Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment

Climate ethics typically calls for the consideration of both backward- and forward-looking considerations and hence can gain insight from the structural analogy to the issue of affirmative action. Yet, unlike affirmative action, global warming has not been the effect of wrongful behaviour (like slavery or colonial oppression). Still, it is argued here, the present generation in the developed countries carries a special duty to restrict their emissions due to what may be referred to as the unjust enrichment from which they benefited through the continued depletion of the absorption capacity of the atmosphere by their ancestors. Consequently, past polluters cannot be morally blamed for the current ecological crisis, but we, as beneficiaries of their actions, owe those who have been harmed restitution. Present people, who know the risks of continuing pollution, owe developing countries compensation. Future people, after having settled the historical accounts of restitution and compensation, will have to share the burdens of mitigation and adaptation on the basis of distributive justice.