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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter January 1, 2013

Close Examination of the Principle of Global Per-Capita Allocation of the Earth’s Ability to Absorb Greenhouse Gas

  • Yoram Margalioth and Yinon Rudich

In this Article we attempt to narrow the gap between developed and developing countries’ respective perceptions of justice in the context of climate change. We show that, in spite of its intuitive appeal, the equal per-capita argument is not grounded in any general moral principle and therefore cannot provide an answer to the question regarding what would be a fair allocation of emission rights. We argue that the underlying moral theory is global distributive justice theory, which unfortunately can only be of very limited help. We briefly discuss the various particular principles/considerations that are offered in the literature either in support or in criticism of the equal percapita allocation and find that upon close analysis they generally support the developing countries’ view, but not a per-capita allocation of emission rights. We conclude with a practical suggestion.


Tel Aviv University and Weizmann Institute of Science, respectively. We would like to thank Ofer Grosskopf, Ariel Rubinstein, and Uzi Segal for very helpful discussions. We thank TIL editorial board for their excellent editorial work and many valuable suggestions. Yoram Margalioth gratefully acknowledges financial support provided to him by the Paula Goldberg Fund, and Yinon Rudich gratefully acknowledges support by EU FP 7 - ENV-2010 (CSA) ACCENT-Plus - Atmospheric Composition Change: the European Network- Policy Support and Science and by the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation.

Published Online: 2013-01-01
Published in Print: 2013-01

© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.

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