Decolonizing the Atmosphere: Climate Justice Movement Calls for Addressing Climate Debt

Decolonizing the Atmosphere
Author(s): Rikard Warlenius

Source: The Journal of Environment & Development , June 2018, Vol. 27, No. 2 (June
2018), pp. 131-155
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26477604
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Article
Journal of Environment &
Decolonizing the Development

2018, Vol. 27(2) 131–155
Atmosphere: The Climate ! The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1070496517744593
Climate Debt journals.sagepub.com/home/jed
Rikard Warlenius1
Abstract
A central concept raised by the climate justice movement is climate debt. Here, the
claims and warrants of the movement support for climate debt is identified through
an argumentation analysis of their central manifestos. It is found that the climate debt
claim is understood as primarily restorative, in the sense that the environmental
space of the developing countries must be returned, ‘‘decolonized.’’ The damage
caused by climate change also gives rise to a compensatory adaptation debt.
The result is compared with an earlier study on ecological debt. Both concepts are
framed within an unjust power relation between North and South, but there
are differences. Ecological debt is mainly analyzed in terms of an unjust economic
exploitation, which is congenial with its use as an argument for cancellation of
Southern external debts; climate debt is rather seen as a violation of communal
rights and territories, an argument for climate justice.
Keywords
environmental justice, climate justice movements, ecological debt, climate debt,
sustainable development
Since about 2005, the climate change debate in and around the negotiations of
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
has been increasingly politicized. Through the formation of the climate justice
movement (CJM), the scope of the discourse has widened from mainly
technomanagerial concerns over the Kyoto mechanisms to an array of social,
economic, and environmental justice issues, ranging from economic distribution,
1
Human Ecology Division, Lund University, Sweden
Corresponding Author:
Rikard Warlenius, Human Ecology Division, Lund University, Sölvegatan 10, 22362 Lund, Sweden.
Email: rikard.warlenius@hek.lu.se

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132 Journal of Environment & Development 27(2)
ethnic rights, and gender equality to critical views on development and

global trade policies (Bedall & Görg, 2014; Ciplet, Roberts, & Kahn, 2015,
pp. 169–170).
One influential definition of climate justice, used in, for example, Bond’s
(2014) overview, is made by Anne Petermann (2009): ‘‘Climate justice is the
recognition that the historical responsibility for the vast majority of greenhouse
gas emissions lies with the industrialized countries of the global north’’ (pp. 135–
136), whereas peasants, indigenous peoples, women, and so on has been dispro-
portionaly affected. ‘‘These are also the people least responsible for climate
change’’ (Bond, 2014, pp. 135–136).
Thus, climate debt—basically the idea that climate change is caused by rich
people while mainly harming people that are poor, and therefore, the former
should take the burden of mitigation and adaptation costs—is at the very core of
climate justice.
Climate debt stems from the ecological debt concept, the history of which has
already been outlined (see Martı́nez-Alier, 2002; Paredis, Goeminne, Vanhove,
Maes, & Lambrecht, 2008; Roberts & Parks, 2007; Simms, 2009; Warlenius,
Pierce, & Ramasar, 2015). The tandem notions of ecological and climate debt
seem to function as beacons in critical discourses of climate and environmental
change, judging from their status in recent publications by Naomi Klein (2014)
and Pope Francis (2015).
This study has two overarching aims: First, there is a growing social science
literature on CJM (see Primary Sources section), but despite the central role that
climate debt has played for the movement, it is not the focus of any of these
studies. By applying argumentation analysis to central CJM manifestos, I intend
to identify and analyze their claims as well as the thoughts that underpin them.
Thereby, our understanding of this pivotal movement is likely to be enhanced,
and future elaborations by academics on the normative, legal, political, or quan-
titative aspects of climate debt can be based on a firmer knowledge of how the
CJM conceives it. Second, there is a historical link between the environmental
justice movement and the CJM (Dawson, 2010; Harlan et al., 2015; Schlosberg
& Collins, 2014). The development from the former to the latter also brought
about a shift in focus from ecological debt to climate debt. Our understanding of
this historical development can be enhanced by comparing the results from
this study with those of James Rice’s (2009) analysis of the nongovernmental
organization (NGO) argument on ecological debt.
To enable a comparison with Rice’s results and add the data in his article
to the data in this article, a similar method is applied, for example, a version
of Toulmin’s argumentation analysis. Thereby, the conceptual development
from ecological debt to climate debt can be captured, and the leverage of the
study is enhanced. The other reason why argumentation analysis is used is
that it helps provide a profound and clear understanding of the claims in the
analyzed sources.

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Warlenius 133
The Toulmin method is intratextual rather than contextual and descriptive

rather than explanatory. This limits the ability to also provide rich contextua-
lizations and causal explanations. The ambition is to provide a solid
understanding of how climate debt is perceived by the CJM and to provide a
stepping stone from which further analyses into motivations and explanations
can depart. Meanwhile, I have to point to other sources—including my disserta-
tion (Warlenius, 2017)—for a better understanding of why the CJM thinks and
acts the way it does.
Methodological Approach
In the field of argumentation analysis, the Toulmin model (2003) is one of the most
commonly used. It disentangles an argument into six dimensions. The claims, data,
and warrants are the central components. The claim is the manifest standpoint that
the sender wants the recipient to agree with. It is almost always based on some data
or facts. Responding to a question on how the data lead to the claim, the sender
needs to refer to some principles, generalizations, or premises. These are the war-
rants, which are presumed but not always expressed in the argument. If a warrant
is supported by further data, this is called backing. The qualifier articulates the
strength and probability of the claim, whereas a reservation indicates the conditions
under which the claim does not hold.
In the following, a modified version of Toulmin’s model will be used.
The claims, data, and warrants will be identified, but I have refrained from
including the other three dimensions. The main reason is that I believe that to
meet my aims, a focus on the core argument is sufficient, and little is gained by
deconstructing the argument into their elements. In one case, however, I con-
sider a qualification as central for understanding the claim, and it is therefore
described in the text.
Here is an example of an analysis using the three components:
Industrialized countries have emitted most of the carbon emissions, while develop-
ing countries are most affected by climate change (data). Since the one who has
messed up the climate system also should clean it up (warrant), industrialized
countries owe developing countries a climate debt (claim).
Nine central CJM manifestos will be analyzed, a few main claims that are
common to all or most of them are identified, and a synthesized definition
is carved out. It should be noted that the Toulmin model is not an exact
methodology. For instance, it would be cumbersome to discuss all possible
claims in the documents analyzed, and which to choose is ultimately dependent
on individual choices and interpretation (Boréus, 2017). To be able to discuss
both similarities and differences, and for the reader to follow the process of
synthesizing, I quote and refer generously to the primary sources.

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In summary, the aims of this article are explorative rather than derived from
theory, and the method is therefore mainly empirical and inductive. Yet, theories
and principles are used to explain and contextualize the arguments and will be
introduced as they appear.
Primary Sources
The CJM is considered a convergence of several movements with varied
approaches to climate justice and climate debt (Garrelts & Dietz, 2014).
The movements forming part of it include environmental NGOs, aid organiza-
tions, external debt cancellation networks, indigenous movements, some trade
unions, and small-farmer’s movements. Other important members are Southern
think tanks, of which, for instance, the Third World Network (TWN) tends to
rather uncritically back Southern states within UNFCCC (Chatterton,
Featherstone, and Routledge, 2013). Autonomous leftist groups in the North,
such as the Climate Justice Alliance, represent a further component of the move-
ment (Russel, 2012). On some occasions, configurations of parts or all of these
movements have united behind manifestos on climate justice and climate debt.
In the analysis, I will focus on these documents.
In the sampling strategy, two selection criteria are applied: first, their impor-
tance in the CJM, which is based on a historical analysis of the academic literature
or on whether a significant amount of relevant organizations have signed them.
Two of the texts (Number 5 and 8 later) are included because they are elaborations
particularly on climate debt; they are not themselves historically important but are
clearly rooted in the CJM. The second criterion is simply whether ecological debt
or climate debt is mentioned. Three documents selected by the first criterion are
thus disqualified for not fulfilling the second criterion. The selected (and deselected)
documents are listed in Table 1.
In the analysis, I will refer to these documents as (1), (2), and so forth. Two
of them are short, and the concepts ecological/climate debt are mentioned only
very briefly (2 and 3); four are general statements on climate justice that devote
some sentences or paragraphs to ecological/climate debt (1, 6, 7, and 9), while
three are elaborations specifically on climate debt originating from the CJM (4,
5, and 7). The last included paper (9) stands out for not being a movement
paper but for being adopted by a state. It is included because it is directly
based on the outcome of the People’s World Conference in 2010 and because
Bolivia’s positions at this point coincided with those of the global movement,
even though it tended to emphasize the right to development more strongly
and was probably involved in the exclusion, from the Cochabamba statement,
of the recurring climate justice demand of keeping existing fossil fuels in the
ground (cf. Fabricant & Hicks, 2013; Mueller, 2012).

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Table 1. Primary Sources.
Mentions
Text Title Historical importance ED/CD
1 The Bali Principles of Climate High. Adopted by 14 relevant organizations that formed the Yes (ED)
Justice (International International Climate Justice Network. Mentioned in climate
Climate Justice Network, justice historiographies such as Roberts and Parks (2009),
2002) Russel (2012, pp. 135–136), Chatterton et al. (2013), Tokar
(2013), Bedall and Görg (2014), Schlosberg and Collins
(2014), and Ciplet et al. (2015, p. 169).
2 The Climate Justice Declaration High. Adopted by a conference of the U.S. Environmental Yes
(Climate Justice Justice movement and signed by a large number of both
Declaration, 2004) academics and activists from environmental justice and
indigenous organizations. Referenced in Dorsey (2007),
Roberts and Parks (2009), and Dawson (2010).
3 Climate Justice Now! Founding High. The first written expression of the international climate Yes
Statement (Climate Justice justice movement (cf. Harlan et al., 2015). The founding of
Now, 2007) the CJN! Network is mentioned in Roberts and Parks

(2009), Bond and Dorsey (2010), Mueller (2012),
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Chatterton et al. (2013), Bond (2012, p. 187; 2014, p. 137),

Russel (2012, p. 136), Tokar (2013), Bedall and Görg (2014),
Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and Ciplet et al. (2015,
p. 170).
4 Repay the Climate Debt. A Just Medium. A call drafted by Third World Network and signed by Yes
and Effective Outcome for 254 relevant organizations. It was the first movement paper
Copenhagen (Third World devoted specifically to climate debt, and although it is not
Network, 2009) referred to in the climate justice historiographies I have
consulted, except for Hällström (2012, p. 41), it was broadly
endorsed.
135
(continued)
Table 1. Continued
136
Mentions
5 Climate Debt: A Primer Low. This is a more technical elaboration of (4), published by Yes
(Stilwell, 2009) Third World Network and reproduced in Hällström (2012),
but not formally adopted by the signatories of (4). (4)
and (5) are collectively referred to as the TWN documents.
6 People’s Declaration—System High. This declaration was processed within the Klimaforum09 Yes
Change—Not Climate alternative summit in Copenhagen and signed by over 300
Change (KlimaForum, organizations. Klimaforum09 or its final declaration is
2009) referred to in Mueller (2012), Chatterton et al. (2013),
Bond (2012, p. 190), Russel (2012, p. 149), Tokar (2013), and
Schlosberg and Collins (2014).
7 People’s Agreement (PWCCC, High. The People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Yes
2010a) the Rights of Mother Earth, PWCCC, in Cochabamba in
April 2010, is the biggest and most influential gathering of
the climate justice movement so far. Overall, 35,000 activists
of which 10,000 from abroad joined it (Bond, 2014, p. 133).

This is its final declaration. According to the official website,
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241 organizations have signed it. It is referred to in Bond

(2012, p. 153; 2014, p. 133), Mueller (2012), Russel (2012,
pp. 169–175), Dawson (2013), Fabricant and Hicks (2013),
Solón (2012), Tokar (2013), and Schlosberg and Collins
(2014).
8 Final Conclusions Working Medium. This is the outcome of the PWCCC working group Yes
Group 8—Climate Debt that was especially devoted to climate debt. Together, (7)
(PWCCC, 2010b) and (8) are referred to as the Cochabamba documents.
(continued)
Table 1. Continued
Mentions
9 Submission by the Plurinational Soon after PWCCC, Bolivia submitted a proposal on climate Yes
State of Bolivia to the Ad Hoc justice and climate debt repayment to the UNFCCC based
Working Group on Long-term on the outcome of the People’s conference. While formu-
Cooperative Action lated by a state, it reflects the movement’s standpoints
(UNFCCC, 2010) (Bond, 2014, p. 134). It is mentioned in Bond (2014) and
Russel, Pusey, and Sealey-Huggins (2012).
10 Greenhouse Gangsters vs. High. Probably the first movement use of climate justice. No
Climate Justice (Bruno, Mentioned in Dorsey (2007), Roberts and Parks (2009),
Karliner, & Brotsky, 1999) Russel (2012, p. 135), Bond (2014, p. 133), Tokar (2013), and
Schlosberg and Collins (2014).
11 The Durban Declaration on High. A stepping stone in the formation of an international No
Carbon Trading (Durban climate justice movement, prefiguring CJN! (3), entirely

Group for Climate Justice, focused on carbon trading. Dorsey (2007), Bond (2012, p.
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2004) 31; 2014, p. 133), Russel (2012, p. 136), Chatterton et al.
(2013), Tokar (2013), Schlosberg and Collins (2014), and

reproduced in IICAT (2014).
12 What Does Climate Justice Medium. A discussion paper circulated by the European-based, No
Mean in Europe? (Climate autonomous Climate Justice Alliance. Referred to in Russel
Justice Alliance, 2010) (2012, p.164) and Tokar (2013), and reproduced in IICAT
(2014).
Note. Texts 10 to 12 fit the first sampling criterion (historical relevance), but not the second (mentions ecological or climate debt). Only 1 to 9 were therefore
selected for the analysis. ED ¼ ecological debt; CD ¼ climate debt.
137
Analysis
Claim 1. Acknowledge Climate Debt
One set of claims in the analyzed documents is centered on the basic demand
that the ecological debt or climate debt should be recognized and acknowledged.
The central message is that industrialized countries, and sometimes also inter-
national organizations and transnational corporations, should recognize their
climate debt as a first step to also repaying it (Claim 2).
Although precise definitions are rare, a rather uniform description of the
concept can be synthesized from the documents. The very first declaration
from 2002 defines the debt as what ‘‘industrialized governments and transna-
tional corporations owe the rest of the world as a result of their appropriation of
the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases’’ (1).
The definition is valid also for later manifestos except for two aspects. First,
climate debt is generally attributed to countries—Northern governments (1, 2,
and 8), ‘‘developed countries’’ (4 to 9), or ‘‘North’’ (3). Only in two cases (1 and
2) are corporations pointed out as responsible for climate debt. The claimants of
the debt are referred to as ‘‘South’’ (3 and 6) or ‘‘developing countries’’ (4 to 9)
but also ‘‘the victims of climate change’’ (1 and 2), ‘‘communities’’ (4, 5, and 8),
‘‘our children’s children and all living beings’’ (8), or ‘‘Mother Earth’’ (8, 9).
Only two documents regard climate debt as exclusively bilateral (6 and 7), yet all
texts except the first two seem to regard climate debt as primarily a country-to-
country affair. In the claim as defined in Figure 1, corporations as debtors and
future generations as claimants are put within brackets since they are not con-
sensual parts of the claim.1
Data Claim 1.
1. Climate change is a threat to Acknowledge climate debt

the environment and to people
and must urgently be dealt with. A twofold climate debt is owed
by developed countries [and
2. Climate change is caused corporations] to developing
primarily by developed countries countries [and future
while its victims are primarily generations] for their
found within developing appropriation of the planet's
countries. capacity to absorb greenhouse
gases above their fair share (an
emissions debt) and for their
Warrants
contribution to incremental costs
1. Ecological integrity caused by the adverse effects of
climate change (an adaptation
2a. Historical responsibility debt).
2b. The climate system is a

global common
Figure 1. Claim 1. The first claim and the data and warrants supporting it.

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Warlenius 139
The other main deviation from the first definition of climate debt in the Bali
Principles is that another component has been added. Besides the ‘‘appro-
priation of the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases’’ (1), which in this
article will be called the emissions debt, it has become increasingly clear that
climate change cannot be fully reverted and therefore will require adaptation.
The additional part of the climate debt is referred to as the adaptation debt.
Thus, TWN defines climate debt as follows:
. For their disproportionate contribution to the causes and consequences of

climate change, developed countries owe a twofold climate debt to the poor
majority;
. For their excessive historical and current per person emissions—denying
developing countries their fair share of atmospheric space—they have run
up an ‘‘emissions debt’’ to developing countries; and
. For their disproportionate contribution to the effects of climate change—requir-
ing developing countries to adapt to rising climate impacts and damage—they
have run up an ‘‘adaptation debt’’ to developing countries (4; cf. 5).
Other documents also differentiate between ‘‘mitigation and adaptation

costs’’ (3) or ‘‘overconsumption of atmospheric space and adverse effects of
climate change’’ (6). Moreover, in People’s Agreement and Bolivia’s submission,
the climate debt can be divided into emission dimensions (‘‘restore to developing
countries the atmospheric space’’) and adaptation (‘‘assume adaptation debt’’).
The data supporting the acknowledge climate debt claim belong to either one
of two categories: the severity of climate change and the urgency to act on it or
the unequal distribution of responsibility for climate change and vulnerability to
its adverse effects. In the first category, representative statements include
‘‘climate change is a scientific reality’’ (1) that ‘‘threatens the balance of life
on Earth’’ (4 and 5); there is but ‘‘a 50% chance that the damage caused to
our Mother Earth would be totally irreversible’’ (9). In the second category,
industrialized countries are shown to have caused climate change through
their ‘‘excessive’’ (4 and 5) or ‘‘disproportionate’’ (9) contribution to climate
change; they are the ‘‘principal’’ (4 and 5) or ‘‘main’’ (7) cause of
climate change because of ‘‘their appropriation of the planet’s capacity to
absorb greenhouse gases’’ (1; cf. 8) or, in a repeated metaphor, their
‘‘occupation,’’ ‘‘overconsumption’’ (6 and 8), or ‘‘excessive consumption’’
(4 and 5) of ‘‘atmospheric space’’ (4, 5, 7, 8, and 9). The bottom line of data
in all the papers is that while the rich countries have caused climate change, the
poor countries are the most exposed victims, and ‘‘[t]his basic and undeniable
truth forms the foundation of the global climate justice movement’’ (5).
The main warrants, or principles, behind the Acknowledge climate debt claim
are three. At the bottom of all ecological and climate debt claims lies a vision of
ecological integrity: All humans share a planet that is vulnerable and needs to be

