An AI takeover is a hypothetical future event in which autonomous artificial intelligence
systems acquire the capability to override human
decision-making—through economic manipulation, infrastructure control,
or direct intervention—and assume de facto governance. Possible
scenarios include replacement of the entire human workforce due to automation, takeover by an artificial superintelligence (ASI), and the notion of a robot uprising.
Stories of AI takeovers have been popular throughout science fiction, some commentators argue that recent advances have heightened concern about such scenarios. Some public figures such as Stephen Hawking have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control.
The traditional consensus among economists has been that
technological progress does not cause long-term unemployment. However,
recent innovation in the fields of robotics
and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will
become obsolete, leaving some people in various sectors without jobs to
earn a living, leading to an economic crisis.Many small and medium-size businesses may also be driven out of
business if they cannot afford or license the latest robotic and AI
technology, and may need to focus on areas or services that cannot
easily be replaced for continued viability in the face of such
technology.
Technologies that may displace workers
AI
technologies have been widely adopted in recent years. While these
technologies have replaced some traditional workers, they also create
new opportunities. Industries that are most susceptible to AI-driven
automation include transportation, retail, and the military. AI military
technologies, for example, can reduce risk by enabling remote
operation. A study in 2024 highlights AI's ability to perform routine
and repetitive tasks poses significant risks of job displacement,
especially in sectors like manufacturing and administrative support. Author Dave Bond argues that as AI technologies continue to develop and
expand, the relationship between humans and robots will change; they
will become closely integrated in several aspects of life. AI will
likely displace some workers while creating opportunities for new jobs
in other sectors, especially in fields where tasks are repeatable.
Researchers from Stanford's Digital Economy Lab report that,
since the widespread adoption of generative AI in late 2022,
early-career workers (ages 22–25) in the most AI-exposed occupations
have experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment—even after
controlling for firm-level shocks—while overall employment has continued
to grow robustly. The study further finds that job losses are concentrated in roles where
AI automates routine tasks, whereas occupations that leverage AI to
augment human work have seen stable or increasing employment.
Computer-integrated manufacturing
uses computers to control the production process. This allows
individual processes to exchange information with each other and
initiate actions. Although manufacturing can be faster and less
error-prone through the integration of computers, the main advantage is
the ability to create automated manufacturing processes.
Computer-integrated manufacturing is used in automotive, aviation,
space, and shipbuilding industries.
The 21st century has seen a variety of skilled tasks partially taken
over by machines, including translation, legal research, and journalism.
Care work, entertainment, and other tasks requiring empathy, previously
thought safe from automation, are increasingly performed by robots and
AI systems.
Autonomous cars
An autonomous car
is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating
without human input. Many such vehicles are operational and others are
being developed, with legislation
rapidly expanding to allow their use. Obstacles to widespread adoption
of autonomous vehicles have included concerns about the resulting loss
of driving-related jobs in the road transport industry, and safety
concerns. On March 18, 2018, a pedestrian was struck and killed in Tempe, Arizona by an Uber self-driving car.
In the 2020s, automated content became more relevant due to technological advancements in AI models, such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion.
In most cases, AI-generated content such as imagery, literature, and
music are produced through text prompts. These AI models are sometimes
integrated into creative programs.
AI-generated art may sample and conglomerate existing creative
works, producing results that appear similar to human-made content.
Low-quality AI-generated visual artwork is referred to as AI slop. Some artists use a tool called Nightshade that alters images to make them detrimental to the training of text-to-image models if scraped without permission, while still looking normal to humans. AI-generated images are a potential tool for scammers and those looking
to gain followers on social media, either to impersonate a famous
individual or group or to monetize their audience.
The New York Times has sued OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement related to the training and outputs of its AI models.
In 2024, Cambridge and Oxford
researchers reported that 57% of the internet's text is either
AI-generated or machine-translated using artificial intelligence.
Scientists such as Stephen Hawking
are confident that superhuman artificial intelligence is physically
possible, stating "there is no physical law precluding particles from
being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations
than the arrangements of particles in human brains".According to Nick Bostrom,
a superintelligent machine would not necessarily be motivated by the
same emotional desire to collect power that often drives human beings
but might rather treat power as a means toward attaining its ultimate
goals; taking over the world would both increase its access to resources
and help to prevent other agents from stopping the machine's plans. As a
simplified example, a paperclip maximizer
designed solely to create as many paperclips as possible would want to
take over the world so that it can use all of the world's resources to
create as many paperclips as possible, and, additionally, prevent humans
from shutting it down or using those resources on things other than
paperclips.
A 2023 Reuters/Ipsos survey showed that 61% of American adults
feared AI could pose a threat to civilization. Philosopher Niels Wilde
refutes the common thread that artificial intelligence inherently
presents a looming threat to humanity, stating that these fears stem
from perceived intelligence and lack of transparency in AI systems that
more closely reflects the human aspects of it rather than those of a
machine. AI alignment research studies how to design AI systems so that they follow intended objectives.
Warnings
Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk
have expressed concerns about the possibility that AI could develop to
the point that humans could not control it, with Hawking theorizing that
this could "spell the end of the human race". Stephen Hawking said in 2014 that "Success in creating AI would be the
biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the
last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." Hawking believed that in
the coming decades, AI could offer "incalculable benefits and risks"
such as "technology outsmarting financial markets,
out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and
developing weapons we cannot even understand." In January 2015, Nick Bostrom joined Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Lord Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and numerous AI researchers in signing the Future of Life Institute's open letter speaking to the potential risks and benefits associated with artificial intelligence.
The signatories "believe that research on how to make AI systems robust
and beneficial is both important and timely, and that there are
concrete research directions that can be pursued today."
Some focus has been placed on the development of trustworthy AI. Three statements have been posed as to why AI is not inherently trustworthy:
1. An entity X is trustworthy only
if X has the right motivations, goodwill and/or adheres to moral
obligations towards the trustor;
2. AI systems lack motivations, goodwill, and moral obligations;
3. Therefore, AI systems cannot be trustworthy.
— Giacomo Zanotti et al.
There are additional considerations within this framework of trustworthy AI that go further into the fields of explainable artificial intelligence and respect for human privacy. Zanotti and colleagues argue that while a trustworthy AI may not exist
at present that meets all of the requirements of "trustworthiness", one
may be developed in the future once clear ethical and technical
frameworks exist.
Robots revolt in R.U.R., a 1928 Czech play translated as "Rossum's Universal Robots"
AI takeover is a recurring theme in science fiction.
Fictional scenarios typically differ vastly from those hypothesized by
researchers in that they involve an active conflict between humans and
an AI or robots with anthropomorphic motives who see them as a threat or
otherwise have an active desire to fight humans, as opposed to the
researchers' concern of an AI that rapidly exterminates humans as a
byproduct of pursuing its goals. The idea is seen in Karel Čapek's R.U.R., which introduced the word robot in 1920, and can be glimpsed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (published in 1818), as Victor ponders whether, if he grants his monster's request and makes him a wife, they would reproduce and their kind would destroy humanity.
According to Toby Ord,
the idea that an AI takeover requires robots is a misconception driven
by the media and Hollywood. He argues that the most damaging humans in
history were not physically the strongest, but that they used words
instead to convince people and gain control of large parts of the world.
He writes that a sufficiently intelligent AI with access to the
internet could scatter backup copies of itself, gather financial and
human resources (via cyberattacks or blackmails), persuade people on a
large scale, and exploit societal vulnerabilities that are too subtle
for humans to anticipate.
The word "robot" from R.U.R. comes from the Czech word robota, meaning laborer or serf.
The 1920 play was a protest against the rapid growth of technology,
featuring manufactured "robots" with increasing capabilities who
eventually revolt. HAL 9000 (1968) and the original Terminator (1984) are two iconic examples of hostile AI in pop culture.
Contributing factors
Advantages of superhuman intelligence over humans
Nick
Bostrom and others have expressed concern that an AI with the abilities
of a competent artificial intelligence researcher would be able to
modify its own source code and increase its own intelligence. If its
self-reprogramming leads to getting even better at being able to
reprogram itself, the result could be a recursive intelligence explosion
in which it would rapidly leave human intelligence far behind. Bostrom
defines a superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the
cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest",
and enumerates some advantages a superintelligence would have if it
chose to compete against humans:
Technology research: A machine with superhuman scientific
research abilities would be able to beat the human research community to
milestones such as nanotechnology or advanced biotechnology
Strategizing: A superintelligence might be able to simply outwit human opposition
Social manipulation: A superintelligence might be able to recruit human support, or covertly incite a war between humans
Economic productivity: As long as a copy of the AI could produce
more economic wealth than the cost of its hardware, individual humans
would have an incentive to voluntarily allow the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to run a copy of itself on their systems
Hacking: A superintelligence could find new exploits in computers
connected to the Internet, and spread copies of itself onto those
systems, or might steal money to finance its plans
Sources of AI advantage
According
to Bostrom, a computer program that faithfully emulates a human brain,
or that runs algorithms that are as powerful as the human brain's
algorithms, could still become a "speed superintelligence" if it can
think orders of magnitude faster than a human, due to being made of
silicon rather than flesh, or due to optimization increasing the speed
of the AGI. Biological neurons operate at about 200 Hz, whereas a modern
microprocessor operates at a speed of about 2 GHz. Human axons carry
action potentials at around 120 m/s, whereas computer signals travel
near the speed of light.
A network of human-level intelligences designed to network
together and share complex thoughts and memories seamlessly, able to
collectively work as a giant unified team without friction, or
consisting of trillions of human-level intelligences, would become a
"collective superintelligence".
