt provides radical redistributive measures with a strong legitimacy that makes them difficult to oppose, at least intellectually. Perhaps, the proponents of climate debt have therefore mistaken it for an innocent proposal and underestimated the resistance it would provoke. That would be a mistake. Because in the real world, it is a bomb.

Text	Title	Historical importance	Mentions ED/CD
1	The Bali Principles of Climate Justice (International Climate Justice Network, 2002)	High. Adopted by 14 relevant organizations that formed the International Climate Justice Network. Mentioned in climate justice historiographies such as Roberts and Parks (2009), Russel (2012, pp. 135–136), Chatterton et al. (2013), Tokar (2013), Bedall and Görg (2014), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and Ciplet et al. (2015, p. 169).	Yes (ED)
2	The Climate Justice Declaration (Climate Justice Declaration, 2004)	High. Adopted by a conference of the U.S. Environmental Justice movement and signed by a large number of both academics and activists from environmental justice and indigenous organizations. Referenced in Dorsey (2007), Roberts and Parks (2009), and Dawson (2010).	Yes
3	Climate Justice Now! Founding Statement (Climate Justice Now, 2007)	High. The first written expression of the international climate justice movement (cf. Harlan et al., 2015). The founding of the CJN! Network is mentioned in Roberts and Parks (2009), Bond and Dorsey (2010), Mueller (2012), Chatterton et al. (2013), Bond (2012, p. 187; 2014, p. 137), Russel (2012, p. 136), Tokar (2013), Bedall and Görg (2014), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and Ciplet et al. (2015, p. 170).	Yes
4	Repay the Climate Debt. A Just and Effective Outcome for Copenhagen (Third World Network, 2009)	Medium. A call drafted by Third World Network and signed by 254 relevant organizations. It was the first movement paper devoted specifically to climate debt, and although it is not referred to in the climate justice historiographies I have consulted, except for Hällström (2012, p. 41), it was broadly endorsed.	Yes
5	Climate Debt: A Primer (Stilwell, 2009)	Low. This is a more technical elaboration of (4), published by Third World Network and reproduced in Hällström (2012), but not formally adopted by the signatories of (4). (4) and (5) are collectively referred to as the TWN documents.	Yes
6	People’s Declaration—System Change—Not Climate Change (KlimaForum, 2009)	High. This declaration was processed within the Klimaforum09 alternative summit in Copenhagen and signed by over 300 organizations. Klimaforum09 or its final declaration is referred to in Mueller (2012), Chatterton et al. (2013), Bond (2012, p. 190), Russel (2012, p. 149), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins (2014).	Yes
7	People’s Agreement (PWCCC, 2010a)	High. The People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, PWCCC, in Cochabamba in April 2010, is the biggest and most influential gathering of the climate justice movement so far. Overall, 35,000 activists of which 10,000 from abroad joined it (Bond, 2014, p. 133). This is its final declaration. According to the official website, 241 organizations have signed it. It is referred to in Bond (2012, p. 153; 2014, p. 133), Mueller (2012), Russel (2012, pp. 169–175), Dawson (2013), Fabricant and Hicks (2013), Solón (2012), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins (2014).	Yes
8	Final Conclusions Working Group 8—Climate Debt (PWCCC, 2010b)	Medium. This is the outcome of the PWCCC working group that was especially devoted to climate debt. Together, (7) and (8) are referred to as the Cochabamba documents.	Yes
9	Submission by the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (UNFCCC, 2010)	Soon after PWCCC, Bolivia submitted a proposal on climate justice and climate debt repayment to the UNFCCC based on the outcome of the People’s conference. While formulated by a state, it reflects the movement’s standpoints (Bond, 2014, p. 134). It is mentioned in Bond (2014) and Russel, Pusey, and Sealey-Huggins (2012).	Yes
10	Greenhouse Gangsters vs. Climate Justice (Bruno, Karliner, & Brotsky, 1999)	High. Probably the first movement use of climate justice. Mentioned in Dorsey (2007), Roberts and Parks (2009), Russel (2012, p. 135), Bond (2014, p. 133), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins (2014).	No
11	The Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading (Durban Group for Climate Justice, 2004)	High. A stepping stone in the formation of an international climate justice movement, prefiguring CJN! (3), entirely focused on carbon trading. Dorsey (2007), Bond (2012, p. 31; 2014, p. 133), Russel (2012, p. 136), Chatterton et al. (2013), Tokar (2013), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and reproduced in IICAT (2014).	No
12	What Does Climate Justice Mean in Europe? (Climate Justice Alliance, 2010)	Medium. A discussion paper circulated by the European-based, autonomous Climate Justice Alliance. Referred to in Russel (2012, p.164) and Tokar (2013), and reproduced in IICAT (2014).	No

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I take the opportunity to thank my PhD supervisors prof. Alf Hornborg and prof. Anne Jerneck, both Lund University, for valuable comments. Prof. Kristina Boréus, Uppsala University, also kindly read and commented on the methodological framework. I have also benefitted from the comments of two anonymous reviewers.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author acknowledges support from FP7 Science in Society (266642).

Notes

Author Biography

Rikard Warlenius is a PhD and lecturer in human ecology at Lund University, Sweden. His main research interest is climate justice.

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