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treated with care. The frightening data on the state of the planet must therefore
be acted upon. The texts are anthropocentric in the sense that their focus is on
how people are affected by the adverse effects of climate change, yet several also
have a tendency toward ecocentrism, as when referring to Mother Earth (1, 2, 6,
7, 8, and 9), sometimes as sacred (1) or as a living being (7 and 8).2
The remaining two warrants are used to link data on unequal contribution to
climate change and inverse vulnerability to the claim that industrialized coun-
tries owe a climate debt. This is the principle of historical responsibility, which is
closely related to the UNFCCC concept of common but differentiated respon-
sibility. According to this principle, the one who has caused damage is also
morally responsible for it. It incorporates strict liability: Causing damage is a
sufficient criterion for responsibility, independent of premeditation. Direct refer-
ences are made to both historical responsibility (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9) and common
but differentiated responsibility (1, 2, 7, 8, and 9).
Finally, there is the idea that the climate system is a common, belonging to all
and to be shared equally. A problem with the conventional global economic
model is that ‘‘[t]his system is premised on the appropriation of local, national,
and planetary commons by local and global elites’’ (6). In this context, the data
on the ‘‘atmospheric space’’ being colonized, occupied, or disproportionately
consumed make sense. It is assumed that the ‘‘excessive consumption, lifestyles
and emissions’’ in the developed countries ‘‘are turning the Earth’s capacity to
absorb greenhouse gases into a scarce and limited resource’’ (8). According to
this principle, everyone has the right to an equal share of the atmospheric
common. But the ‘‘excessive historical and current per person emissions’’ of
the developed countries means ‘‘denying developing countries their fair [equi-
table (9)] share of atmospheric space,’’ and therefore, ‘‘they have run up an
‘emissions debt’’’ (5).3
Claim 2. Repay the Climate Debt

The second main claim is that the climate debt not only exists and should be
acknowledged but also repaid (see Figure 2). Several means of debt repayment
are proposed, and I divide them into claims for relating to the emissions debt
and the adaptation debt, respectively.
First, it is very clear that the climate debt should be repaid to its full extent
(cf. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 9). The TWN documents state that both the emission and
the adaptation debts should be paid in full. It can be repaid in different forms,
mainly through restoration or compensation. The implicit claim seems to be that
losses that cannot be restored physically should be compensated economically or
otherwise—also measures such as the removal of patents and intellectual prop-
erty rights can be a repayment (6 to 8). That climate debt is not only about
compensation is clearly expressed in the Cochabamba documents: ‘‘The focus
must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice,

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Warlenius 141
Data Claim 2.
1, 2 Repay the climate debt
3. Poor countries are unlikely to The climate debt, both the

accept climate injustices. emission debt and the adaptation
debt parts, should be repaid in
full.
Warrants
1, 2a-b
2c. Contributor pays principle
2d. Right to sustainable

development
3. Efficiency and expediency
Figure 2. Claim 2. The second claim and supporting data and warrants.
understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings’’
(7, cf. 9).
Thus, I understand a restorative debt as the obligation to repay historical
overuse of the carbon commons by freeing up the equivalent amount of sink
capacity for the future use of the debtors through the reduction of creditor
emissions to levels below their momentary per capita share of total sustainable
emissions. It is physical because it is measured in a physical unit such as tons of
greenhouse gases. The adaptation debt equals the needs of the affected countries
for adaptation to climate change and catching-up development. It is mainly a
compensatory debt measured in monetary value. It is compensatory because it
likely cannot restore the damage done by climate change but can compensate for
it and mitigate some of the problems.
The data supporting the repayment claims are largely the same as that for the
recognition of the climate debt. If a debt exists, it is presumed that it should be
settled. The dominant warrant reminds of the recognized Polluters Pay Principle
or what is called Contributor Pays Principle within climate ethics (cf. Page,
2012): Developed countries should pay ‘‘[f]or their disproportionate contribu-
tion’’ (4) because they are ‘‘the main cause’’ (7).
Another important warrant motivating the acknowledgment of both the eco-
logical and climate debt is a strive for global equality and a belief that economic
and social development in poor countries and communities have been blocked
by industrialized countries through different means—colonialism, imperialism,
unjust trade policies, and now also refusal to take responsibility for climate
change. I refer to this warrant as ‘‘the right to sustainable development.’’ In
the texts analyzed, this effort to maintain or enhance welfare, yet with respect to

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the ecological integrity, is sometimes indicated by references to a just transition

(1, 2, and 6), a right to sustainable energy (1, 3, and 4), or a need to ‘‘build the
houses, schools, roads and infrastructure that the developed world already has’’
(4 and 5). Only in Bolivia’s submission is development explicitly framed as a
rights issue, ‘‘the rights and aspirations of developing countries to development’’
and as their ‘‘first and overriding priorities’’ (9).
Although the striving for development is a general warrant, the framing of it
differs substantially. While the TWN documents are not problematizing it,
People’s Agreement is very critical of the current development model, which is
‘‘patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings and
nature.’’ The goal ‘‘is not a model of limitless and destructive development’’ but
‘‘a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings’’
based upon the ‘‘ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in
the thought and practices of ‘Living Well’’’ and as recorded in the Universal
Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth (7).
A specific warrant invoked for the repayment of the climate debt is an effi-
ciency and expediency warrant. According to it, repaying the climate debt would
facilitate a more effective negotiation process within UNFCCC. ‘‘Honoring
these debts is not only right, it is the basis of a fair and effective solution to
climate change’’ (4, cf. 8). This warrant responds to data on the strategic inter-
ests and relative strength of developing countries:
Poor countries and communities are unlikely to sit by while a wealthy minority
continues to consume an excessive proportion of the Earth’s limited environmental
space. Nor are they likely to ignore the wealthy’s historical responsibility for the
causes and consequences of climate change. (5)
Repaying the debt is thus the most expedient way to reach an agreement.
Claim 2a. Repay the Emission Debt

The emissions debt is a physical debt and is first about restoring or ‘‘decolo-
nizing’’ the atmospheric space ‘‘occupied’’ by developed countries’ historical and
current emissions. It should be done ‘‘through the deepest possible domestic
reductions, and by committing to assigned amounts of emissions that reflect
the full measure of their historical and continued excessive contributions to
climate change’’ (5). By cutting domestic emissions, countries with an historical
overuse of the atmospheric common will pay its debt by freeing up ‘‘space’’ for
developing countries to fill with their emissions.
There is an ambiguity here that is not fully resolved in the documents.
If defined as earlier, the emission debt can only be repaid in the very long
term. Even if industrialized countries cut their emissions dramatically,
the global sinks would still be overcrowded with their historical emissions.

