Environmental Degradation, Reparations, and the Moral

Significance of History

Simon Caney

History . . . is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce1

History is replete with wrongdoings. We are, of course, familiar with examples of

racial injustice, colonialism and imperialism, class exploitation, sexual inequality,
war, and oppression. These historic wrongs often have long-lasting effects. Moral
and political philosophers have rightly analyzed the ethical implications of such
historical injustices and much has been written, for example, on racial injustice,
affirmative action, and reparations. The ethical issues raised are, of course, both
profound and complex. Why, and in what way, do historical injustices matter? Do
they, for example, justify a policy of reparations and/or an official apology?
Many discussions of historic injustice and reparations focus, reasonably
enough, on slavery and colonialism. However, the question of how to respond to
environmental injustices (ranging from the role developed countries have played
in the creation of global warming to the expropriation of natural resources) has not
been the subject of much philosophical analysis. My aim in this paper is to explore
the moral implications of historic environmental injustices and, in particular, the
moral implications of global climate change. The members of industrialized
states, it is widely recognized, have contributed greatly to the creation and accel-
eration of global warming. In light of this, many argue that industrialized states
owe reparations to the less developed countries. To use a term that is now gaining
considerable currency, some claim that currently wealthy countries owe an “eco-
logical debt.”2
In what follows, I wish to draw attention to some problems with this argu-
ment. Much of the analysis of reparations focuses on the victims and ancestors of
the victims. Far less is said about the relevant duty-bearers. In what follows, I
shall, first, point out the problems of identifying the appropriate duty-bearers. I
consider two possible accounts but find that both are problematic. I shall, second,
argue that one can recognize the moral importance of past crimes without accept-
ing the case for reparations. As stressed above, my focus is on global climate
change, so the first argument may not apply to other kinds of historic injustices.
The second, though, is of more general import.

JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 37 No. 3, Fall 2006, 464–482.

© 2006 Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 465

I. Theoretical Issues

Before we commence the analysis, it is useful to begin by identifying the key

claims made by those who justify “reparations.” Theories of reparations must
contain answers to the following questions: (Q1) Who is the rights-bearer? (Who
is entitled to the compensation?); (Q2) Who is the duty-bearer? (Who should bear
the burden of compensation?); (Q3) What counts as an injustice? (What principles
of civil, political, environmental, and economic justice are there?); (Q4) What
form should the compensation take? (Paying financial support? Making an
apology?); (Q5) How much is owed? (How does one determine appropriate
recompense for racial injustice, say?). Any theory of reparations must be able to
answer all of these questions. The first two elements are of particular importance.
To argue successfully for reparations, we need to be able to identify who should
receive the compensation and why (what we might term the rights-bearer com-
ponent) and to identify who should pay the compensation (what we might term the
duty-bearer component). The standard account of reparations would maintain that
the duty to make reparations should be borne by those who have committed the
injustice (or their descendants) and the rights are held by the victims of the
injustice (or their descendants).
Before proceeding further, it is worth noting that calls for reparations can
occur in very different contexts. Sometimes injustices happen within one state
whereas with other cases the injustice is transnational (or even global) rather
than domestic in nature. In addition to this, in some injustices the perpetrators
and victims are members of the same generation, whereas in other cases the
perpetrators and victims are not confined to the same generation. These two kinds
of difference (the transnational/domestic contrast and the transgenerational/
intragenerational contrast) need to be noted, for it may be the case that the
principles of reparations that fit one context are not appropriate for another. At the
very least, we cannot simply assume that principles of reparations can be exported
from one kind of case (e.g., a case of domestic intragenerational justice) to another
kind of case (e.g., a case of global transgenerational justice). A case has to be made
for the appropriateness of this “extension” (to use a Rawlsian phrase).3

II. Historical Environmental Injustices: The Case of Global

Climate Change

Let us now consider environmental injustices. I shall define an “environ-

mental injustice” as a situation in which some people either (a) lack a fair share
of environmental benefits (i.e., benefits stemming from natural resources) or (b)
have to bear an unfair share of environmental burdens (i.e., burdens stemming
from harms to the environment). Standard environmental benefits might include
fertile natural resources and standard environmental burdens might include pol-
lution or toxic waste. To give some more concrete examples, paradigmatic envi-
ronmental injustices would include cases where: Countries pay developing
466 Simon Caney

countries to take hazardous substances, often at great risk to the citizens of those
developing countries; countries have waged war against others by destroying
valuable natural resources (such as oil) and polluting the natural environment;
municipal councils have systematically located pollution in neighborhoods
which contain high numbers of members of racial minorities; industrial plants
have released pollution (such as acid rain or nuclear radiation) which has then
crossed borders.
In this paper, I wish to focus on one specific environmental injustice, namely
anthropogenic global climate change. To use the two differentiating features
mentioned above, this is a case of global and intergenerational justice. I will
concentrate on it to a large extent because it is one of the most important and
far-reaching environmental injustices. Some preliminary facts are relevant here.
The world’s climate is becoming increasingly warm. These changes in the climate
stem, to a large extent, from human activity. Furthermore, they have considerable
malign effects on human beings. We can identify, at least, four damaging conse-
quences in particular. First, global climate change will lead to higher temperatures
which will result in a greater incidence of drought and malnutrition. Recent
studies have found that “[b]y the 2050s, between 1.1 and 2.8 billion water-stressed
people could see a reduction in water availability due to climate change under the
most populous future world, but under less populated worlds the numbers
impacted could be between 0.7 and 1.2 billion.”4 This will have dire consequences
for Africa in particular. By 2050, the portion of southern Africa suffering from
water shortages is predicted to increase by 29 percent—with Mozambique,
Tanzania, and South Africa being especially hard hit.5 These water shortages and
ensuing droughts will dramatically increase the level of poverty, malnutrition, and
starvation. Estimates suggest, for example, that if temperatures rise by 2.5°C then
those suffering from hunger will increase by 45–55 million by the 2080s and that
if temperatures rise by 3°C then those suffering from hunger will increase by
65–75 million.6 Should temperatures rise by 3–4°C then those exposed to hunger
will increase by 80–125 million by the 2080s.7 A second malign effect of global
climate change is that the increase in temperatures is predicted to result in an
increase in the number of people who are exposed to malaria, cholera, heat stress,
and dengue fever. To take the example of malaria: Anthony McMichael and
Andrew Githeko predict “a global increase of 260–320 million people in 2080
living in the potential transmission zone (against a baseline expectation of about
8 billion—that is, a 2–4% increase in the number of people at risk).”8 Third, global
climate change will bring increased rainfall to some areas which will lead to
destructive flooding. One recent report predicts “10–40% increases in runoff in
eastern equatorial Africa, the La Plata basin and high-latitude North America and
Eurasia.”9 Fourth, global climate change is predicted to lead to raised sea levels.
This will result in the loss of much fertile land to the sea in countries like
Bangladesh and Egypt (especially the Nile Delta). It will also mean that coastal
settlements are more prone to highly destructive storm-surges. Furthermore, small
island states (such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands) are threatened. Some
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 467

