Climate Justice: What Rich Nations Owe the World―and the Future

by Cass R. Sunstein

The social cost of 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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Politics, Nature, Environment

216 pages, Hardcover

Published February 11, 2025

About the author

Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School, where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor. Sunstein is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he is on leave while working in the Obama administration.

Reviews

[Rukmini Banerjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book! I think Substein did a really good job at creating an interdisciplinary account of climate change. He spent a lot of time thinking about the economic aspects of climate change, which I admit I’m typically reticent to discuss, but he also made a good case on why those considerations matter and will be relevant in how people respond to climate policy and feel it’s impacts.

Now, I do feel like some of the economic discussion should have incorporated the issues of distributive justice more but I can also understand why sunstein felt like he finished the discussion earlier in the book.

Of course as a tort law lover, I loved how he frames the discussion in chapter 2. Thinking of greenhouse gas emissions and their harms as a tort makes so much sense and was very clarifying for the discussion. I also agree that torts potential to be forward and backward looking makes it a good vehicle for evaluating climate change and its harms.

Overall, great book and would recommend it as a read but remember to expect the economic stuff!

[Alan Eyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good & well worth the read, from Cass Sunstein, esp. on need for distributive/corrective justice. IMHO focus on 2ndry economic issues assumes ongoing global econ system which climate change itself will increasingly destabilize. Plus, what about Precautionary Principle?

[Peter Z. · Rating 1 out of 5]

🙄🚮