On Climate Justice

Justice is the first and most important evaluation criteria for legal mechanism, which is used to test the legitimacy, acceptability and perfect situations which shall be achieved of these existed and accepted positive laws. Climate justice is the foremost evaluation criteria in international climate legal mechanism, which is the application of justice theory into this field, check existed reasonableness and acceptability of these existed and accepted legal mechanism so as to perfect it. Researches on climate justice benefit reaching common points in dealing with climate change, promoting international climate negotiations, and perfecting international climate legal mechanism.Researches done previously have used the concept of climate justice already, however, not in a systematic way. Climate justice should include exchange, correction, rather than just a segment of justice, like allocation part only; climate justice should be related to freedom, fairness, safety, rather than just equality. Climate justice is the systematic and comprehensive applications of justice in the field of international climate legal mechanism.Climate justice we are talking about is the one taken as a comprehension of axiology, methodology, and practices, which is the mixture of various values, value priorities, and the practices of various values. Mixture of various values are the stationary structure of justice, which includes freedom, equality, fairness, efficiency, order, security; value priorities are the dynamic movements of justice, which indicates coordinative and choosing methods in dealing with value conflicts under many background beliefs and subject contexts; the practices of various values is the connecting part of axiology and methodology of justice, showing how much practices and relevant states so as to inspect, modify the existed value mixture and value priorities.In terms of the process of international climate negotiations and effects of correspondent actions, climate justice has entered into a difficult time period, which can be seen from 4 aspects. First, perception of climate justice is clearer, but actions of climate justice are gradually weakened. Second, more parties are involved in negotiations, but community is smaller Third, there are more negotiation subjects, but less common points reached. Fourth, there are more platforms, but less coordinative mechanisms. Therefore, studying climate justice systematically, perfecting international climate legal mechanism, promoting common pointes of climate justice are top priority issues.Background beliefs and subject context are the premises of our researches on climate justice. The concept of background belief is borrowed from philosophy of science, which emphasizes definite and existed ideas, attitudes about the fact and consequences of climate change. These ideas and attitudes play important role in forming climate justice. Cognition of the facts and consequences of climate change by subjects of climate justice have not constituted definite background beliefs. Therefore, our discussion about climate justice is under the scientific situation and social construction of climate change or the so called indefinite background beliefs on climate change. Subject scope of climate justice decides which subject can enter into justice community, which subject’s interest and burden can be considered in substantial justice and procedural justice. During the researches of the subjects of climate justice, other than subject categories of different climate justice, it is more important to analysis contexts of subjects which decide ideas of climate justice to some extent.Basically, justice can be divided into substantial justice and procedural justice. And climate justice can fit into this subcategory too. Substantial climate justice cares about allocation and adjustments of interests in the field of climate change, emphasizing on rights and duties of subjects, like who are subject to emission reduction, how much reduced, etc, which involves in allocation, exchange and correction procedures; distributive justice is the core of substantial climate justice, deciding the way and the principle of allocation of interests about climate accommodation resources; exchange justice means voluntary transactions of interests or benefiting from transactions based on different motives after allocation; correction justice pays more attention to compensation and punishment when allocation justice or exchange justice is violated. All these 3. segments concerns with procedural issues, but for the outstanding researches of substantial issues, there is not procedural analysis therein. Procedural climate justice dose not directly adjust rights and duties in climate change field, but emphasize on procedural guarantee of equal participation, access to information, etc. Procedural climate justice emphasizes procedural issues in macro level basically. Researches about whatever the principle, plan or mechanism of substantial justice or procedural justice can not be done without the background beliefs and subject context talked about in the above. Construction of international climate legal mechanism is the mechanism application of climate justice. Different background beliefs, or the different cognitions of the facts and results of climate change, lead to different design of climate justice mechanism. Under the situation that there is no certainty of the fact and consequences of climate change, framework of climate justice is a multi-task one composed of subjects under different environments based on different standpoints. These tasks include reactions of energy crisis, environmental crisis, promoting developments in the process of dealing with climate change, accessing to economic and political advantages through technology. Under certain background beliefs, international climate legal mechanism is a unitary-task framework, general task and core task are the same, which is dealing with climate change. Under different function orientation, international climate legal mechanism shall include preventative measures for climate change risks, coordinative rules for group actions among countries, and supply mechanism of international climate public goods. In different governance level, international climate legal mechanism shall be specified into international, domestic, industrial, public level relatively. In different action areas, international climate legal mechanism shall include slowing down and adoption mechanism framework.Climate justice shall be addressed in international framework since climate change is a part of international issues, and the process of collecting climate justice will need coordination with justice in other areas, like international trade and international investment.