The Social-Rule Shaping Effects of Early and Enduring Emissions and its Normative Significance for a Compensatory Framework of Loss and Damage Policies

Climate change negotiations are characterized by the attempt to include compensatory mechanisms for their climate change related losses and damages. Here I defend a compensatory view of climate justice by providing an argument to support the prevalence of the Polluters Pay Principle for responding to losses and damages. The argument will be based on the normative significance of the social-rule shaping effects of early and enduring high-levels of emissions emitted by powerful agents. These effects are at the core of the architectural view of wrongful harm that underlies climate losses and damages. The argument departs from the ‘duty to promote’, which refers to a general duty of constructing and maintaining institutions that protect humanity from the consequences of climate change. This duty has led to a Non-promoters principle (NPP): those that do not comply with the duty to promote should be allocated more burdensome climate change related duties. This principle is qualified by an ability-to-pay element: the more able to promote an individual is, the more she should promote; thus, the more she should compensate in case of non-compliance. The Non-promoters principle can be seen as highlighting the social-rule shaping effects of emissions. On this basis, I claim that we should recognize a special normative significance of early high-levels of emissions that have endured over time – especially those carried out by powerful agents.