More broadly, any number of qualitative improvements to a
human-level AGI could result in a "quality superintelligence", perhaps
resulting in an AGI as far above us in intelligence as humans are above
apes. The number of neurons in a human brain is limited by cranial
volume and metabolic constraints, while the number of processors in a
supercomputer can be indefinitely expanded. An AGI need not be limited
by human constraints on working memory,
and might therefore be able to intuitively grasp more complex
relationships than humans can. An AGI with specialized cognitive support
for engineering or computer programming would have an advantage in
these fields, compared with humans who did not evolve specialized
cognitive modules for them. Unlike humans, an AGI can spawn copies of
itself and tinker with its copies' source code to attempt to further
improve its algorithms.
Possibility of unfriendly AI preceding friendly AI
The sheer complexity of human value systems makes it very difficult to make AI's motivations human-friendly.Unless moral philosophy provides us with a flawless ethical theory, an
AI's utility function could allow for many potentially harmful scenarios
that conform with a given ethical framework but not "common sense".
According to AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, there is little reason to suppose that an artificially designed mind would have such an adaptation.
Odds of conflict
Many scholars, including evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, argue that a superintelligent machine is likely to coexist peacefully with humans.
The fear of cybernetic revolt is often based on interpretations
of humanity's history, which is rife with incidents of enslavement and
genocide. Such fears stem from a belief that competitiveness and
aggression are necessary in any intelligent being's goal system.
However, such human competitiveness stems from the evolutionary
background to our intelligence, where the survival and reproduction of
genes in the face of human and non-human competitors was the central
goal. According to AI researcher Steve Omohundro,
an arbitrary intelligence could have arbitrary goals: there is no
particular reason that an artificially intelligent machine (not sharing
humanity's evolutionary context) would be hostile—or friendly—unless its
creator programs it to be such and it is not inclined or capable of
modifying its programming. But the question remains: what would happen
if AI systems could interact and evolve (evolution in this context means
self-modification or selection and reproduction) and need to compete
over resources—would that create goals of self-preservation? AI's goal
of self-preservation could be in conflict with some goals of humans.
Many scholars dispute the likelihood of unanticipated cybernetic revolt as depicted in science fiction such as The Matrix,
arguing that it is more likely that any artificial intelligence
powerful enough to threaten humanity would probably be programmed not to
attack it. Pinker acknowledges the possibility of deliberate "bad
actors", but states that in the absence of bad actors, unanticipated
accidents are not a significant threat; Pinker argues that a culture of
engineering safety will prevent AI researchers from accidentally
unleashing malign superintelligence. In contrast, Yudkowsky argues that humanity is less likely to be
threatened by deliberately aggressive AIs than by AIs which were
programmed such that their goals are unintentionally incompatible with human survival or well-being (as in the film I, Robot and in the short story "The Evitable Conflict"). Omohundro suggests that present-day automation systems are not designed for safety and that AIs may blindly optimize narrow utility
functions (say, playing chess at all costs), leading them to seek
self-preservation and elimination of obstacles, including humans who
might turn them off.
Precautions
The
AI control problem is the challenge of ensuring that advanced AI
systems reliably act according to human values and intentions, even as
they become more capable than humans. Some scholars argue that solutions to the control problem might also find applications in existing non-superintelligent AI.
Major approaches to the control problem include alignment, which aims to align AI goal systems with human values, and capability control,
which aims to reduce an AI system's capacity to harm humans or gain
control. An example of "capability control" is to research whether a
superintelligent AI could be successfully confined in an "AI box".
According to Bostrom, such capability control proposals are not
reliable or sufficient to solve the control problem in the long term,
but may potentially act as valuable supplements to alignment efforts.
Prevention through AI alignment
In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), alignment
aims to steer AI systems toward a person's or group's intended goals,
preferences, or ethical principles. An AI system is considered aligned if it advances the intended objectives. A misaligned AI system pursues unintended objectives.
Climate justice recognizes that those who have benefited most from industrialization
(such as coal, oil, and gas enterprises) are disproportionately
responsible for the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the earth's
atmosphere, and thus for climate change. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus that people in regions that are the least responsible for climate change as well as the world's poorest and most marginalized communities often tend to suffer the greatest consequences, with, for example, health problems due to being raised in an unhealthy environment. Depending on the country and context, this will often include people with low-incomes, indigenous communities or communities of color.
They might also be further disadvantaged by responses to climate change
which might exacerbate existing inequalities around race, gender,
sexuality and disability. When those affected the most by climate change
despite having contributed the least to causing it are also negatively
affected by responses to climate change, this is known as the 'triple
injustice' of climate change.
Conceptions of climate justice can be grouped along the lines of procedural justice and distributive justice.
The former stresses fair, transparent and inclusive decision-making.
The latter stresses a fair distribution of the costs and outcomes of
climate change (substantive rights). There are at least ten different principles that are helpful to distribute climate costs fairly. Climate justice also tries to address the social implications of climate change mitigation.
If these are not addressed properly, this could result in profound
economic and social tensions. It could even lead to delays in necessary
changes.
Use and popularity of climate justice language has increased
dramatically in recent years, yet climate justice is understood in many
ways, and the different meanings are sometimes contested. At its
simplest, conceptions of climate justice can be grouped along the
following two lines:
procedural justice, which emphasizes fair, transparent and inclusive decision making, and
distributive justice, which places the emphasis on who bears the costs of both climate change and the actions taken to address it.
The objectives of climate justice can be described as: "to
encompasses a set of rights and obligations, which corporations,
individuals and governments have towards those vulnerable people who
will be in a way significantly disproportionately affected by climate
change."
Climate justice examines concepts such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change. There are procedural dimensions of climate change mitigation,
as well as distributive ethical ones. Recognition and respect are the
underlying basis for distributive and procedural justice.
Among major emitters, the U.S. has higher annual per capita emissions than China, which has more total annual emissions.
Cumulatively, U.S. and China emissions have caused the most greenhouse gas-related economic damage.
The fundamental differences in economic systems, such as capitalism and socialism
as a root cause of climate injustice is an often debated and
contentious issue. In this context, fundamental disagreements arise
between conservative environmental groups on one side and leftist
organizations on the other. While the former often tend to blame the
excesses of neoliberalism
for climate change and argue in favor of market-based reform within
capitalism, the latter view capitalism with its exploitative traits as
the underlying central issue. Other possible causal explanations include hierarchies based on the
group differences and the nature of the fossil fuel industry itself.
Systemic causes
Many participants of grassroots movements that demand climate justice also ask for system change.
The unwarranted rate of climate change, along with its inequality of
burdens, are seen as structural injustice perpetuated by systemic
issues. There is political responsibility for the maintenance and
support of existing structural processes. This is despite assumed viable potential alternative models based on
novel technologies and means. As a criterion for determining
responsibility for climate change, individual causal contribution does
not matter as much as responsibility for the perpetuation of carbon-intensive
practices and institutions. It has been argued that these systemic
issues have evolved from and been perpetuated by a long history of
practices such as colonization. These systemic causes have differing effects on the groups they are creating issues for. For example, issues with pipelines and oil drilling
in the United States often stem from the fact that pipelines are built
on Indigenous land. Because of the systems of oppression such as
colonialism and settler colonialism that have made Indigenous
communities more susceptible to being treated as expendable, it is often
difficult for these communities to take action against large
corporations. Systemically related climate justice issues are seen
globally, especially in places where colonization has occurred (i.e. Gaelic Ireland, Scotland, Australia, India, etc.) These structures constitute the global politico-economic system, rather than enabling structural changes towards a system that does not facilitate exploitation of people and nature.
For others, climate justice could be pursued through existing
economic frameworks, global organizations and policy mechanisms.
Therefore, the root causes could be found in the causes that so far
inhibited global implementation of measures like emissions trading schemes.
Disproportionality between causality and burden
Emissions of the richest 1% are more than twice that of the poorest 50%. Compliance with the Paris Agreement's
1.5°C goal would require the richest 1% to reduce emissions by at least
30 times, while per-person emissions of the poorest 50% could
approximately triple.
Though total CO2
emissions (size of pie charts) differ substantially among high-emitting
regions, the pattern of higher income classes emitting more than lower
income classes is consistent across regions. The world's top 1% of emitters emit over 1000 times more than the bottom 1%.
Richer (developed) countries emit more CO2 per person than poorer (developing) countries. Emissions are roughly proportional to GDP per person, though the rate of increase diminishes with average GDP/pp of about $10,000.
A
country-by-country visualisation of each country's vulnerability to
effects of climate change (country size) and greenhouse gas emissions
(country colour intensity). High emitting countries are generally not
the most vulnerable.
The responsibility for climate change differs substantially among
individuals and groups. Many of the people and nations most affected by
climate change are among the least responsible for it. The most affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts. Robust action by them and their governments is necessary to reduce these impacts.
According to a 2020 report by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, the richest 1% of the global population have caused twice as much
carbon emissions as the poorest 50% over the 25 years from 1990 to 2015. This was, respectively, during that period, 15% of cumulative emissions compared to 7%. A second 2023 report found the richest 1% of humans produce more carbon
emissions than poorest 66%, while the top 10% richest people account
for more than half of global carbon emissions.
The bottom half of the population is directly responsible for
less than 20% of energy footprints and consume less than the top 5% in
terms of trade-corrected energy. High-income people usually have higher energy footprints
as they use more energy-intensive goods. In particular, the largest
disproportionality was identified to be in the domain of transport,
where the top 10% consume 56% of vehicle fuel and conduct 70% of vehicle
purchases.