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Warlenius 143
Very low emissions would have to be maintained for perhaps hundreds of years
before those of the developing countries could catch up. This slow restoration of
the global sinks would be an obstacle to development in the South. Therefore, it
would seem more practical to swap parts of the restorative debt into a compen-
satory debt. As defined earlier, a restorative debt means the obligation of the
creditor to cut current emissions to below its per capita share of sustainable
emissions to free up space for debtor emissions. A compensatory debt repayment
would mean to transfer finance or technology that enables the same degree of
‘‘development’’ that the restorative debt repayment would amount to, but with-
out the emissions normally attached to it (‘‘leap frog development’’ in UNFCCC
lingo). The result of such a debt swap would, ideally, be a faster development in
debtor countries and an easier transition path for creditor countries.4 If the
emission debt repayment claim is understood as a right to equally large per
capita emissions, the proposed swap represents a deviation. But there are
good reasons to instead focus on, for example, energy rights or development
rights (cf. Shue, 2013). In practice, this pragmatic stance is taken by TWN:
While it mentions only two parts of the debt (emission debt and adaptation
debt), both to be repaid fully, also a third kind of debt repayment is proposed:
‘‘the financing and technology required to cover the additional costs of mitigat-
ing and adapting to climate change’’ (4, 5). To consider this a debt repayment
does not make sense—the debt is already fully repaid—unless TWN assumes
that the other debt repayments will be incomplete, presumably that the emission
debt is impossible or impractical to pay back only through physical restoration.
One of the Cochabamba documents is more frank about this. It assumes that
‘‘[e]ven in the case of the deepest possible emissions reductions and removals by
rich countries, poor countries will face climate-related challenges to their devel-
opment’’ (8). Thereby, the responsibility emerges to compensate this injustice.
Honoring the emission debt is seen not only as returning atmospheric space but
also as ‘‘reflecting the loss of development opportunities due to the costs and
technological demands to developing countries to live within a restricted atmo-
spheric space’’ (8). Actually, besides demands for drastic cuts in emissions, there
are wide calls for compensation in the form of the global North financing
mitigation efforts in the South (3 to 8). Note that this is not similar to carbon
trading, where the financing of mitigation actions abroad compensates for con-
tinued emissions domestically, but an additional duty in excess of domestic
reductions.
The conclusion is that the claim to repay the emission debt in full needs a
qualification: The part of the emission debt that is not possible or practical to
restore through emission cuts should be paid for by other means such as
compensation for mitigation costs. Although the emission debt is physical, its
repayment needs to be divided into a restorative physical part and a compensa-
tory monetary part. Although TWN is ambiguous, I consider it appropriate to
include the compensation qualification in the general claim in Figure 3.

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Data Claim 2a.

1, 2, 3 Repay the emission debt
4. Earth’s capacity to absorb The emission debt should be
carbon is full, which poses a repaid in full. As much as
barrier to development. possible and practical as a
restoration of the atmospheric
common in the form of drastic
emission reductions in debtor
countries. The remaining as
compensations in the form of
Warrants transfer of finance and
technology to compensate for
1, 2a–d, 3 incremental costs for mitigation
and other measures.
[4. The right to emit]
Figure 3. Claim 2a. Part A of the second claim and supporting data and warrants.
The data supporting the repayment of the emission debt are that the historical
overuse of the atmosphere has turned ‘‘Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhouse
gases into a scarce and limited resource’’ (8). This forces developing countries
to ‘‘live within a restricted atmospheric space’’ (7 and 8) and to cope with the
‘‘two-fold barrier to their development – mitigating and adapting to climate
change – which were not present for developed countries during the course of
their development’’ (4). Thus, ‘‘the twin constraints of a more hostile climate and
restricted atmospheric space’’ must be honored by the obligation of the devel-
oped countries to provide ‘‘the full incremental costs of emission reductions
undertaken in developing countries’’ (5).
Warrants supporting emissions debt repayment are the same as earlier, but
additionally, a right to emit greenhouse gases is mobilized.5 This right is some-
times outspoken, as when repayment of the emission debt is motivated by
restoring ‘‘the environmental space needed’’ to develop (5) and ‘‘the need for
adequate development space’’ (8); it is nothing less than ‘‘an inalienable fun-
damental right of all nations and peoples’’ (9). It is also indicated by the fact
that the manifestos rarely demand a full phase out of fossil fuels (only 1 and 6
do) but focus on an overall reduction and redistribution of emissions, from
North to South. This is clearly stated in Bolivia’s submission: A ‘‘just, fair and
equitable right of developing country Parties to achieve development in har-
mony with nature making use of the atmospheric space and resources’’ (9, my
emphasis).
Given the urgency of acting on climate change, the right-to-emit warrant is
contested, however. The Bali Principles state ‘‘the need to reduce with an aim to
eliminate the production of greenhouse gases’’ (1), and KlimaForum09 demands
‘‘[a] complete abandonment of fossil fuels within the next 30 years’’ (6), which
can be seen as contradicting the ‘‘right to emit’’ warrant. Therefore, it is put
within brackets. It should also be noted that although cumulative emissions

103.137.24.164 on Fri, 04 Nov 2022 05:59:03 UTC
Warlenius 145
Data Claim 2b.
1, 2, 3 Repay the adaptation debt
5. Poor communities, The adaptation debt should be

ecosystems and future repaid in full. First in the form of
generations are severely transfer of finance and
affected, even to the verge of technology to compensate for
costs for adaptation in
annihilation, by climate
developing countries, but also
change for which they have
by preserving human rights to
no or very little responsibility. people affected by climate
Warrants change, such as migrants and
indigenous peoples.
1, 2a–d, 3
Figure 4. Claim 2b. Part B of the second claim and supporting data and warrants.
should be distributed equally, they should not in total exceed what can be
considered a sustainable limit; ‘‘equilibrium with Mother Earth’’ should also
be considered (8).
Claim 2b. Repay the Adaptation Debt

The adaptation debt should be repaid ‘‘by committing to full financing and
compensation for the adverse effects of climate change on all affected coun-
tries, groups and people’’ (4) by ‘‘providing the means to prevent, minimize,
and deal with damages’’ (7 to 9), and ‘‘provide compensation for those harms
that cannot be avoided’’ (5). The adaptation debt addresses ‘‘the damage
arising from their [developed countries’] excessive emissions and from the
lost opportunities of people to ‘‘live well’’ (8; cf. the notion ‘‘buen vivir’’
discussed in, for example, Gudynas, 2011). It is stated clearly that it is not
only ‘‘countries’’ that should receive compensation for adaptation, but all
‘‘those impoverished’’ (6); the debt should be honored also ‘‘to vulnerable
communities in their own countries [i.e., ‘the countries that have over-con-
sumed the atmospheric space’], to our children’s children and to all living
beings in our shared home – Mother Earth’’ (8).
KlimaForum09 proposes a ‘‘global and democratic fund . . . to give direct
support to the victims of climate change,’’ with the reservation that
‘‘International financial institutions, donor agencies, and trade mechanisms
should have no part in reparations’’ (6). Moreover, the People’s Agreement
and Bolivia’s submission demand a new adaptation fund that works in a
‘‘sovereign, transparent, and equitable manner’’ (7 and 9), and Climate
Justice Now! calls for ‘‘[h]uge financial transfers from North to South . . . for
adaptation and mitigation costs’’ (3). According to Bolivia, the huge transfers
should ‘‘be equivalent to at least 6% of the GNP of developed country Parties

