Climate Change, by Anda Stancu Climate Change-1 | Page 5

Caney’s approach to the ‘ability to pay’ principle seems quite logical and reasonable; however, if we take into consideration what Singer (2002, p.33) states, we might think that the ‘ability to pay’ principle is just because developed countries undoubtedly are wealthier than the developing countries, and in addition to that, their current per capita emissions are higher than those of the developing. Not only I believe that the ‘ability to pay’ principle is just, I also believe that the ‘polluter pays’ principle is as just as the latter, because going back to what Singer (2002) states, developed countries used to emit in the past much more per capita emissions than the developing countries are emitting in the present, thus fitting into the ‘polluter pays’ principle. IV. Different Approaches - Hybrid vs. Pluralistic As we can see from the previous arguments, a moral distribution of responsibilities could be borne by either people who contributed to climate change, or by the wealthiest who can afford to make a positive change to this issue. Caney (2010) develops an alternative principle to the ‘polluter pays’ and ‘ability to pay’ principles; that is, the ‘hybrid view’. He draws two main positive conclusions from the previous principles and comes up with the (a) Poverty-Sensitive Polluter Pays Principle and the (b) History-Sensitive Ability to Pay Principles. The first principle entails that the people who caused climate change should bare the burden only if it will not worsen their standard of living; and the second principle entails that the responsibility to pay comes to those who obtained their wealth in an unjust manner. In order for the ‘hybrid view’ to work, we must think of its implications, for example, other actors should be taken in consideration as well, hence not only wealthy countries should bear the burden, but individuals, corporations, and any wealthy body as well. (ibid).