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Protecting Future Generations Through Minilateralism: Climate Clubs and Normative Legitimacy
[journal article]
Abstract Despite three decades of global climate negotiations and high expectations for the 2015 Paris Agreement, global emissions continue to grow. To protect future generations from severe harm, scholars, environmentalists, and politicians alike explore potential supplements to the United Nations Framework... view more
Despite three decades of global climate negotiations and high expectations for the 2015 Paris Agreement, global emissions continue to grow. To protect future generations from severe harm, scholars, environmentalists, and politicians alike explore potential supplements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process. One potential supplement is climate clubs of a type where a small number of "enthusiastic" countries embark on ambitious mitigation efforts while encouraging other, more "reluctant" countries to join. Previous research has shown that this club type possesses a significant potential for expanding membership and eventually becoming highly effective in reducing global emissions. A common criticism of climate clubs, however, is that they lack legitimacy. Assessing this criticism, we argue that climate clubs of the type considered here can be normatively legitimate. The main challenge for normative legitimacy concerns climate clubs' use of incentives, particularly negative incentives, to attract members. However, we argue that even negative incentives for participation can be legitimate, assuming they meet a set of relevant legitimacy criteria - including that the club respects human rights, provides a comparative benefit, maintains institutional integrity, implements only proportional incentives, and fulfills a requisite set of epistemic criteria. We also argue that the normative legitimacy of climate clubs' use of incentives for compliance is less challenging than the normative legitimacy of their use of incentives for participation.... view less
Keywords
climate change; democracy; Intergenerational relations; legitimacy; climate protection; human rights; fundamental right
Classification
Other Fields of Political Science
Free Keywords
climate clubs; future generations
Document language
English
Publication Year
2024
Journal
Politics and Governance, 12 (2024)
Issue topic
Considering Future Generations in Democratic Governance
ISSN
2183-2463
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed