Kant and Climate Justice: Energy as a Public Right

Recent efforts to address environmental issues from a Kantian perspective generally do not take into account his own legal-political philosophy. This is nowhere more evident than in the debate on the legal regulation of carbon emissions. When Kant is taken into account in such a debate, the discussion typically revolves around his ethics. Despite the recent renaissance in the field of Kantian legal-political philosophy, this is to some extent understandable. However, it is surprising given that the debate concerns not virtue, but law and politics. This paper aims to bring the legal-political Kant closer to the debate on environmental justice by focusing on the case of carbon emissions. In the first section, I set this problem as one concerning a public good, and endorse the recent shift from a right to emit to a right to energy. In the second section, I argue that even on a minimalist reading of Kant’s approach to contemporary distributive justice, his theory fares well enough with respect to how we should conceive of the right to energy. Firstly, an account of distributive justice based on freedom as non-domination may demand less than more substantive ones, but that is sufficient for the concrete goal of emissions reduction. Secondly, conceiving of this right as one that everyone has in their capacity as members of the public provides a solid foundation for it while avoiding consequentialist or egalitarian grounds.