will disappear altogether and, on others, people will be forced to relocate. Climate
change is thus enormously harmful to human interests.

III. Duty-Ascription 1: The Causal Account

With the necessary theoretical and empirical background in hand, let us now
turn to normative analysis. Who is obligated to address these burdens? On one
view, those who have caused an environmental injustice are obligated to pay for
reparations to those harmed. Let us call this the Causal Account.10 It holds that
those who caused the pollution are morally responsible for it and the duty to
rectify this situation or compensate the victims therefore rests with them. Many
draw on the Causal Account and then argue that the major causers of global
climate change are Western industrialized states, so they therefore conclude that
the duty to make reparations falls on members of Western industrialized states.
This view is, for example, taken by Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain in their
well-known Global Warming in an Unequal World.11 A similar tack is taken by
Andrew Simms in a recent book on Ecological Debt.12 Henry Shue too subscribes
to a similar view.13 The broad thrust of these writers is fairly clear: industrialized
countries owe reparations to members of developing countries.

III.1

One problem with this view surfaces when we attempt to identify who are the
causers of global climate change. Many employ rather vague phrases to describe
the duty-bearers. It is common, for example, for people to hold that ecological
debt is owed by “rich countries” (Simms).14 Such phrases are too imprecise to be
of much use, and to begin our evaluation it is essential to begin with a theoretical
analysis of the different kinds of possible causal actor and then to follow it with
empirical analysis. Consider the first task first. We can distinguish between the
following different kinds of causal actor who contribute to global climate change:
(1) state institutions (including both the national government and subnational
political units); (2) corporations; (3) individuals; and (4) supra-state political
institutions and practices.
Many (including those cited above) assume a wholly (1)-like approach.15
Such a view is empirically problematic. In particular, a wholly statist analysis is
incomplete because it omits the importance of (2)-, (3)-, and (4)-like factors. It is
undeniable that the actions of states play a major role in the causation of global
climate change. States could, for example, employ a carbon tax and tax fossil fuel
consumption heavily; they could insist that all buildings are properly insulated;
they could employ a carbon trading scheme; and so on. And to the extent that they
do not then they are part of the causal explanation as to why global warming has
and will occur.16 However, it is simply not true that their actions are the sole causes
of global warming, for to say that fails to recognize the role played by corpora-
tions, individuals, and international institutions. Take corporations. Corporations
468 Simon Caney

may operate within an economic context, but they nonetheless possess some room
for maneuver. At least one reason for this is that environmentally harmful actions
are often not needed for their commercial enterprise. And corporations have
played an enormous role in global warming. Consider the impact of factories,
burning up huge amounts of coal, or of farmers who have engaged in deforesta-
tion. Or think about companies that use a lot of transportation. Any comprehensive
analysis of climate change must then include a level-(2) component.
Consider now level-(3) considerations. A moment’s reflection leads us to
recognize that individuals play a significant causal role in the generation of global
climate change. Many of us could, no doubt, do more to cut back on our carbon
emissions. Individuals can choose not to fly; they could use cars less; they could
choose to buy cars which do not use up enormous amounts of petrol; they could
recycle paper more; and so on. In other words, a full explanation as to why global
warming is occurring must make reference to the actions of individuals. And even
if it is millions of individuals, it is still worth noting that they should still be seen
as individual choices. A (3)-like element is therefore necessary in any full expla-
nation of global warming.
Let us turn finally to (4)-like variables—international institutions. These too
may play a causal role. The IMF and World Bank loans may, for example, include
conditionalities that encourage economic growth and this may well lead to high
levels of carbon dioxide emissions. The upshot of all of these brief reflections,
then, is that the empirical claim that countries or states are the sole causes of
global climate change is simply inaccurate: it mistakes part of the story for the
whole of the story. Given this, a proponent of the Causal Account should adopt a
more complex causal model that acknowledges the role of (2)-, (3)-, and (4)-type
variables.
This multicausal position, however, runs straightforwardly into a second
problem—namely that many of the individuals and corporations that were caus-
ally responsible for global climate change are no longer alive. Individuals and
corporations of the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries have
played a role in the creation of global warming. Through their consumption of
fossil fuels and through land use they have contributed to the problem. Obviously,
however, almost all of those individuals are no longer alive. So they are causally
responsible and yet unable to pay reparations. If we turn now to corporations, it is
striking and interesting that almost no corporations of the nineteenth century
continue to exist today so they too cannot pay reparations. So while an historical
account that unites (1), (2), (3), and (4) is empirically more plausible than a wholly
(1)-like analysis, it also entails that some of those causally responsible for the
problem of climate change cannot now be allocated duties to deal with this
problem.
We face, then, the following problem. One could take a wholly statist view,
but this is empirically implausible (other factors also contribute). Alternatively,
one could take a broader view and ascribe causal responsibility to states, cor-
porations, and individuals. This is empirically more plausible than a wholly
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 469

statist view. However, it runs into the problem that many of the relevant duty-
bearers are dead: so it cannot be a complete account of who should now bear
the burdens of global climate change. Either way, the Causal Account cannot,
therefore, provide a full account of who should bear the burdens of global
climate change.