A 2023 review article found that if there were a 2°C
temperature rise by 2100, roughly 1 billion primarily poor people would
die as a result of primarily wealthy people's greenhouse gas emissions.
Some already existing effects of climate change hit harder people
with high income. The increase of wildfires in the west of the USA
"have disproportionately been borne by high-income, white, and older
residents, and by owners of high-value properties;" This is because
those properties have more greenery. There is similar effect with
floods.
Successive
generations are predicted to experience progressively greater
unprecedented lifetime exposure (ULE) events such as heat waves. About 111 million children born in 2020 will live with unprecedented
heatwave exposure in a world that warms by 3.5 °C, compared with 62
million with only 1.5 °C of warming.
Preventable severe effects of climate change
are likely to occur during the lifetime of the present adult
population. Under current climate policy pledges, children born in 2020
(e.g. "Generation Alpha") will experience over their lifetimes, 2–7 times as many heat waves, as well as more of other extreme weather events compared to people born in 1960. This raises issues of intergenerational equity
as it was these generations (individuals and their collective
governance and economic systems) who are mainly responsible for the
burden of climate change.
This illustrates that emissions produced by any given generation
can lock-in damage for one or more future generations. Climate change
could progressively become more threatening for the generations affected
than for the generation responsible for the threats. The climate system
contains tipping points, such as the amount of deforestation of the Amazon that will launch the forest's irreversible decline. A generation whose continued emissions drive the climate system past
such significant tipping points inflicts severe injustice on multiple
future generations.
Disadvantaged groups will continue to be especially impacted as climate change persists. These groups will be affected due to inequalities based on demographic
characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, and income. Inequality increases the exposure of disadvantaged groups to harmful effects of climate change. The damage is worsened because disadvantaged groups are last to receive emergency relief
and are rarely included in the planning process at local, national and
international levels for coping with the impacts of climate change. These are also exacerbated by systematic injustice structures that keep
marginalized groups in a state of being seen as expendable by the
government. Unless steps are taken to provide these groups with more
access to universal resources and protection, disadvantaged groups will
continue to suffer the most from climate justice issues.
Communities of color have long been targets of climate related injustices. Systems of racism and colonialism have created power imbalances where communities of color will often suffer when it comes to environmental justice
issues. Communities of color are often also low-income communities and
suffer from historical injustices like redlining that make it
significantly harder to fight back against climate related issues.
Women
are also disadvantaged and will be affected by climate change
differently than men. Women are more likely to experience gender based
violence such as assault and rape and violence will often follow climate
justice issues. For example, oil pipelines will frequently house
workers in isolated communities known as "man camps". These camps of primarily male workers have been found to bring higher rates of gender based violence
to local communities around them, especially for indigenous women.
Overall, a history of being seen as lesser and more expendable has made
it so women's voices are not valued as much in times of environmental
crisis.
Indigenous groups are affected by the consequences of climate
change even though they historically have contributed the least to
causing it. Indigenous peoples
are often initially affected by settler colonialism and displacement by
colonizers, which then makes it difficult to establish grounds to fight
back against climate injustices. In the United States, Indigenous land
is often exploited for resources like oil and critical minerals.
Historically, instances like the Dawes Act
(1887) have created cases of environmental injustice through the
removal of Indigenous peoples from their land. Their land is also often
treated as dumping sites for hazardous materials, such as nuclear waste.
Indigenous people are unjustly impacted, and they continue to have
fewer resources to cope with climate change.
Low-income communities face higher vulnerability to climate
change. Low-income communities often become places where companies will
establish harmful factories or mining practices, leading to issues like
ecological and chemical runoff. An example of this is Norco, Louisiana, where there are multiple oil refineries. It is frequently referred to as "cancer alley". Low-income communities will often be disproportionately impacted by heat waves, air quality, and extreme weather events.
Responses to improve climate justice
Burden on future generations
One generation must not be allowed to consume large portions of the CO2
budget while bearing a relatively minor share of the reduction effort
if this would involve leaving subsequent generations with a drastic
reduction burden and expose their lives to comprehensive losses of
freedom.
The
rights of nature protect ecosystems and natural processes for their
intrinsic value, thus complementing them with the human right to a
healthy and ecologically balanced environment. The rights of nature,
like all constitutional rights, are justiciable and, consequently,
judges are obliged to guarantee them.
There
are three principles of justice in burden-sharing that can be used in
making decisions on who bears the larger burdens of climate change
globally and domestically: a) those who most caused the problem, b)
those who have the most burden-carrying ability and c) those who have
benefited most from the activities that cause climate change. A 2023 study estimated that the top 21 fossil fuel companies would owe cumulative climate reparations of $5.4 trillion over the period 2025–2050. To address such inequalities in practice, some cities have begun to
address these inequalities through intersectional adaptation policies.
Barcelona, for example, has implemented intersectional climate justice
measures that include regulating short-term rentals, providing property
tax support, and requiring 30% of new housing developments to be social
housing units.
