
Climate Justice
What Rich Nations Owe the World-and the Future
Cass R. Sunstein(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 11. February 2025
Book
Hardback
200 pages
978-0-262-04946-7 (ISBN)
Description
The social cost of carbon: The most important number you've never heard of—and what it means.
If you're injuring someone, you should stop—and pay for the damage you've caused. Why, this book asks, does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In Climate Justice, a bracing challenge to status-quo thinking on the ethics of climate change, renowned author and legal scholar Cass Sunstein clearly frames what’s at stake and lays out the moral imperative: When it comes to climate change, everyone must be counted equally, regardless of when they live or where they live—which means that wealthy nations, which have disproportionately benefited from greenhouse gas emissions, are obliged to help future generations and people in poor nations that are particularly vulnerable.
Invoking principles of corrective justice and distributive justice, Sunstein argues that rich countries should pay for the harms that they have caused and that all of us are obliged to take steps to protect future generations from serious climate-related damage. He shows how “choice engines,” informed by artificial intelligence, can enable people to save money and to reduce the harms they produce. The book casts new light on the “social cost of carbon,” the most important number in climate change debates—and explains how intergenerational neutrality and international neutrality can help all nations, above all the United States and China, do what must be done.
If you're injuring someone, you should stop—and pay for the damage you've caused. Why, this book asks, does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In Climate Justice, a bracing challenge to status-quo thinking on the ethics of climate change, renowned author and legal scholar Cass Sunstein clearly frames what’s at stake and lays out the moral imperative: When it comes to climate change, everyone must be counted equally, regardless of when they live or where they live—which means that wealthy nations, which have disproportionately benefited from greenhouse gas emissions, are obliged to help future generations and people in poor nations that are particularly vulnerable.
Invoking principles of corrective justice and distributive justice, Sunstein argues that rich countries should pay for the harms that they have caused and that all of us are obliged to take steps to protect future generations from serious climate-related damage. He shows how “choice engines,” informed by artificial intelligence, can enable people to save money and to reduce the harms they produce. The book casts new light on the “social cost of carbon,” the most important number in climate change debates—and explains how intergenerational neutrality and international neutrality can help all nations, above all the United States and China, do what must be done.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Illustrations
3 BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS, 2 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 237 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
439 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-04946-7 (9780262049467)
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Other editions
Additional editions

Book
02/2026
MIT Press
€23.00
Available immediately

E-Book
02/2025
MIT Press
€24.49
Available for download
Person
Cass R. Sunstein is Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University, where he is the cofounder and codirector of the Initiative on Artificial Intelligence and the Law. Former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, he is the author of The Cost-Benefit Revolution, How Change Happens, Too Much Information, Sludge (all published by the MIT Press), Nudge (with Richard H. Thaler), How to Become Famous, and other books.
Content
Chapter 1: Climate Change Cosmopolitanism
Chapter 2: Rich Nations, Poor Nations
Chapter 3: Future Generations
Chapter 4: Valuing Life: Who Wins, Who Loses?
Chapter 5: Adaptation
Chapter 6: Consumers
Epilogue: Theory and Practice
Appendix: Excerpts from the Paris Agreement
Acknowledgements
Chapter 2: Rich Nations, Poor Nations
Chapter 3: Future Generations
Chapter 4: Valuing Life: Who Wins, Who Loses?
Chapter 5: Adaptation
Chapter 6: Consumers
Epilogue: Theory and Practice
Appendix: Excerpts from the Paris Agreement
Acknowledgements