III.2

To this we should add that some states have disappeared over time and other
new ones have been born. This further undercuts the utility of the Causal Account,
for if one of the causal factors that contribute to global warming is a state’s actions
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and if that state ceases to exist then,
of course, it is no longer around to pay reparations. Consider, for example, the
USSR: now that it has been dissolved what can be said about the carbon dioxide
that has been emitted from, say, the Ukraine? The political entity that contributed
to the problem is no longer in existence.
This problem has been anticipated and addressed by one proponent of the
Causal Account, namely Eric Neumayer. Neumayer’s response is that even though
the state that existed then no longer exists, we can attribute the moral responsi-
bility to the people who currently occupy that land. So even though the decisions
might have come from a Russia-dominated USSR if they took place in the
territory that is now the Ukraine, then the Ukraine must pay.17 Such a view seems,
to me, morally highly dubious for if the political entity with supreme coercive
authority over that territory has changed, then the existing political arrangements
will have had very little to do with the earlier decisions. That the emissions took
place on that piece of territory does not establish why later inhabitants on it should
pay for the decisions of earlier inhabitants. That is not the right kind of relation-
ship to establish collective duties. More relevant is whether the same political
actor exists over time and, ex hypothesi, in the case I am discussing the political
actor no longer exists.

III.3

Let us turn now to a normative problem with the Causal Account (and more
precisely, a Causal Account that ascribes a causal role to states). As we have seen
above, states (among other actors) play a role in the causation of global warming.
Is it, however, fair to say that a state that was causally responsible for an injustice
performed in the nineteenth century should pay reparations two centuries later?
One forceful objection to this line of reasoning proceeds as follows: to make a
state, such as Britain, pay is of course, in practice, to make the citizens of that
country pay. But, it is unfair to make someone worse off for no fault of their own.
If they are not in any way culpable, then how can it be fair to make them pay to
any degree? Consider, in particular, those who have migrated to the United
470 Simon Caney

Kingdom: they and their family members have played absolutely no role in its
iniquitous actions (indeed they may have come from a country that suffered from
these injustices). Why should such individuals bear an obligation for the injustices
performed by others?18
We might, perhaps, relax the above individualistic account and allow that
the actions of a collectivity can generate obligations, but if we take this option
we need to specify what kinds of collective actors can generate obligations. It
would seem implausible, and indeed repugnant, to say that if a collective
incurred a debt then it should repay it later without making some kinds of
restrictions on what kinds of collective are obligation-generating. The South
African state, for example, took out considerable loans during the apartheid
period, but it strikes us as repugnant to make the current South Africans pay if
that means that those who had not in any way taken part in those decisions or
colluded should pay the bill.19 In light of this one might suggest some moral
conditions: collectives can generate obligations for their actions if they possess
some specific moral properties. One possibility is that states generate obligations
on their future members if, and to the extent that, they are democratic and
employ an inclusive system of political participation. The thought here is that
this partially addresses the individualistic challenge issued in the last paragraph:
for we can at least claim that they were given a chance to represent their point
of view. They had the opportunity of an input into the decision-making process
and as such should be bound by it. Let us call this the democratic account of
collective responsibility.
Can we apply the democratic account of collective responsibility to argue
that current members of industrialized countries are under an obligation to com-
pensate those who suffered because of this industrialization? Two reasons count
against this. The first is that there are large stretches of history where industri-
alization was occurring and the governments holding office were not even
remotely democratic. Consider, for example, Britain during the industrial revo-
lution. Women did not have the vote and, indeed, did not get it until 1918.
Furthermore, they did not get it on the same terms as men until 1928. In addition
to this, many males did not have the vote either because the franchise was still
largely based on property. In light of this, it is implausible to claim that the
British people participated in the governmental decisions taken. Why then should
they be held accountable for decisions taken by others? Second, the intuition
underlying the democratic account is that persons are obligated by a political
decision if they had the opportunity to take part in the decision-making process.
Even if they dissent from the decision, they are obligated to comply with it
because their views were heard and taken on board. Now if this is the intuition
underlying the democratic account of collective responsibility, then it under-
mines the relevance of the democratic approach for intergenerational problems
like climate change. Put in another way: if the thought motivating acceptance of
the democratic account is “you have an obligation to bear the consequences
emerging from collective decisions in which you have participated,” then cur-
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 471

rently alive persons do not have an obligation to bear the consequences emerging
from collective decisions of the nineteenth century because, obviously, they were
not alive then. They were not able to take part in the decision-making process
and so, drawing on the intuition identified earlier, it is not clear why they should
be bound by its choices. Even if, then, Britain, say, were perfectly democratic in
the nineteenth century, current Britons are not obligated by the decisions reached
in that century.
The collectivist position can be presented with a dilemma here. On the one
hand, if we insist that collectives must meet certain moral standards (like being
democratic) to generate responsibilities, then the account of collective responsi-
bility becomes more plausible. However, it also becomes less applicable to distant
historic environmental wrongs. If, on the other hand, we hold that collectives can
generate responsibilities even if they do not satisfy certain moral standards, then
we encounter a contrary problem. In particular, the more minimal our account of
the necessary moral features of a collective, then the more it can be applied to
distant historic environmental wrongs, but in doing so it commits us to counter-
intuitive conclusions (e.g., black South Africans would have to pay back loans that
apartheid South Africa took out on the grounds that they have duties to comply
with the decisions of their collective).
For all these reasons, the Causal Account fails to provide us with a plausible
account of who should bear the cost of addressing climate change. Before con-
sidering a second account, it is worth recalling that section I raised the question of
whether one could export principles of reparations that apply in one context to
another. What we have seen above is one problem with applying a “reparations”
principle intergenerationally as opposed to intragenerationally. A reparations
approach is likely to work best in an intragenerational context (for both perpetrator
and victim are still alive), but it is hard to extend it to the intergenerational context
(for then some of the polluters will be dead and therefore hardly in a fit state to
discharge responsibilities!).

