Lesson 6 — Who Bears the Climate Burden?

Summary

Learners analyze a global justice question — who bears responsibility for climate harm — and weigh four competing answers: polluter pays, historical responsibility, capability, and common but differentiated responsibility. They hold each answer’s strengths and limits, then write their own reasoned position.

Objectives

• Analyze a global justice question about climate harm, and weigh competing answers about who bears responsibility. (D09.S2.10.01)

Connection

Climate change does not fall evenly. The places that emitted the most greenhouse gases over the past two centuries — powering industry, homes, and transport — are often not the places that feel the worst floods, droughts, and storms now; many of the most exposed places are ones that emitted little but depend on rain-fed farms and low-lying coasts (S-005, S-006). This is a justice question, not just a science question: when a harm is caused by many people over many generations and felt most by people who did not cause it, who is responsible, and what do they owe? There is more than one honest answer, and today we weigh them.

Materials

• Responsibility framework sheet
• Climate harm case study

Preparation

• Copy the framework sheet and the case study.
• Retrieval: from Grade 9, recall that justice has more than one theory (equal treatment, need, restitution) and that systemic injustice combines actions, rules, and structures. Today we apply that to climate harm.
• Prepare the four candidate answers and one worked example of weighing two of them.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The idea to land: responsibility for climate harm is a genuine, contested question, and weighing the answers — polluter pays, historical responsibility, capability, and common but differentiated responsibility — is the skill. Hold the science as evidence and the answers as values: it is documented that emissions are unequally distributed and that harms fall hardest on the most exposed (S-005, S-006); how much each actor owes is a values question on which reasonable people disagree. The egalitarian lens: always ask who caused it, who is harmed, and whether the same people are both. The global lens is the spine: this is a question that crosses borders and generations, and the answers are debated in every region, from the “polluter pays” principle to “common but differentiated responsibilities” in international climate agreements. The environment lens: the “victims” include rivers, reefs, glaciers, and future generations, not only people alive today. Do not settle the question as dogma (philosophy §11); distinguish evidence from values (philosophy §5). Preview: next lesson we weigh the same question for poverty.

Procedure

1. Recall (5 min). From Grade 9: name two different ideas of justice you met (e.g., equal treatment, need, restitution). Say each in a sentence.
2. Meet the case (10 min). Read the climate harm case study. Underline who contributed, who is harmed, and whether they are the same people.
3. Meet the four answers (15 min). Read the framework sheet. Four candidate answers to “who is responsible?”:
   • Polluter pays — those who emitted the most should pay the most.
   • Historical responsibility — those who emitted most in the past owe for the harm their past still causes.
   • Capability — those most able to pay and act should bear the most, whatever they emitted.
   • Common but differentiated — everyone shares the duty, but not equally: those who caused more and can do more, do more. For each, note one strength and one limit.
4. Guided practice (15 min). In a pair, weigh two answers against each other for the case: which fits best, and what does each leave out? Agree on a tentative answer, then say what would change your mind.
5. Independent practice (10 min). In your journal, write your reasoned position in four sentences: which answer you lean toward, one strength, one limit, and one thing a fair response must not ignore.
6. Close (5 min). Share positions in a small group. Notice: different defensible answers can coexist — the question is whether you can defend yours, not whether everyone agrees.

Differentiation

• Support: Provide sentence frames for each answer (“The polluter-pays answer says…; its limit is…”).
• Extension: Combine two answers into a hybrid (e.g., historical responsibility + capability) and argue for it against the others.
• Expression: Learners who do not speak aloud can write their position, place a marker beside a framework, or have a partner read their written position — no step requires the voice.

Assessment

• Formative (peer + self): Can the learner state two competing answers, give a strength and a limit of each, and defend a position?
• Portfolio artifact (unit): The four-sentence position, as the first page of the “global justice” section of the portfolio.

Home connection

Ask someone at home: if a harm was caused by many people long ago but felt mostly by others today, who should pay to fix it? Compare answers.

Resources

• On climate science and unequal exposure: IPCC, https://www.ipcc.ch/ (S-005).
• On global emissions and exposure data: Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/ (S-006).
• On competing theories of justice as ideas to compare, not a single answer: Rawls (1971), A Theory of Justice (S-459); Sen (1999), Development as Freedom (S-460).