Introduction

• Author: Randall S. Abate
• Profession: Editor
• Pages: 33-35

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Introduction

Climate change is one of the most complex political, social, and environmen-

tal issues of this century at all levels of governance. Climate change regula-

tion rose to prominence in the 1990s with t he United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Kyoto Protocol mitigation

mandates. It soon became clear, however, that an exclusive focus on green-

house gas mitigation in climate change regulation would be insucient to

address the cha llenge of global climate cha nge. Although climate cha nge

mitigation must continue to proceed as ambitiously as possible, severe cli-

mate change impacts have occurred and will continue to occur with increas-

ing intensity.

Consequently, climate change adaptation has become an increasingly

large focus of g lobal eorts to address climate change. Although climate

change adaptation measures are underway worldwide in ma ny forms and in

many sectors of society, the international community’s attention regarding

climate change adaptation has been on developing countries’ needs. Consen-

sus emerged that additional protection is necessary to ensure the health and

safety of the most vulnerable communities of the world such as the urba n

and rural poor, low-lying island nations, indigenous peoples, and future gen-

erations in the face of climate change impacts. Early ca se studies that gained

international attention regarding the need for eective adaptation include the

Inuit indigenous community in the Arctic, and South Pacic island nations

like Tuvalu and Kiribati, whose cultures and physical environments are on

the brink of extermination from climate cha nge impacts.

Climate justice evolved in response to this need for equity in the global

response to these and other challenges associated with the disparate burdens

of these impacts. Climate justice can be dened general ly as addressing the

disproportionate burden of climate change impacts on poor and marginal-

ized communities and as seeking to promote more equitable allocation of the

burdens of these impacts at the local, national, and global levels through pro-

active regulatory initiatives and reactive judicial remedies that draw on inter-

national human rights and domestic environmental justice theories. E orts

to dene climate justice as a eld of inquiry can be elusive and underinclu-

sive, however, because the concept is so vast in scope.