Abstract
Most agree that large sums of money should be transferred to the most vulnerable countries in order to help them adapt to climate change. But how should that money be allocated within those countries? A popular and intuitively plausible answer, in line with the strong standing of the norm of ownership in development aid circles, is that this is for the recipient country to decide. The paper investigates the three most important types of ethical arguments for such ‘recipient control’: the epistemic argument, the entitlement argument, and the legitimacy argument. It is argued that there is a good case for recipient control in democratic countries, because such countries can be expected to act in the name of the people to whom adaptation finance is ultimately owed. However, the three arguments do not support, even if taken jointly, recipient control in nondemocratic countries. This is a significant result seeing as the majority of the most vulnerable countries are nondemocratic.
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Notes
‘Adaptation finance’ is not a precise term since finance that goes toward socioeconomic development also tends to increase adaptive capacity (Ayers and Dodman 2010; Victor 2011). However, promoting adaptation via official development assistance (ODA) threatens the ‘additional requirement’ of adaptation finance (Füssel et al. 2012; Klein 2011). For the purposes of this paper, I will assume that adaptation finance can be separated from development assistance, either by its separate funding channels or by its focusing on reducing risks that are primarily climate change related.
As laid out by Article 4.8, these factors include that the country has low-lying coastal areas, is liable to drought and desertification, or is prone to natural disasters. Klein (2009) reviews what UNFCCC and associated documents mean by a ‘particularly vulnerable’ country.
These three components of vulnerability are known as exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (Füssel 2007, 164).
Indeed, Persson and Remling find that the Adaptation Fund does not even at the international level distribute finance on the basis of vulnerability. As they note, ‘approval decisions have not prioritized the most vulnerable countries when they are measured against the current vulnerability indices. Given that per capita concerns do not play an obvious role, it can be concluded that the particular interpretation of international equity as equal lump sums to countries have been dominant today’ (Persson and Remling 2014, 502; cf. Stadelmann et al. 2014).
For an up-to-date overview of the multifaceted world of adaptation finance, see Climate Funds Update’s website: http://www.climatefundsupdate.org/.
This aim is especially visible in the Paris Declaration’s principles of ownership and alignment.
It is of course likely that many transfers taking place under the heading of ‘official development assistance’ are also compensatory, in which case the moral difference between adaptation finance and development aid becomes smaller. I return to this when discussing the entitlement argument.
Another reason is that the recipient is more motivated than others to protect its own interests. As Mill (1998, 245) wrote, ‘the rights and interests of every or any person are only secure from being disregarded, when the person himself is able, and habitually disposed, to stand up for them.’
Operational since 2002, the Least Developed Country Fund is an example of the priority given to LDCs. The Adaptation Fund, however, has so far not expressed this priority (Persson and Remling 2014).
The LDCs classified as being both free and electoral democracies by Freedom House (2013) are Benin, Kiribati, Lesotho, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
For practical examples of such bypassing, see Oxfam (2011, 8).
Indeed, unless there is a shared metric against which to judge success or failure, it is not possible to say whether one type of aid is ‘more effective’ than another. Efforts are being made to develop universal metrics of effectiveness in adaptation, see, e.g., Stadelmann et al. (2015).
Crocker (2008, 43f) notes that there is disagreement about the appropriate ends of development aid too. Insofar this is true the objections I raise below could also be raised against epistemic arguments for recipient control over development aid.
Buchanan (2004) calls this general ideal Societal Distributive Autonomy. For defenders, see Crocker (2008, 45), Miller (2007, 74), and Rawls (1999b, 37–38). Since Societal Distributive Autonomy merely establishes a right to noninterference, it can at best be considered a weak argument for recipient control.
What I call ‘duties of aid’ correspond to what Barry calls ‘duties of humanity’ and Valentini calls ‘duties of charity.’
As Barry (2008) notes, this means that duties of justice are more fundamental, for I cannot know what is mine to charitably transfer until I know what my true entitlements are.
Someone has a control right over X if and only if she has (a) a right that others do not use X (a claim right) and (b) a right to use X (a liberty right) (Vallentyne 2012).
It could be argued that duties of justice cannot be generated with respect to large share of total emissions of greenhouse gases because the emitters were excusably ignorant about the harmful effects of these emissions. There is a large debate on whether excusably ignorant emissions negate responsibility (and if so what kinds of responsibility) or only blameworthiness. For a good overview, see Bell (2011).
It might be that climate change puts such great pressure on a society that it is inevitable that the basic rights of some people will remain unfulfilled. Then we might instead say that just methods of triage must be in place (see Page 2007).
This in some ways resembles the guideline setup for the NAPAs (Huq and Khan 2006).
Another way is to work with output-based aid (Mumssen et al. 2010).
Miller (2007, 128–130) notes the possibility that nondemocratic policies could be evaluated according to how well they correspond with beliefs and values that are entrenched in society. However, although such an evaluation is strictly speaking not based on hypothetical consent, it is still epistemically very difficult.
Inglehart (2003) notes, however, that democratic attitudes like tolerance for minorities and respect for civil rights are more variable.
There is a worry that donors will abandon the most vulnerable countries in favor of countries with higher institutional capacity if recipient control is strengthened. Stadelmann et al. (2014) in a study of projects approved by the Adaptation Fund found signs of this.
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Acknowledgments
Previous versions of this paper have been presented at the 6th Uppsala Forum Workshop on Climate Change, at the Centre for Global Democratic Governance at the University of St. Gallen, and at the 17th Nordic Political Science Association congress at the University of Gothenburg. I am grateful to the audiences at all those occasions, as well as to the two anonymous referees, for helpful comments. The paper has been written within the project ‘Fair and Feasible Climate Change Adaptation,’ which is co-financed by the Swedish Research Council and Formas.
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Duus-Otterström, G. Allocating climate adaptation finance: examining three ethical arguments for recipient control. Int Environ Agreements 16, 655–670 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-015-9288-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-015-9288-3