Another method of decision-making starts from the objective of
preventing climate change e.g. beyond 1.5 °C, and from there reasons
backwards to who should do what. This makes use of the principles of justice in burden-sharing to maintain fairness.
Court cases and litigation
Existential problem of planetary proportions
(Climate change is) an existential problem of planetary proportions
that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet. ... A
complete solution to this daunting, and self-inflicted, problem
requires the contribution of all fields of human knowledge, whether law,
science, economics or any other.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands confirmed that the government must cut carbon dioxide emissions further, as climate change threatens citizens' human rights.
By December 2022, the number of climate change-related lawsuits had grown to 2,180, more than half in the U.S. (1,522 lawsuits). The organization Our Children's Trust
filed a lawsuit on the basis that the government had been ineffective
in protecting the constitutional rights to life, liberty and protection
of the youth of the United States. Based on existing laws, some relevant
parties can already be forced into action by means of courts, such as with ie Saúl V. RWE.
Climate change litigation, also known as climate litigation, is an emerging body of environmental law using legal practice to set case lawprecedent to further climate change mitigation efforts from public institutions, such as governments and companies. In the face of slow climate change politics delaying climate change mitigation, activists
and lawyers have increased efforts to use national and international
judiciary systems to advance the effort. Climate litigation typically
engages in one of five types of legal claims: Constitutional law (focused on breaches of constitutional rights by the state), administrative law (challenging the merits of administrative decision making), private law (challenging corporations or other organizations for negligence, nuisance, etc., fraud or consumer protection (challenging companies for misrepresenting information about climate impacts), or human rights (claiming that failure to act on climate change is a failure to protect human rights). Litigants pursuing such cases have had mixed results.
Rally for climate justice: Mass mobilization at the Chevron Oil Refinery in Richmond, California (2009)
Tens of thousands marching in Copenhagen for climate justice (2009)
... acknowledging
that climate change is a common concern of humankind, Parties should,
when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and
consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health,
the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants,
children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations
and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of
women and intergenerational equity, ...
Climate justice may often conflict with social stability. For
example, interventions that establish more just product pricing could
result in social unrest. Decarbonization interventions could lead to decreased material possessions, comfort, maintained habits.
Multiple studies estimate that if a rapid transition were to be
implemented the number of jobs could increase overall at least
temporarily due to increased demand for labor to e.g. build public infrastructure and other green jobs to build the renewable energy system.
The urgent need for changes, especially when seeking to facilitate lifestyle-changes
and shifts on an industry scale, could lead to social tension and
decrease levels of public support for political parties in power. For instance, keeping gas prices low is often "really good for the poor and the middle class". Additionally, according to sociologist David Pellow and critical
geographer Laura Pulido, the state is often complicit in environmental
justice issues due to the economic benefits seen from ignoring climate
injustices. This can create significant barriers to climate justice movements as it
makes it more difficult to make progress through actions like lawmaking
and protesting. Documents have been made to try to counter this neglect
such as the Bali Principles of Climate Justice. The principles call for the importance of communities coming together
when trying to make changes in times when the state remains complicit in
injustices.
Despite commonly held beliefs, people in rich nations are
sometimes willing to give money to poorer nations to help stop climate
change. According to one study conducted by Social Science Research Network
scientists and published in May 2023, distribution of money from the
rich to the poor through a global emissions trading scheme is supported
by 76% of Europeans and 54% of the US citizens. Whether or not this actually occurs is yet to be seen.
Some may see climate justice arguments for compensation by rich countries for natural disasters in developing countries
as a way for "limitless liability". High levels of compensations could
drain a society's resources, efforts, focus and financial funds away
from efficient preventive climate change mitigation towards e.g. immediate climate change relief compensations.
The US, China and Russia have cumulatively contributed the greatest amounts of CO2 since 1850.
Many of the heaviest users of fossil fuels rely on them for a high percentage of their electricity.
Fossil fuel phase out is projected to affect states and their
citizens with large or central industries of fossil-fuels extraction –
including OPEC
states – differently than other nations. These states have obstructed
climate negotiations and it has been argued that, due to their wealth,
they should not need to receive financial support from other countries
but could implement adequate transitions on their own in terms of
financial resources.
A study suggested governments of nations that have historically
benefited from extraction should take the lead, with countries that have
a high dependency on fossil fuels but low capacity for transition
needing some support to follow. In particular, transitional impacts of a rapid extraction phase-out is
thought to be better absorbed in diversified, wealthier economies as
they may have more capacities for enacting absorptive socioeconomic
policies.
Conflicting interest-driven interpretations as barriers to agreements
Net income of the global oil and gas industry reached a record US$4 trillion in 2022.
