Governance and Climate Justice in the 21st Century

About a decade ago, a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework was developed to reconceptualize climate change not merely as an environmental externality but as a systemic governance challenge (Puaschunder, 2020). A macroeconomic model was brought forward that showed that climate change produces not only economic losses, but also unevenly distributed climaterelated gains. The potential benefits from a warming earth were found in warming earth temperatures, leading to productivity gains in countries with low mean temperatures and high-temperature productivity sectors. Outlining the differences between climate-related economic gains and losses was driven by ethical considerations to lead on redistributing expected economic gains of climate change. Global warming related economic gains were advocated to be partially spread around the world to those areas that will be losing from climate change the earliest and most. The overall theme of using climate change-related economic benefits to offset climate change-related losses was grounded in core notions of justice, foresight and intergenerational responsibility. Within a long intellectual tradition of welfare economics, distributive justice and institutional governance, heterodox economics was thereby meant to avert irreversible lock-ins and ecological tipping points. The second edition of the book that introduced climate change-related economic gains and losses now argues for the wealth of nature that can be analytically measured. Natural systems generate productivity, stability and welfare, yet remain underpriced or excluded from economic accounting. The book emphasizes the importance of cartographing expected economic gains and losses from global warming. This article now brings forward a further argument that “wealth of nature†not only brings trade-related advantages and financial market prospects – having natural resources and a favorable climate may also impose geopolitical risks and tensions in a fragile world.