> Yeah, but industry today and in the future can also develop positive
> technogies. What's so magic about past emissions vs future emissions?
For past emissions, there is nothing we can do about them. We can just
count up liabilities.
So, we can merely make up an overall balance for the past. We cannot
do that accurately. Neither the future benefits of developed
technologies nor the future damages of the emissions are known, but we
can make some qualitative judgements about the need to pay
reparations.
For future emissions, there are more choices. So, there is the
possibility to split the efforts between research on the one hand and
actual emission reduction on the other. I know it's hard to
objectively quantify the value of research, but it's also hard to
objectively agree on a price for carbon. So, why not just use a
commonly agreed value for any given year (eg each 20 Euros of
qualifying research and development spend counts for one tonne of CO2
in 2010)?
> Nobody intends to cause harm by emitting CO2, regardless of when they
> do it. This applies both to past and future emissions. How could
> ignorance of the consequences possibly be a defense?
In murder cases vs car accidents the intention makes a big difference
for the punishment. And so does ignorance of consequences; here in the
Netherlands there is a case where a boy was locked up in a container.
He died and the defense lawyers make a great deal of the fact that
their clients did not know that the boy would die.
> Happens all the time. If a person who you are suppose to inherit from
> have debts when they die, you have to pay the debts from their estate
> and you get what is left of the estate.
You are right that this applies to eg the debt of countries, but even
then countries do in fact default or are forgiven debt incurred by a
previous regime often enough.
With financial debts, there is of course a formal agreement about the
value of the debt and countries mostly receive money in exchange for
incurring the debt liabilities. So, China may now hold one trillion of
US treasuries. The US received something in return and there are
written agreements how much needs to be paid back by when.
Climate debt seems to me more comparable to war reparations or efforts
to amend for the evils of slavery.
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