Different interpretations and perspectives, arising from different
interests, needs, circumstances, expectations, considerations and
histories, can lead to highly varying ideas of what is fair. This may make it more difficult for countries to reach an agreement. Developing effective, legitimate and enforceable agreements could be
complicated. This is especially the case if traditional methods or tools
of policy-making are used.
Fundamental fairness principles could include: Responsibility,
capability and rights (needs). For these principles, country
characteristics can predict relative support.
Developed countries,
as the main cause of climate change, in assuming their historical
responsibility, must recognize and honor their climate debt in all of
its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific
solution to climate change. (...) The focus must not be only on
financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as
the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings.
World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, People's Agreement, April 2010, Cochabamba, Bolivia
Though the U.S.'s per capita and per GDP emissions have declined significantly, the raw numerical decline in emissions is much less substantial. Growing populations and increased economic activity work against mitigation attempts.
The concept of climate justice was deeply influential on climate negotiations
years before the term "climate justice" was regularly applied to the
concept. There have since been a multitude of frameworks written and
used in environmental legislature such as the 2002 Bali Principles of
Climate Justice.
Climate justice issues have been found to have roots in
historical inequities and exploitative practices. A prime example of
this are the climate justice issues that have stemmed from colonialism.
These issues, while specific to their location, often have very similar
roots and effects worldwide. According to environmental scholars such as
Kyle Powys Whyte, Zoe Todd, and Dina Gilio-Whitaker, early colonization
was focused on extraction and included practices such as clear cutting
and unsustainable agriculture as a means of getting as many resources
out of the land as possible. Examples of this have been seen worldwide,
with the British colonialism that took place in Ireland being seen as a
predecessor of what would eventually occur in the United States. These
practices also affected Indigenous populations, creating areas where
environmental justice violations could easily take place. Concepts like
Manifest Destiny and laws like the Indian Removal Act (1830) and Dawes
Act (1887) allowed for the exploitation of these communities in pursuit
of expansion and progress.
The concept of climate justice was deeply influential on climate negotiations
years before the term "climate justice" was regularly applied to the
concept. In December 1990 the United Nations appointed an
Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to draft what became the
Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), adopted at the UN
Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro
in June 1992. As the name "Environment and Development" indicated, the fundamental
goal was to coordinate action on climate change with action on sustainable development.
It was impossible to draft the text of the FCCC without confronting
central questions of climate justice concerning how to share the
responsibilities of slowing climate change fairly between developed nations and developing nations.
The issue of the fair terms for sharing responsibility was raised
forcefully for the INC by statements about climate justice from
developing countries. In response, the FCCC adopted the now-famous (and still-contentious) principles of climate justice embodied in Article 3.1: "The
Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present
and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in
accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and
respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties
should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects
thereof." The first principle of climate justice embedded in
Article 3.1 is that calculations of benefits (and burdens) must include
not only those for the present generation but also those for future generations.
The second is that responsibilities are "common but differentiated",
that is, every country has some responsibilities, but equitable
responsibilities are different for different types of countries. The
third is that a crucial instance of different responsibilities is that
in fairness developed countries' responsibilities must be greater. How
much greater continues to be debated politically.
In 2000, at the same time as the Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP 6), the first Climate Justice Summit took place in The Hague.
This summit aimed to "affirm that climate change is a rights issue" and
to "build alliances across states and borders" against climate change
and in favor of sustainable development.
Subsequently, in August–September 2002, international environmental groups met in Johannesburg for the Earth Summit. At this summit, also known as Rio+10, as it took place ten years after the 1992 Earth Summit, the Bali Principles of Climate Justice were adopted. These framed the issues of climate justice as a social
and human rights issue rather than focusing on them as a technical or
logistical problem. There is an emphasis on the importance of the right
to life and the importance of community in the protection of
environmental rights. The Bali Principles push for offending parties,
such as the oil industry and Global North Nations take responsibility
for climate change. They also discuss the issues with equity between
disadvantaged groups and encourage protecting of the environment for the
sake of future generations.
Climate Justice affirms the rights of communities dependent on
natural resources for their livelihood and cultures to own and manage
the same in a sustainable manner, and is opposed to the commodification of nature and its resources.
Bali Principles of Climate Justice, article 18, August 29, 2002
In 2004, the Durban Group for Climate Justice was formed at an international meeting in Durban, South Africa. Here representatives from NGOs and peoples' movements discussed realistic policies for addressing climate change.
In April 2010, the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth took place in Tiquipaya,
Bolivia. It was hosted by the government of Bolivia as a global
gathering of civil society and governments. The conference published a
"People's Agreement" calling, among other things, for greater climate
justice.
In September 2013 the Climate Justice Dialogue convened by the Mary Robinson Foundation and the World Resources Institute released their Declaration on Climate Justice in an appeal to those drafting the proposed agreement to be negotiated at COP-21 in Paris in 2015.