IV. Duty-Ascription 2: The Beneficiary Account

In light of the problems faced by the Causal Account, let us consider a second
account of who the relevant duty-bearers are. According to what I shall term the
Beneficiary Account, reparations should be paid by those who have benefited from
an injustice. So to turn to our case study, reparations should be paid by those who
have benefited from industrialization (or global warming). The Beneficiary
Account draws on familiar convictions about the responsibilities that follow from
benefiting from a social practice. This approach has been applied to climate
change by Axel Gosseries and similar arguments have been adduced by Neumayer
and Shue.20 Their conclusion is that members of wealthy industrialized states, as
the beneficiaries of an injustice, owe a duty of reparations to the victims of climate
change.
472 Simon Caney

IV.1

This account runs into several problems. First, we should note that the
Beneficiary Account and Causal Account may not sit easily together. To see the
problem, consider a case where A caused an environmental injustice and A’s
actions benefit A and also B. On the Causal Account A is accountable and on the
Beneficiary Account both A and B are accountable. So how exactly do we dis-
tribute these duties? Four possibilities suggest themselves, each of them unsatis-
factory. One option is just to affirm both accounts. But then how do we allocate the
responsibilities between A and B? Presumably A should pay more (for she is a
causer and a beneficiary) but, if so, how much more? It is hard to think of what
criterion one can use to allocate these responsibilities.
Consider then a second option. Someone might contend that the Causal
Account and the Beneficiary Account would, in practice, overlap, for those who
perpetrate an injustice and those who benefit tend to be one and the same people.
This convergence no doubt often applies. For this reply to succeed, however, two
highly demanding conditions must be met. In particular, for it to be the case that
the two accounts perfectly correspond in their implications, it must be the case: (a)
that all polluters are beneficiaries and all beneficiaries are polluters; and (b) that
the extent to which each person benefits corresponds exactly to the extent to which
that person pollutes. (a) may often hold but we can imagine cases where some
pollute and others benefit. Furthermore, even if the two accounts identify the same
people, it would be amazing if they converged exactly in all cases on how much
people owe. Some may pollute a lot and benefit little and others may pollute very
little but gain a great deal. It would be miraculous to claim that condition (b)
obtains in all circumstances. To claim that one does not have to choose between
the Causal Account and the Benefit Account is thus uncompelling: the two
accounts would have to converge exactly in all cases to entail that we have no need
to adjudicate between them. That perfect correspondence is absent: hence the need
to adjudicate between the two accounts remains.
Consider a third option: in light of the problem of combining the Causal
Account and the Beneficiary Account, someone might suggest abandoning the
Causal Account and simply affirming the Beneficiary Account. However, this is an
extremely drastic option. It is a deeply entrenched view that those who cause a
harm have some moral obligation to address that pollution. If I release some toxic
waste in a river then surely, ceteris paribus, I should pay. To deny the Causal
Account any role would be highly counterintuitive.
This leaves a fourth option. Some have argued that if the causer is alive, then,
ceteris paribus, he or she should pay (thereby affirming the Causal Account), but
they hold that if the causer is dead then any beneficiary of the injustice should pay
(thereby according a subsidiary role to the Beneficiary Account).21 This option
would overcome the problems that beset the first three options. Although it has this
in its favor, it is an implausible view. The key problem is this: If the receipt of
benefits can generate an obligation (when the perpetrator of the injustice that led
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 473

to this benefit is no longer alive), then why does the receipt of benefits not generate
an obligation (even when the perpetrator is still alive)? Compare two scenarios. In
the first, A performs an action which benefits B but disadvantages C. A then dies
without compensating C. In scenario 2, A performs an action which benefits B but
disadvantages C and A is still alive. Now on the view under consideration, B, who
receives an identical benefit in both scenarios, has a duty in virtue of that benefit
in scenario 1 but does not in scenario 2. This seems rather odd. Why does the
receipt of a benefit generate duties in one case but not in another? One would think
that if receipt of a benefit is obligation-generating at all, then it would apply even
if the causer is still available. The fourth option is thus unsustainable. In short,
then, none of the four responses refute the objection that it is hard to reconcile the
Causal and Beneficiary Accounts.

IV.2

Even if we can solve this problem, the argument under scrutiny faces three
more problems. One problem with the application of the Beneficiary Account to
global climate change arises from two considerations. First, the Beneficiary
Account states that (all) beneficiaries should pay their fair share for the benefits
received. Suppose that ten people receive a benefit and that the production of that
benefit cost x units. In this situation, we would think that the recipients each owe
a certain amount—namely x/10 each. Now suppose then that seven of the benefi-
ciaries die before paying their due (x/10) and that only three beneficiaries remain.
In this kind of situation, it does not straightforwardly follow that the remaining
three beneficiaries should pick up the bill for everyone. That would be unfair for
the aim of the Beneficiary Account is to ensure that each of the beneficiaries pays
for their benefits—not that some of the beneficiaries should pay for everyone’s
benefits. Keeping this in mind, we should now consider a second point. The
second step in the argument is to note that some who benefited from the activities
which cause global climate change are no longer alive. Obviously people in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries benefited from industrialization. The
desirable consequences of industrialization have been enjoyed not simply by those
currently alive, but also by members of earlier generations—some of those who
lived in the industrial revolution and the middle classes in the early and middle
twentieth century. So the benefits of industrialization (the use of electricity) have
been enjoyed by people no longer alive. It, therefore, follows that it would be
unfair to require current beneficiaries to pay for all of the benefit generated by the
activities which cause global climate change.
This line of reasoning has several implications. First, it shows that a plausible
version of the Beneficiary Account can show (at most) that currently existing
beneficiaries of industrialization (and climate change) should pay their share of
the costs incurred in producing the benefits they enjoy. Second, it follows that the
Beneficiary Account cannot provide a complete account of who should bear
the burdens of global climate change. And, third, it is interesting to note that the
474 Simon Caney

