Dr. Laura García-Portela won the Roland Atefie-Award 2023 for her dissertation "Rectifying Climate Injustice. A backward-looking approach to reparations for climate change loss and damage ".
This dissertation provides an account of rectificatory climate justice for loss and damage. Its main research question is why and how people should be compensated for the already-occurring negative impacts of climate change if we were to acknowledge its anthropogenic origins. The dissertation proposes that loss and damage from climate change occur, at least in a minimal sense, when people are pushed below a sufficiency threshold of capabilities and that this constitutes an infringement of their human rights. Further, it argues that polluters should pay for the negative effects of climate change because they left unsatisfied moral reasons speaking against the infringement of human rights, which they now can satisfy by providing reparations to those suffering loss and damage. Furthermore, the dissertation explores how the science of attribution of extreme weather events should be used to develop a policy mechanism for loss and damage. The dissertation builds bridges between political philosophy, climate law, climate policy and climate science.