Climate justice from a club good perspective

The purpose of this paper is to apply club good theory to challenges in climate justice and to identify the opportunities for creating a club of countries or regions to support climate justice and/or mitigate climate change, as well as the threats that such clubs could lead to the real exclusion of large parts of the world from climate justice.

A theoretical analysis is provided regarding the conditions for creating a club for climate change mitigation. Indicators of good governance and trust, as well as the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN), are used to assess the capacity for creating such a club.

While opportunities for achieving climate justice are identified, climate change mitigation is likely to be at most a club good at the global level, thus excluding the most vulnerable countries, regions and groups of people. Although the threats of climate change may be acknowledged, they are easily neglected. Economic growth is likely to be a condition for economic sustainability, which in turn tends to be a condition for environmental sustainability. Decision makers should be conscious of the potential danger of creating a club for climate change mitigation based on the belief that economic growth and technology will solve these problems, as such a club is likely to be either unsustainable, or very small, while deepening existing injustice.

The authors provide an overview of the complexity of issues involved, to gain an appreciation of the vast, perhaps insurmountable, challenges facing climate justice. A club good approach is applied to issues of climate justice, emphasizing the limitations of the all-inclusiveness of climate justice and sustainable development.