problem that the Beneficiary Account faces here is analogous to that faced by the
Causal Account. For as we saw earlier, the Causal Account encounters a problem
when some of the polluters are no longer alive. The upshot of the argument of the
last paragraph, however, is that the Beneficiary Account also encounters a problem
when some of the beneficiaries are no longer alive (what might be termed, the
problem of past beneficiaries). There is an irony to this: for the Beneficiary
Account was introduced precisely in order to meet the inability of the Causal
Account to cater for earlier generations and yet we have just found that it too has
a similar flaw. One final, more methodological, point is worth recording. As we
saw earlier (section I), one of the key challenges posed by global environmental
problems is whether we can “extend” principles that apply in one context (the
present) to another (“the future”). And what we have just seen is that although the
Beneficiary Account can work well within one generation (all the beneficiaries are
alive), it cannot be applied in an intergenerational context.

IV.3

Suppose that we overlook the first two objections. There is a third serious
problem with the application of the Beneficiary Account to global climate change.
This objection draws on the work of Derek Parfit and Thomas Schwartz to call into
question the assumption that global climate change benefits people. To grasp the
objection, we should consider two points. First, we need an account of what it
means to say that a person benefits from something else. As the notion of a benefit
is commonly used, it seems fair to say: A benefits from X if A is better off with X
than she would otherwise have been (hereinafter the standard version).22 This fits
with our normal usage. If A takes part in a neighborhood watch scheme that
successfully deters theft, then we will say that A benefits in the sense that she is
better off after the institution of the scheme than before. Or if A takes part in a
scheme with other parents in which each takes turn to take the members’ children
to school, then again A benefits in the sense that A is better off under the scheme
than she would have been without it. The standard version seems then a pretty
plausible conception of “benefit.” Furthermore, it describes cases where a person
benefits and benefits in such a way that we think that they owe duties in virtue of
their receipt of this benefit. Let us turn now to the second point. The point in
question arises from the analysis of what Derek Parfit calls the “non-identity
problem” in Reasons and Persons. Parfit points out that which children are born
depends on when their parents mated. If they mate at a different time then a
different egg would have been fertilized by different sperm and so a different child
would have been born. A corollary of this is that what persons do now affects who
is born in the future for present actions affect who will meet whom, when they
meet, and so on. On this basis, Parfit then argues that people cannot harm future
generations—they cannot make them worse off than they would have been. To
give an example, one cannot say that a policy of depletion harms future people for
if depletion had not been adopted then these people would not have been born.23
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 475

Now if we combine Parfit’s insight with the standard conception of benefit,

we are driven to the conclusion that industrialization has not benefited members of
current generations. This is because we can say that they have benefited from
industrialization only if they are better off than they would have been (point 1).
However, under (point 2) on this conception of benefit, they have not been made
better off than they would have been by industrialization because without indus-
trialization they would not have been at all. The Beneficiary Account, it is argued,
works where you have a preexisting individual who then receives a benefit. In such
a scenario, we can clearly and unequivocally say that they have been benefited. In
an intergenerational context, however, the non-identity problem entails that indus-
trialization has not improved the lot of current people.24
Some will dispute this argument. One counterargument goes as follows: the
preceding objection rests on the assumption that people cannot be benefited by
being brought into existence. It is on this basis that it concludes that industrial-
ization has not benefited people. But, says this objection, people can be benefited
by being born. Parfit makes some interesting remarks which allow for this possi-
bility. As Parfit observes, we often compare someone’s well-being when they are
alive with their non-existence: we say of a man whose life is saved that this has
benefited him.25 Consider a man, Jack, who leads a happy and fulfilled life.
Suppose that Jack’s life is put in jeopardy—he is in danger of drowning—and then
that someone saves him. We are likely to say that this life-saving act has benefited
Jack and in saying so we are saying that Jack is better off being alive rather than
non-existent. The relevant point is that it seems quite plausible to compare some-
one’s standard of living while alive with a state of affairs in which they no longer
exist. And, Parfit adds, if we can compare someone’s standard of living with their
being dead, why can we not also compare someone’s well-being while alive with
their not having been born?26
This counterargument cannot, however, save the argument. It is problematic
in two ways. First, it is, I think, implausible to think that bringing someone into
existence benefits them. The reason for this misgiving is as follows: to assert that
“A is better off under situation 1 than he is under situation 2” entails that “A is
worse off under situation 2 than under situation 1.” But if we accept this, we
should reject the claim that being born can benefit people for if we are to say that
someone is better off being born (than not being born) we would have to say that
that person’s life would have gone worse if he had not been born. But this seems
absurd. If a person has not been born, we cannot say that his standard of living is
lower than it would have been if he had been born. Accordingly, we cannot claim
that bringing someone into existence benefits them.27
Second: let us suppose that we accept the claim that a person can be benefited
by being brought into existence. This still does not save the application of the
Beneficiary Account to global climate change, for a very large number of factors
have affected whether someone is born. Consider Sam who is a contemporary
British citizen with a high standard of living by global standards. Let us suppose
that his standard of living can be said to be 100 units (by whatever metric you
476 Simon Caney

think most appropriate). Now if the industrial revolution had not occurred, his
standard of living would be zero—because he would not have been born. Can we
say then that industrialization brought him a benefit of 100 units? No. Because
many other acts and events had to take place before he was born. Suppose that the
industrial revolution had taken place, but that his grandmother had accepted the
first offer of marriage that came her way and not the second, then he would never
have been born. By the same logic employed above, we must accept that this
action also benefited him to the tune of 100 units. Suppose that his mother and
father met only because Newcastle United Football Club got to the FA cup final
and both were Newcastle fans and met at the match. This action too is causally
necessary for Sam’s birth. The truth, then, is that a myriad of acts were causally
necessary for him to be born. If any one of them had not occurred, he would not
have been born. So we cannot attribute the benefits he enjoys to this one phenom-
enon (the industrial revolution). The point thus remains: the Beneficiary Account
does not entail that currently alive (or indeed future) people should pay for the
ill-effects of industrialization because currently alive people have not been made
better off by industrialization.28 Again, then, we see (as we did in IV.3), that the
Beneficiary Account cannot readily be applied in intergenerational contexts.

