Rethinking responsibility - Climate Justice - I by IMD

Yet Sunstein, a self-described optimist, sees lots of reasons for hope despite the current retreats on climate in the United States and elsewhere. He believes that countries and companies can make substantial progress on tackling the climate crisis and discussed tools and ideas on how that could be achieved.

“Economic growth and sustainability are looking more compatible than they ever have in human history,” he says.

“Compared to where we were in 2005, it’s really a miracle that we’ve seen so much,” he says, pointing to significant progress in wind, solar, and other renewable technologies. “Here are a couple other grounds for optimism: first, sustainability-focused innovation is accelerating rapidly. Second, the pace of advancement suggests even greater breakthroughs to come.”

Drawing on decades of expertise in law, behavioral science, and policy, Sunstein says there’s a compelling case for treating climate change not just as an environmental problem, but as a question of justice.

The core argument of his book is that wealthy nations have a moral and practical duty to address climate change globally and equitably. At the heart of this is a simple premise: lives matter equally – whether those lives are lived in rich or poor countries, or in this century or the next. From this moral foundation, Sunstein argues that the costs of carbon emissions should be calculated globally rather than nationally, as the harms from climate change disproportionately affect vulnerable populations.