In December 2018, the People's Demands for Climate Justice,
signed by 292,000 individuals and 366 organizations, called upon
government delegates at COP24 to comply with a list of six climate justice demands. One of the demands was to "Ensure developed countries honor their "Fair Shares" for largely fueling this crisis."
Some advance was achieved at the Paris climate finance summit at
June 2023. The World Bank allowed to low income countries temporarily
stop paying debts if they are hit by climate disaster. Most of financial
help to climate vulnerable countries is coming in the form of debts,
what often worsens the situation as those countries are overburdened
with debts. Around 300 billion dollars was pledged as financial help in
the next years, but trillions are needed to really solve the problem. More than 100 leading economists signed a letter calling for an extreme
wealth tax as a solution (2% tax can generate around 2.5 trillion). It
can serve as a loss and damage mechanism as the 1% of richest people is responsible for twice as many emissions as the poorest 50%.
Examples
Subsistence farmers in Latin America
Several studies that investigated the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Latin America suggest that in the poorer countries of Latin America, agriculture composes the most important economic sector and the primary form of sustenance for small farmers. Maize is the only grain still produced as a sustenance crop on small farms in Latin American nations. The projected decrease of this grain and other crops can threaten the
welfare and the economic development of subsistence communities in Latin
America. Food security is of particular concern to rural areas that have weak or
non-existent food markets to rely on in the case food shortages. In August 2019, Honduras declared a state of emergency when a drought
caused the southern part of the country to lose 72% of its corn and 75%
of its beans. Food security issues are expected to worsen across Central
America due to climate change. It is predicted that by 2070, corn
yields in Central America may fall by 10%, beans by 29%, and rice by
14%. With Central American crop consumption dominated by corn (70%),
beans (25%), and rice (6%), the expected drop in staple crop yields
could have devastating consequences.
The expected impacts of climate change on subsistence farmers in
Latin America and other developing regions are unjust for two reasons. First, subsistence farmers in developing countries, including those in
Latin America are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change Second, these nations were the least responsible for causing the problem of anthropogenic induced climate.
Disproportionate vulnerability to climate disasters is socially determined. For example, socioeconomic and policy trends affecting smallholder and
subsistence farmers limit their capacity to adapt to change. A history of policies and economic dynamics has negatively impacted rural farmers. During the 1950s and through the 1980s, high inflation and appreciated
real exchange rates reduced the value of agricultural exports. As a result, farmers in Latin America received lower prices for their products compared to world market prices. Following these outcomes, Latin American policies and national crop programs aimed to stimulate agricultural intensification. These national crop programs benefitted larger commercial farmers more.
In the 1980s and 1990s low world market prices for cereals and
livestock resulted in decreased agricultural growth and increased rural
poverty.
Perceived vulnerability to climate change differs even within
communities, as in the example of subsistence farmers in Calakmul,
Mexico.
Adaptive planning is challenged by the difficulty of predicting local scale climate change impacts. A crucial component to adaptation should include government efforts to lessen the effects of food shortages and famines. Planning for equitable adaptation and agricultural sustainability will
require the engagement of farmers in decision-making processes.
Hurricane Katrina
A
house is crushed and swept off its foundations by flooding from a
breached levee in the Ninth Ward, New Orleans, Louisiana, due to a storm
surge from Hurricane Katrina. Around 90% of the Ninth Ward's population is black.
Due to climate change, tropical cyclones are expected to increase in intensity, have increased rainfall, and have larger storm surges.
These changes are driven by rising sea temperatures and increased
maximum water vapor content of the atmosphere as the air heats up. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed how climate change disasters affect different people individually, as it had a disproportionate effect on low-income and minority groups. A study on the race and class dimensions of Hurricane Katrina suggests
that those most vulnerable include poor, black, brown, elderly, sick,
and homeless people. Low-income and black communities had little resources and limited mobility to evacuate before the storm. After the hurricane, low-income communities were most affected by contamination, and this was made worse by the fact that government relief measures failed to adequately assist those most at risk.
Pakistan Floods (2022)
In
2022, Pakistan faced catastrophic floods that affected over 33 million
people and resulted in significant loss of life and property. The
unprecedented monsoon rains and melting glaciers, attributed to climate
change, submerged one-third of the country under water. Despite
contributing less than 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions, Pakistan
is disproportionately impacted by climate-induced disasters. This
situation highlights the essence of climate justice, emphasizing how
nations with minimal contributions to global emissions suffer the most
severe consequences.
Chlordecone use in the French Antilles
The islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe are heavily contaminated with chlordecone, following years of its massive unrestricted use on banana plantations in the region. Chlordecone was banned globally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2009. Since 2003, local authorities in the two islands have restricted the cultivation of various food crops because the soil is badly contaminated by chlordecone. A 2018 large-scale study by the French public health agency, Santé publique France, shows that 95% of the inhabitants of Guadeloupe and 92% of those of Martinique are contaminated by the chemical, far higher than the world average.
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