IV.4

One final point can be made about the application of the Beneficiary Account
to industrialization. We should allow for the possibility that the benefits of indus-
trialization are less than the costs that it generates. Suppose then that we overlook
the Parfit–Schwartz point and allow that currently alive people benefit from
industrialization. It is quite conceivable that the costs of industrialization and the
costs needed to address anthropogenic climate change exceed the benefits to
some, and maybe many, of industrialization.29 In such a case, there are no net
beneficiaries and the Beneficiary Account, again, does not apply.

V. The Moral Significance of History

Thus far I have drawn attention to the problems faced by two accounts of who
should pay reparations. At this point, one might wonder whether rejecting a
reparations-based argument for redistribution is tantamount to ignoring the moral
significance of historical processes and historical injustices. Doesn’t it just turn a
blind eye to past wrongs? Or put another way: one might say that reparations are
justified because they are the appropriate way to respond to the fact of historical
injustice. On this view, the recognition that there have been historical injustices
requires that the perpetrators (or some other related group) compensate the victims
of these past injustices. Anything else fails to respond appropriately to the fact that
the history of individual societies and indeed the world as a whole is marred and
disfigured by a succession of wars, conquest, imperial adventures, extortion,
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 477

violence, and so forth. This kind of reasoning may lend support to the reparations
view.
My aim in this section is to show that one can recognize the importance of
historic injustices and attribute moral relevance to such events without calling for
reparations. To understand how this is possible, it is necessary to distinguish
between two different ways in which historical processes matter—what I shall
term the “Positive View” and the “Negative View.” According to the Positive
View, historical processes define what is just. If a state of affairs came about in
a just way, then that state of affairs is just. If, however, there are historical
injustices, then we have to explore what would have happened had history
evolved in a just way. The role of historical considerations is to play a positive
role in that we start with an originally just state of affairs, then consider the
effects of the historic injustice and seek to rearrange things so that the historic
injustice is undone. On this view, we can, in principle, infer from historical
injustices what current people’s entitlements are. This view can be found in
Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia.30 This is the view that I have argued
is problematic, in part, because it is sometimes difficult to identify the relevant
duty-bearers.
The Positive View can be contrasted with a second way in which historical
injustices matter. On what I am terming the Negative View, historical injustices
have significance in one specific and quite restricted sense, namely that they call
into question the legitimacy of the current distribution and hence (some) wealthy
people’s entitlements to their current holdings. The existence of historical injus-
tices makes it much more difficult for those who are currently wealthy to explain
why they are entitled to keep the wealth they currently possess and why the poor
are not entitled to more. To understand the nature and force of this point, it is
important to consider some of the defenses that the advantaged might give as to
why it would be unjust to redistribute some of “their” wealth to the poor. They
might employ a number of different arguments to justify why they are entitled to
their current holdings. One of the most important arguments deployed (indeed
perhaps the most important one) maintains that the affluent are entitled to their
wealth because their ownership of this wealth came about in a fair way. This view
maintains a market theory of justice and infers from it that the currently wealthy
are entitled to their wealth. Now according to the Negative View, the significance
of historic injustices is that they refute this kind of anti-redistributive reason, for
they show that the current holdings did not come about in a fair way. As such facts
about historical injustices rule out one kind of argument for resisting claims to
distribute aid to the needy.
We might put the distinction between the Negative and Positive Views as
follows. On the Positive View, one can read off people’s entitlements from an
account of what their original entitlements were and the historical injustices—the
aim of bearing historical injustices in mind is to correct the historical process. On
the Negative View, by contrast, the aim is not to correct the process: it is to remove
one particular kind of anti-distribution argument. To put the distinction another
478 Simon Caney

way: the Positive View seeks, in principle, to determine what people should
currently possess. The Negative View, by contrast, does not seek to specify a
particular just set of holdings. That is not its purpose. Its effect is to cast doubt on
the legitimacy of the status quo and as such to show how one anti-redistribution
argument is questionable. Its aims are more minimal and modest (and, as such,
easier to realize). Furthermore, in virtue of this, it needs supplementation with
other principles of distributive justice.31 It alone cannot tell one who is entitled
to what.32
Now that we have clarified the distinction between the Positive and the
Negative View, let us now put this distinction to work. The distinction between
Positive and Negative approaches to the moral significance of history can be
applied to the case of climate change. Some adopt the Positive View and maintain
that since one agent, or set of agents, A has historically used excessive levels of
fossil fuels and since B has suffered because of this, A owes B compensation. I
have argued above that identifying who A is is problematic and even if A is
correctly identified, A may no longer be able to pay. To problematize calls for
reparations, however, does not entail turning a blind eye to the evils of history for
we may embrace the Negative View of the moral implications of historic injus-
tices. And that is the point of the preceding discussion. On this view, the relevance
of past histories of the overuse of the natural world is simply that the advantaged
(whose current holdings came about in an unjust way) cannot say “we are justly
entitled to our standard of living and the poor are not entitled to any more from
us.” Their case against bearing the burdens of climate change is thereby weak-
ened.33 We can then take into account the historic injustices whilst still rejecting
the Causal and Beneficiary Accounts.
To see how the Negative View bears on the issues surrounding climate
change, consider two further points. First, it may be worth stating here my view of
who should bear the burdens of climate change. Elsewhere I have argued that a
great deal of the burden should rest with contemporary actors who emit green-
house gases (a causal approach), but I have argued that this should be sup-
plemented by an “ability to pay” element. This “ability to pay” component is
sometimes resisted on the grounds that those most able to pay are entitled to their
wealth. It is here that the Negative account becomes relevant for it effectively
undercuts this kind of historical entitlement argument.34 Second, we should note
that the Negative account has the advantage that it captures the moral significance
of historic injustices and that it does so without getting embroiled in problems
which afflict other “historical” views. Let me explain. We have seen in section III
how one account that seeks to account for the moral significance of historic
injustices—the Causal Account—fails adequately to do so. We cannot attribute
the responsibility to deal with climate change to some causers, for they no longer
exist. Furthermore, we have seen in section IV how a second account that seeks
to account for the moral significance of historic injustices—the Beneficiary
Account—also fails to do so. Currently alive people have not benefited from
industrialization. The Negative View, by contrast with both of these, can capture
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 479

