Who Should Pay? A Framework for a Fair Distribution of Climate Policy Burdens

Journal article, 2026

We propose a normative framework for distributing the responsibility for national climate mitigation efforts among societal actors. The framework aims to inform national policy, emphasizing how justice considerations–alongside efficiency–can enhance public acceptance of climate policies. We argue that forward-looking responsibility depends on three factors: backward-looking responsibility, benefiting from harmful activities and capacity to mitigate emissions. For backward-looking responsibility we build on a novel account of causality, allowing us to grade actors’ causal contributions, even though climate change is characterized by overdetermination. Using electricity production as an illustration, we show how the proposed framework can help inform fair climate policy.