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comprising 3% for adaptation, 1% for mitigation, 1% for technology devel-

opment and transfer and 1% for capacity building’’ (9).
But the adaptation debt is not entirely monetary. The People’s Agreement
also demands that the developed countries
[a]ssume responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people that will be forced to
migrate due to the climate change caused by these countries, and eliminate their
restrictive immigration policies, offering migrants a decent life with full human
rights guarantees in their countries. (7, cf. 8 and 9)
Also in developing countries, human rights should be preserved, most notably

the ‘‘rights of indigenous people’’ (8 and 9). Other types of demands are ‘‘patent-
free technologies’’ (6) and to ‘‘remove barriers such as intellectual property
rights’’ (8) alongside ‘‘additional unconditional financial resources to enable
technology transfer, capacity building and adaptation’’ (8).
To support the adaptation debt repayment claim, data are presented
on how poor communities and countries are most affected by climate
change for which they have no or very little responsibility. Mentioned
are, for instance, farmers, indigenous or poor communities, women, people
relying on scarce water resources, and communities susceptible to health
impacts (5). The impacts threaten their development ambitions or even
the very existence of their countries. Entities such as ‘‘island states, coastal
ecosystems . . . biodiversity and future generations and other groups’’ are also
threatened (8).
Warrants supporting the repay-the-adaptation-debt claim are the same as
mentioned earlier (see Figure 4 for the entire argument).
Data Claim 3.
5. Ecological footprint calculations Climate debt is part of a wider
show the unsustainability of ecological debt
countries in the global North.
Climate debt is but a component
of a larger ecological debt, owed
to developing countries and
‘Mother Earth.’ Repaying the
climate debt is only a part of the
ecological debt payment, and
any effort to solve the climate
Warrants crisis must be rooted in a
broader effort to promote
5. Laconic references to socially environmental and social justice
radical, sometimes socialist, between rich and poor peoples
egalitarian, ecological and and countries.
indigenous political traditions.
Figure 5. Claim 3. The third claim and supporting data and warrants.

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Warlenius 147
Claim 3. The Climate Debt Is Part of a Wider Ecological Debt

A final main claim, repeated in most of the documents analyzed, is that climate
debt is only a part of a wider ecological and perhaps also social and economic
debt, which the industrialized countries owe the developing countries and
‘‘Mother Earth.’’ It serves to put climate debt in a wider context and tradition
but is not very elaborated (see Figure 5).
TWN claims that ‘‘climate debt is a component of a larger
ecological debt’’ and that ‘‘any effort to advance the cause of climate justice
must be rooted in a broader effort to promote ecological and social
justice between rich and poor, developed and developing countries’’ (5).
The Cochabamba documents state that the climate debt should be honored
‘‘as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth’’ (7 and 8). In widening the
context further, climate debt repayment is seen as a way to ‘‘partly address
historical injustices associated to inequitable industrialization and climate
change, originating in the genocide of indigenous nations, transatlantic
slave trade, colonial era, and invasions’’ (6). Another way to honor the
broader debt would be to adopt and implement ‘‘the United Nations
Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth’’ (7), drafted in
Cochabamba.
There are some data that put climate debt in a wider, ecological, and social
context. Country-based ecological footprints are compared with show that the
world suffers from ‘‘excessive pollution and overuse by the wealthy of the goods
and services provided by nature’’ (5), yet the ecological footprint, as used here, is
a noncumulative measure and thus does not effectively support the claim of an
ecological debt.
Although rather laconic in the documents analyzed, some warrants situate
the climate debt claim in a wider context of socially radical, sometimes
socialist, egalitarian, ecological, and indigenous political traditions. For
instance, it is stated that a consequence of the large ecological footprints
of countries in the North is that ‘‘any effort to advance the cause of climate
justice must be rooted in a broader effort to promote ecological and social
justice between rich and poor, developed and developing countries’’ (5).
When discussing the roots of climate change, both the People’s Agreement
and Bolivia point to ‘‘the capitalist system’’ (7 and 9), which is ‘‘separating
human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature’’
(7) but is also ‘‘patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of
human beings’’ (7): Therefore, it is ‘‘imperative that we forge a new system’’
based on ‘‘balance with nature’’ and ‘‘equity among human beings’’ (7 and
9). Although the main tendency is to frame climate debt as a North-South
conflict, pointing to unsustainable development models or the capitalist
system unties the strict geopolitical focus. Assigning responsibility directly
to the South is, however, rare, yet ‘‘elites within the South’’ (1) and
‘‘local . . . elites’’ (6) are mentioned.

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A Comparison With Ecological Debt Claims

James Rice (2009) analyzes eight documents on ecological debt adopted by
different NGOs and uses Toulmin’s model to identify four main claims in the
ecological debt discourse. The documents are about one decade older than those
on climate debt, with a median of about 2000 and 2009, respectively.6 I will first
examine how climate debt is conceptualized within the ecological debt discourse
and then proceed to discuss how the four ecological debt claims relate to the
climate debt claims in this article.
The first and most central of the ecological debt claims in Rice’s analysis is that
the Northern development model is predicated on a ‘‘socio-ecological subsidy’’
imposed on the countries in the global South, defined as ‘‘the underpayment
and, at times, explicit looting of the natural resource assets of Southern countries’’
(Rice, 2009). Warrants legitimizing the claim are ecologically unequal exchange,
foreign direct investments, North’s failure to stay within its designated ‘‘environ-
mental space’’ that inhibits an equitable use of it by the South. The ‘‘environmental
space’’ warrant is conceptualized in a way that is similar to how the emission debt
is described in the CJM manifestos: ‘‘Northern countries appropriate a dispropor-
tionate share of the assimilative or sink-capacity of global ecosystems.’’ Backing of
this warrant ‘‘includes evidence of the disproportionate emissions of greenhouse
gases within Northern countries, contributing to global climate change’’ (Rice,
2009). There is no explicit mention of a climate debt in the article, but one of
the analyzed articles, by Friends of the Earth in Australia, comes close:
The idea of a Carbon Debt is based upon the same theory as that of the Ecological
Debt. That is, those countries that are using more than their fair share of carbon
allocation are running up a debt to those countries that are using less than their fair
allocation. (Rice, 2009)
Interestingly, the phenomenon that CJM refers to as the emission debt is here
seen as backing data of a warrant or principle (appropriation of environmental
space) legitimizing the claim of a socio-ecological subsidy. So even if the con-
ceptualization of an emission debt existed within the ecological debt discourse, it
was still peripheral. A major shift in how to evaluate the importance of climate
debt thus seems to have occurred during the 2000s. The adaptation debt, the
other part of the climate debt claim, is entirely absent in Rice’s analysis and
therefore appears to be of a later date.
Since carbon or climate debt is often regarded as integral to ecological debt, it is
reasonable to assume that the four claims identified by Rice on ecological debt also
appear in documents on climate debt. The four claims are quoted and analyzed later.
Claim 1. Northern development and present disproportionate production and con-