the moral significance of historic injustices and avoid the problems that beset the
other two versions.

VI. Concluding Remarks

Let me conclude by way of making four points. First, the attribution of

responsibilities to make reparations is more problematic than is normally recog-
nized. I have focused here on the case study of global warming. Here we found
that neither the view that we should ascribe such responsibilities to the perpetra-
tors of the injustice (the Causal Account) nor the view that we should ascribe such
responsibilities to the beneficiaries of the injustice (the Beneficiary Account) is
satisfactory. Second, I have argued that both accounts of moral responsibility
suffer, in particular, from problems that arise when we apply them in an intergen-
erational context. For example, some of the perpetrators and some of the benefi-
ciaries may no longer exist and there are problems with the idea that earlier people
can benefit later people. Third, it is crucial to stress that to call into question these
two accounts of who should pay reparations is not to deny that those with a low
standard of living, including those who have a low standard of living because their
descendants were unjustly treated in the past, are entitled to support and protec-
tion. The preceding arguments target two accounts of who is duty-bound to protect
people from the ill-effects of climate change (a duty-bearer claim): it in no way
disputes the claim that people are entitled to protection from the ill-effects of
climate change (an entitlement-bearer claim).35 One can thus accept the arguments
given here and also affirm fairly egalitarian principles because, say, one holds
an “ability to pay” approach according to which the duty to protect people from
the ill-effects of global climate change (or other historic injustices) falls on the
advantaged. Fourth, and finally, I have argued that skepticism toward some
reparations-based arguments does not entail turning a blind eye to historic wrongs
for one might embrace what I have termed the Negative View of such wrongs.

This research was conducted as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council
research project on “Global Justice and the Environment,” and I thank the AHRC
for its support. I am also grateful to Kok-Chor Tan for his helpful comments and
suggestions.

Notes
1
James Joyce, Ulysses (London: Penguin, 1992 [1922]), p. 42.
2
Andrew Simms, Ecological Debt: The Health of the Planet and the Wealth of Nations (London: Pluto
Press, 2005).
3
See Rawls’s highly pertinent discussion of what he terms “problems of extension” in “The Law of
Peoples,” in Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1999), 531.
480 Simon Caney

4
Nigel W. Arnell, “Climate Change and Water Resources: A Global Perspective,” in Avoiding Dan-
gerous Climate Change, ed. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006), 167.
5
Anthony Nyong and Isabelle Niang-Diop, “Impacts of Climate Change in the Tropics: The African
Experience,” in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, ed. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber et al.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 237.
6
Bill Hare, “Relationship between Increases in Global Mean Temperature and Impacts on Ecosystems,
Food Production, Water and Socio-economic Systems,” in Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change,
ed. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),
179.
7
Ibid.
8
Anthony McMichael and Andrew Githeko, “Chapter 9: Human Health,” in Climate Change 2001:
Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability—Contribution of Working Group II to the Third Assess-
ment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. James J. McCarthy et al.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 466: cf. pp. 463–67.
9
P. C. D. Milly, K. A. Dunne, and A. V. Vecchia, “Global Pattern of Trends in Streamflow and Water
Availability in a Changing Climate,” Nature 438, no. 7066 (2005): 347.
10
The Causal Account is similar to, but importantly different from, what Dale Jamieson calls “the
causal paradigm” in his “Global Responsibilities: Ethics, Public Health, and Global Environmen-
tal Change,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 5 (1998): 116–17.
11
Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, Global Warming in an Unequal World—A Case of Environmental
Colonialism (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1991).
12
Simms, Ecological Debt.
13
Henry Shue, “Global Environment and International Inequality,” International Affairs 75, no. 3
(1999): 533–37.
14
Simms, Ecological Debt, 11 and 106.
15
See, for example, Eric Neumayer, “In Defence of Historical Accountability for Greenhouse Gas
Emissions,” Ecological Economics 33 (2000): 186.
16
A nice example is given by Partha Dasgupta. Dasgupta writes “that in Brazil the exemption from
taxation of virtually all agricultural income, allied to the fact that logging is regarded as proof of
land occupancy, has provided incentives to the rich to acquire forests and then to deforest the
land,” Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001),
114 (footnote 25 omitted).
17
Neumayer writes: “where boundary changes have occurred, as in the case of the former Soviet
Union, there is no reason why a new nation-state should not be held accountable for emissions that
were undertaken on the territory within its current boundaries,” in his “In Defence of Historical
Accountability,” 189.
18
As Kok-Chor Tan has pointed out to me, one might challenge this view on the grounds that by
becoming a citizen, one acquires duties of justice and, furthermore, that these include making
amends for the wrongs that that political community has perpetrated in the past. Space does not
allow me a full discussion of this interesting view. One preliminary point might, however, be
made. In particular, we should note that the extent to which it is fair to impose such duties on
immigrants will be a function of several variables including (but not restricted to) (a) the nature
and extent of the choices available to those immigrating (how much genuine choice do they
possess?); (b) the wealth of the immigrants (are they able to pay?); and (c) the extent of the
previous injustice (how much is being asked of them?).
19
Someone might say that South Africa should pay and then add that what that means is that white
South Africans (or those who colluded with the regime) alone are duty bearers, but if we make this
move we have moved away from a statist account to an individualistic one.
20
Axel Gosseries, “Historical Emissions and Free-Riding,” Ethical Perspectives 11, no.1 (2004):
36–60, especially pp. 42–46 and also pp. 46–53. See also Neumayer, “In Defence of Historical
Accountability,” 189 and Shue, “Global Environment and International Inequality,” 536–37. See,
 Environmental Injustices and Reparations 481

