Distributional Choices in EU Climate Change Policy Seen Through the Lens of Legal Principles

Abstract

In the course of designing and implementing climate change policies, one of the core dilemmas that faces states is how to distribute the costs (and benefits) of those policies among the responsible greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting sources. The effective implementation of intensive emission reduction targets will require substantial efforts from most sources across all sectors of society. This chapter summarises the main conclusions of a PhD project, financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Vulnerability, Adaptation and Mitigation (VAM) project, which has examined distributional choices included in the climate law and policy of the European Union from the specific perspective of legal principles (see Javier de Cendra, Distributional choices in EU climate change law and policy: Towards a principled approach? Kluwer Law International, 2011). The main research question concerned the role of legal principles in making, assessing and testing distributional choices. In order to answer that question, the research developed a framework for assessing distributional choices from the perspective of legal principles, thereby contributing to a further understanding of the legal dimensions of the serious distributional dilemma implied in climate policymaking. The most relevant conclusion of the research is that the content of distributional choices made in EU climate change policy increasingly embodies — despite significant remaining tensions — the core meaning of the relevant legal principles. This would support the view that legal principles can, and have in fact, provided guidance in structuring and rationalising bargaining processes in EU climate change law and policy. Nevertheless, one important and persistent factor limiting the degree of this contribution of legal principles is the lack of agreement on the core content of some important legal principles, particularly the polluter pays principle, the integration principle and the CBDR principle. Thus, ongoing efforts to explore more in depth the core content of those principles should be promoted.

Keywords: climate change law, legal principles, distributional choices, EU law, per capita

JEL Classification: K32