“Historical Responsibility” for Climate Change in Historical Perspective

Abstract

International climate negotiations have been hamstrung by a dispute over whether a handful of developed countries have “historical responsibility” for climate change. The thesis rests on the presumed fact that a small number of early-industrializing nations (the “accused” countries) emitted an excess of greenhouse gases (“historical emissions”) through their use of coal for energy over a period of at least a century, before mineral-based economic development was adopted universally. Advocates of historical responsibility deduce from this that the accused countries have a moral responsibility to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions faster than they are required to through their treaty-based obligations. The position has been a negotiating weapon, entrenching differences and retarding progress. I argue that industrialization’s early emissions should be attributed to their actual sources, namely the foundational technologies of the Industrial Revolution. In a historical sense, these belong, not to the accused countries, but to modern civilization. More than a century was required to develop the core technological cluster. During that time, the inventions were largely confined, for practical reasons, to the loci of invention. Their universal adoption beginning around 1850 undermines the argument that the countries whose distinct economic circumstances gave birth to industrialization are to be penalized in the present.

Keywords

• Climate change; biological old regime; coal as an energy source; Industrial Revolution; history of carbon-based technologies; greenhouse gas emissions c. 1750-1850; moral responsibility for “historical greenhouse gas emissions”