more generally, the canonical treatment of “the principle of fairness” by Rawls in A Theory of
Justice, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 96–98.
21
Such a position is suggested by Neumayer, “In Defence of Historical Accountability,” 189 and Shue,
“Global Environment and International Inequality,” 536–37.
22
This conception of what it means to benefit someone is equivalent to what Derek Parfit terms “[t]he
Two-State Requirement” where this states that “[w]e benefit someone only if we cause him to be
better off than he would otherwise at that time have been,” Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 487: cf. further pp.487–88.
23
For this reasoning, see Parfit, Reasons and Persons, chap. 16, and Thomas Schwartz “Obligations to
Posterity,” in Obligations to Future Generations, eds. R. I. Sikora and Brian Barry (Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press, 1978), 3–13. For an interesting non-consequentialist response to
Parfit, which draws on Scanlon’s contractualism, see Rahul Kumar, “Who Can Be Wronged?”
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 31, no. 2 (2003): 98–118.
24
Prior to evaluating this argument, we should note that it has one very curious implication—namely
that the only people who have benefited (in the sense given by the standard version) from
industrialization are those whose descendants lived on remote islands that have been utterly
unaffected by the process of industrialization in the rest of the world and who then, after the
industrial revolution, emigrated to the industrial world. Since the history of their country has been
unaffected by industrialization elsewhere, the current membership would have been born whether
or not the rest of the world industrialized. And so one can say that if one of these remote islanders
sails to the industrialized world, his life is better than it would have been if the rest of the world
had not industrialized. The key point is that such people are immune to the “non-identity”
problem. However theoretically interesting this finding is, I assume that there are few people who
fall into this category.
25
Parfit, Reasons and Persons, 487–88.
26
Ibid.
27
This argument is made by John Broome, Ethics out of Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1999), 168, and similar thoughts are expressed by David Heyd, Genethics: Moral Issues
in the Creation of People (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 30–31 and 122–24.
Parfit also anticipates this argument (but does not commit himself to it): cf. Reasons and Persons,
358 and, more generally, 487–90. For a clear statement of the argument in the text and a challenge
to it, see Nils Holtug’s interesting “On the Value of Coming into Existence,” Journal of Ethics 5,
no. 4 (2001), especially p. 370ff and his formulation of premises (1)–(3) on pp. 371–72. The
argument in the text is also denied by Alan Carter, “Can We Harm Future People?” Environmental
Values 10 (2001): 451, footnote 18.
28
As such, the Beneficiary Account can then apply only to persons when there is industrial activity
which (a) has not in any way brought about their being born and which (b) renders these persons
better off than they would have been. By introducing condition (a) we avoid the Parfit–Schwartz
objection. Our focus is then on cases where currently alive people have unambiguously been made
better off than they would have been by industrial activities that did not in any way contribute to
their being born (such as, but not only, industrial activity that took place after their birth).
29
Gosseries, note, maintains that benefiting from industrialization only generates duties of reparation
if performing the cost of doing so does not exceed the benefit one has gained, “Historical
Emissions and Free-Riding,” 47 and 49–52. See also his discussion of what should happen if the
costs exceed the benefits (pp. 49–52).
30
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 152–53 and 230–31.
31
Note, in this connection, that the Negative and Positive Views differ in their account of the relation-
ship between “distributive justice,” on the one hand, and “historical justice/reparations” on the
other. On the Positive View, debates about the fair distribution of burdens and benefits are
determined by the extent to which historic injustices have been perpetrated. In this sense, one
might say that the Positive View transforms contemporary debates about “distributive justice” into
ones about “reparations.” On the Negative View, by contrast, historic injustices are one relevant
482 Simon Caney

normative consideration in our judgment of the just distribution of burdens and benefits but only
one, and this leaves space for many other normative arguments. The Negative View does not claim
that the only relevant normative consideration when debating about distributive justice is the
historical trajectory of current holdings. As such, the Negative View does not transform debates
about distributive justice into ones about reparations.
32
Although he does not make this distinction, I believe that one of Thomas Pogge’s arguments can be
classified as a Negative argument in the sense that I am using it. See Pogge’s discussion of historic
wrongs in “A Global Resources Dividend,” in Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and
Global Stewardship, ed. David A. Crocker and Toby Linden (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Little-
field, 1998), 509 and “Real World Justice,” Journal of Ethics 9 (2005): 38–39 and 41.
33
As Kok-Chor Tan has pointed out to me, it is worth noting that a Negative View-based argument
works best when the better off also happen to possess the holdings that they do because they came
about in an unjust way. I do not think, though, that this greatly restricts the applicability of the
Negative View because, empirically speaking, the better off in very many cases do hold their
current wealth in virtue of previous injustices.
34
See Simon Caney, “Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility and Global Climate Change,” Leiden
Journal of International Law 18, no. 4 (2005): 747–75.
35
Indeed I have argued elsewhere that there is a human right not to suffer from the ill-effects of global
climate change. See “Cosmopolitan Justice, Rights and Global Climate Change,” Canadian
Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 9, no. 2 (2006): 255–78.