Recognition in climate justice: Lessons from land-based carbon dioxide removal

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Abstract
The ethical analysis of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has developed within climate ethics, where distributive justice has assumed centre stage. As a result, CDR debates have inherited a similar focus on the allocation of burdens and benefits of deployment, leaving recognition-related issues comparatively underexplored. These issues concern how identity, culture, and social standing influence both who benefits from climate solutions and how these benefits are realised. For example, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage may displace local communities to make way for bioenergy crops. This is a pressing concern in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, where institutional safeguards may be insufficient to prevent land-grabbing and where Indigenous populations often reside. This article addresses this research gap by reframing the ethics of CDR through Simon Caney's integrationist perspective, extending it beyond distribution to include procedural and recognitional justice. Recognition is developed here through Nancy Fraser's status-based model, which conceives justice as requiring institutionalised respect and equal social standing. Building on the work of Marion Hourdequin, Christopher Preston and Wylie Carr on status-based recognition and climate engineering, this article applies Fraser's account to land-based CDR techniques. It argues that existing approaches risk overlooking the values, worldviews and knowledge systems of affected individuals and communities, and contends that recognition justice is indispensable to assessing the ethical acceptability of CDR deployment. Ultimately, land-based CDR serves as a concrete case for advancing a broader argument about recognition in climate ethics.
Funding Information
  • Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (024.004.031)

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