Climate Justice: The Clean Development Mechanism as a Case Study

Abstract

Justice considerations are now almost inextricably linked to the climate change discourse because of the recognition that global injustice and inequity are evident in the climate change problem, from its causes to its impacts. Consequently, the climate change regime contains a range of provisions, tools and measures to promote justice in the regime. One such tool is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which gives developing countries the opportunity to contribute to climate change mitigation and also provides them with sustainable development benefits. However, the CDM itself is beset with its own justice issues, specifically distributive justice issues. This chapter focuses on the distributive justice issues of the CDM. It defines what distributive justice in the CDM means, examines what it should look like, and identifies the main causes for the lack of distributive justice in the CDM.