Climate change, energy transition, and the Global South: learnings from the international framework on the ozone layer

Abstract

The pursuit of climate action to meet net-zero targets has triggered the call for a global energy transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. However, this global energy transition does not entirely recognise all countries’ social, economic and technological capacities as well as emission contributions as envisaged under the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle, which underlies international climate policy. It is concerned more with the outcome of transitioning to clean energy than with justice in the transition process. Recognition justice, an element of energy justice, enables us to identify the inequalities that global energy paradigms (such as the energy transition) can create and how a justice framework can help us understand the implications of energy injustice and address the inequities across energy systems. Recognition justice acknowledges the divergent perspectives rooted in social, economic and racial differences and the varied strengths of developed and developing countries. The energy transition process ought to recognise these differences so that they are reasonably expected to benefit everyone. Implementing the energy transition in the Global South (GS) in the same way as it is being advanced in the Global North will have security, justice, economic, resource-stranding, and sustainable development implications. This issue (of injustice in the energy transition) is aggravated by two dichotomous realities: many countries in the South will be most impacted by climatic changes, yet there remains political and social opposition to climate action through the energy transition. As a solution, this paper relies on the notion of recognition justice with support from the Rawlsian justice concept to argue that a delayed transition represents justice and recognises the peculiar nature and different circumstances of the GS. It identifies that learnings from the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the notion of CBDR under international climate treaties can be mainstreamed into energy transition research and policies to achieve justice for countries of the GS. The paper further finds that a delayed transition for the GS will (i) enable the region to address sustainability-related issues of hunger and multidimensional poverty, essential to realising other Sustainable Development Goals, whilst gradually implementing energy transition policies; (ii) present an attractive case against political and social opposition to energy transition in the GS; (iii) advance the goal of CBDR already recognised under international climate treaties and the bifurcated approaches established in such treaties; and, finally, (iv) ensure that developed countries contributing the most to greenhouse gas emissions take the lead now and act while the GS effectuates national contributions sustainably