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Attributing blame?—climate accountability and the uneven landscape of impacts, emissions, and finances

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Abstract

Communities around the world are already enduring both direct and indirect impacts of anthropogenic climate change, leading to questions about accountability. Over the past decade, the scientific, legal, and policy communities have grown increasingly concerned with the question of accountability for the social losses and damages (L&D) stemming from climate change, evidenced by the development of the scientific attribution research field, legal cases against fossil fuel companies, and negotiations for L&D continuing at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. As these sectors converge, however, there are some serious conceptual, and related ethical, issues regarding accountability and attribution including which communities are included in attribution studies and lawsuits, which emitters are considered in policy and law, and whether and how finance transfer is included. This article reviews the dominant spheres of L&D studies and mechanisms and explore what an “accountability-based approach” rooted in theories of climate justice has to bear on the broader conversation. Here, some of the challenges are explored in determining accountability and finance transfer, including potential pitfalls which may inadvertently lead to injustices in such an approach. Finally, a process for operationalizing the accountability-based approach is presented, which may help circumvent some of the challenges.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Simone Pulver and Dr. David Lopez-Carr for their invaluable insights and contribution to the ideas presented in this manuscript. Additionally, the author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their critical feedback on the manuscript.

Funding

This material is based upon the work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. 1650114. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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  1. University of California Santa Barbara, 4815 Ellison, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Emily Williams

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Correspondence to Emily Williams.

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This article is part of a Special Issue, “Climate Finance Justice: International Perspectives on Climate Policy, Social Justice, and Capital,” edited by Lauren Gifford and Chris Knudson

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Williams, E. Attributing blame?—climate accountability and the uneven landscape of impacts, emissions, and finances. Climatic Change 161, 273–290 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02620-5

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