sumption are founded on a socio-ecological ‘‘subsidy’’ imposed upon Southern
countries.

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Warlenius 149
As mentioned, this key claim is defined as the underpayment or, sometimes, the
explicit looting of Southern countries’ resources; as the ‘‘unequal and under-
valued exchange of natural resources and labor power’’ (Rice, 2009). While
‘‘underpayment’’ and ‘‘undervalued exchange’’ refer to trade within the eco-
nomic process, although biased and exploitative, ‘‘explicit looting’’ refers to extra-
economic processes such as of colonial violence. This division is reminiscent of the
dual character of accumulation as either economic or expropriative (Luxemburg,
2003, p. 432). Ecological debt is accrued through both forms but mainly the first,
which is indicated by the term socioecological subsidy that brings to mind an
unjust economic relation, but not direct expropriation. For climate debt, however,
the latter form is in focus. It accrues through appropriation (1 and 5) or occupa-
tion (4, 7, 8, and 9) of the common atmospheric space. Thus, while both concepts
are framed within the notion of unjust power relations between North and South,
there are differences in how this power inequality is played out. The discursive
shift—from intra- to extraeconomic emphasis—is likely the result of conceptual
differences, where ecological debt is mainly (but not only) the result of unfair trade
between countries, while climate debt is the nontraded result of overuse of the
carbon commons, imprecating adverse effects of climate change. From this per-
spective, the economic lingo of ‘‘debt’’ and ‘‘subsidy’’ arguably fits better within
the first, exploitative-economic form, while the result of an expropriation of com-
mons could just as well be termed calls for indemnity or reparation.
Claim 2. The Southern external financial debt should be cancelled because it pro-
motes the socioecological subsidy.
The claim to cancel the Southern external financial debt is present in only two of
the analyzed texts on climate debt and not very emphasized in either. In Climate
Justice Now!, debt cancellation is listed as one of several ways to finance the
‘‘huge financial transfers from North to South’’ (3). In a rather long list of debt
repayment measures, ‘‘immediately cancelling external debt’’ is also one of the
demands in (8). This indicates that the claim to cancel external debt has largely
been lost when the focus changed from ecological debt to climate debt. This is
interesting because the demand for external debt relief was one of the ‘‘cradles’’
of the ecological debt claim and a decisive reason for the development and
coining of the ecological debt notion (Warlenius et al., 2015). Perhaps this
development is a result of the decreasing activity of the movement for debt
relief after its heroic mobilization to the 2000 UN Millenium Summit.
Claim 3. Levels of Northern production and consumption are unsustainable over

the long term because they are predicated on the socio-ecological subsidy.
In the climate justice argument for climate debt, what is primarily considered as
unsustainable are the emissions of developed countries, while the mechanisms

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behind these excess emissions are less emphasized. Therefore, claims for low-
ering the levels of production and consumption in Northern countries are lar-
gely, although not entirely, absent. There are references to ‘‘unsustainable
production, consumption and lifestyles’’ (1), ‘‘excessive consumption, lifestyles
and emissions’’ (8), and ‘‘unsustainable patterns of consumption and produc-
tion’’ (9). Note, however, that only in (8) are the actual levels of consumption
questioned, while in the other cases, it is their sustainability. The tendency in the
ecological debt context that ‘‘levels of Northern production and consumption’’
are criticized for being unsustainable has been substituted, in the climate debt
discourse, by references to sustainable production/consumption and excess emis-
sions. This shift may be interpreted as a political shift from a degrowth narrative
to an ecological modernization one, likely to focus directly on emissions rather
than on questioning the very system of rising production and consumption.
Yet, such an interpretation is contradicted by the framing of climate debt as a
question of power relations and by the identification of capitalism as the root
cause of climate change (7 to 9). I therefore interpret it as mainly a rhetorical
shift. The link between emissions and climate change is so obvious that it might
seem unnecessary to challenge the levels of production and consumption
directly. The fundamental argument, that it is the North that must adjust and
adapt rather than the South, prevails anyway.
Claim 4. Equity for present generations and rational obligations to future

generations demands that Northern countries begin paying back the accrued
socio-ecological subsidy, an obligation that can be defined as an ‘‘ecological debt.’’
Rice’s fourth claim of a repayment duty is clearly transferred from the ecological
debt discourse to the climate debt claim. In both cases, the equity argument for
both present and future generations is emphasized. One notable difference is that
in Rice’s analysis of ecological debt claims, the only concrete form of repayment
mentioned is the cancellation of external debts, while in the climate debt
discourse, sophisticated distinctions between restorative and compensatory
measures as well as mitigative and adaptive measures can be derived.
Discussion and Conclusion

This article aims at enhancing the understanding of the CJM by analyzing its
core demand of climate debt and by comparing it with the ecological debt claim
to understand more of its historical development. During the 2000s, the focus of
the environmental justice movement shifted from ecological debt and external
debt toward climate change. In that context, climate debt was developed out of
the ecological debt discourse and evolved into what has been analyzed in this
article. While the primary objective of the ecological debt concept was external
debt relief, the primary objective of climate debt is, I would argue, climate

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Warlenius 151
justice: To push for a ‘‘recognition that the historical responsibility for the vast
majority of greenhouse gas emissions lies with the industrialized countries of the
global north’’ (Petermann, 2009). As discussed in the previous section, the eco-
nomic context surrounding ecological debt was largely lost since the accrual of
climate debt is conceptualized as expropriative, rather than exploitative.
Even though this shift of context makes the concept of climate debt partly
misleading, I would argue that the analysis—summarized in Figures 1 through
5—shows that CJM clearly has the ambition to make climate debt a concrete,
well-defined, thought-through, and usable concept. The climate debt is seen as
twofold, where the emissions debt is mainly biophysical and the adaption debt
mainly pecuniary. The conceptualization is quite complex but follows logically
from the standard division of climate change politics in mitigation and adapta-
tion. Remaining problems are not, I believe, mainly conceptual but related to the
application of the model on the real world.
In the real world, cumulative emissions are so large that the acute mission is
to drastically reduce all emissions. This makes it almost impossible to expect a
full repayment of the emission debts in biophysical terms, which have given rise
to ideas of compensatory measures. Yet, in the analyzed documents, this
dilemma is not fully acknowledged or solved. Here, more work by both activists
and scholars would be useful.
In the real world, further, cumulative emissions are so unequally distributed
that a full recognition of the climate debt claims would have radical conse-
quences: massive investments in mitigation and massive transfers of resources
from North to South. This is a paradox. Climate debt is, at first sight, not very
radical. It is simply asking the one who caused the mess to clean it up—a
principle that is easily derived from commonsense ethics and is well established
in environmental politics. Yet, that it would be a consensual principle is delu-
sory: Because of the magnitude of the mess and the skewness of responsibility, it
would have drastic effects. The industrialized countries are of course aware of
this and have therefore resisted it forcefully. Despite massive mobilization of
both movements and Southern governments, the results, in terms of influencing
the UNFCCC negotiations, are bleak. There are no references to climate debt or
historical liabilities in the agreements.
Yet, this delusion is also the concept’s major asset. Climate debt provides
radical redistributive measures with a strong legitimacy that makes them difficult
to oppose, at least intellectually. Perhaps, the proponents of climate debt
have therefore mistaken it for an innocent proposal and underestimated the
resistance it would provoke. That would be a mistake. Because in the real
world, it is a bomb.
Acknowledgments
I take the opportunity to thank my PhD supervisors prof. Alf Hornborg and prof. Anne
Jerneck, both Lund University, for valuable comments. Prof. Kristina Boréus, Uppsala

103.137.24.164 on Fri, 04 Nov 2022 05:59:03 UTC
University, also kindly read and commented on the methodological framework. I have
also benefitted from the comments of two anonymous reviewers.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article: The author acknowledges support from FP7
Science in Society (266642).
Notes
1. Privileging the responsibility of nation-states over corporations is not self-evident
because the latter are important drivers of carbon emissions. Yet, corporate activities
are at least formally subordinated to national legislation, and because climate debt
claims are often raised in relation to the international climate negotiations, where
states are the primary actors, it does make sense.
2. The documents do not, however, expand justice to explicitly include nonhuman spe-
cies, which is a tendency criticized in Critical Environmental Justice studies (Pellow,
2016; Pellow & Brulle, 2005).
3. I understand ‘‘fair share’’ as a cumulative, equal per capita approach. The ‘‘atmo-
spheric space’’ is probably a misnomer because what seems to be signified is all carbon
sinks—which implies that the oceans and possibly growing forests should be included
besides the atmosphere.
4. In Warlenius (2017, paper 5), I have formalized and calculated the climate debt of 154
countries, and there the need for ‘‘debt swaps’’ becomes apparent. According to it,
3,000 MtCO2 per year can be emitted sustainably in the whole world. The United
States alone has an emission debt of 344,000 MtCO2 (in 2011). Its sustainable emission
(basically its per capita share of global sustainable emissions) is about 138 MtCO2 per
year. Thus, even with zero emissions, it would take the United States some 2,500 years
to repay its debt in physical terms. The climate creditors are unlikely to have that kind
of patience.
5. It could be argued that the right-to-emit warrant is integral to warrant 2d, the right
to sustainable development, because development will, within the foreseeable future,
result in higher emissions. But there is a difference. In 2d, the right referred to
regards development, which at least in theory could be achieved without emissions.
Warrant 4, however, regards the specific right of a country to emit greenhouse
gases. The right-to-emit warrant could, alternatively, be regarded as implicit in
the very definition of climate debt (as in Claim 1) where it is stated that the
‘‘appropriation of the planet’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases above their
fair share’’ constitutes the ‘‘emissions debt’’ part of the climate debt. Yet, in this
article, the accrual of the debt is distinguished from the repayment of the debt. As
explained earlier, although the emission debt is derived physically from
emissions above a certain rate, its repayment is not automatically translated into
a proportional repayment claim but can also be partly compensatory. Thus, neither

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Warlenius 153
the right to development nor the holding of an emissions debt necessarily translates
into a proportional emission right.
6. Those of Rice’s sources that are dated are from 1999, 2000, 2000, and 2006 (four are
undated). The median of the dates of this article’s sources are 2009.
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Author Biography
Rikard Warlenius is a PhD and lecturer in human ecology at Lund University,
Sweden. His main research interest is climate justice.

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Decolonizing the Atmosphere: Climate Justice Movement Calls for Addressing Climate Debt

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Decolonizing the Atmosphere

Author(s): Rikard Warlenius

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26477604

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Atmosphere: The Climate ! The Author(s) 2017

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Climate Debt journals.sagepub.com/home/jed

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ethnic rights, and gender equality to critical views on development and

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The Toulmin method is intratextual rather than contextual and descriptive

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1. Climate change is a threat to Acknowledge climate debt

2b. The climate system is a

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. For their disproportionate contribution to the causes and consequences of

Other documents also diﬀerentiate between ‘‘mitigation and adaptation

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Claim 2. Repay the Climate Debt

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3. Poor countries are unlikely to The climate debt, both the

2d. Right to sustainable

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the ecological integrity, is sometimes indicated by references to a just transition

Claim 2a. Repay the Emission Debt

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Data Claim 2a.

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Data Claim 2b.

1, 2, 3 Repay the adaptation debt

5. Poor communities, The adaptation debt should be

Claim 2b. Repay the Adaptation Debt

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comprising 3% for adaptation, 1% for mitigation, 1% for technology devel-

Also in developing countries, human rights should be preserved, most notably

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Claim 3. The Climate Debt Is Part of a Wider Ecological Debt

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A Comparison With Ecological Debt Claims

Claim 1. Northern development and present disproportionate production and con-

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Claim 3. Levels of Northern production and consumption are unsustainable over

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Claim 4. Equity for present generations and rational obligations to future

Discussion and Conclusion

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Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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