Climate change can be construed as a question of collective responsibility from two different viewpoints: climate change being inherently a collective problem, or collective entities bearing responsibility for climate change. When discussing collective responsibility for climate change, “collective” can thus refer to the problem of climate change itself, or to the entity causing the harm and/or bearing responsibility for it. The first viewpoint focuses on how climate change is a harm that has been caused collectively. Collective action problem refers to an aggregation of individual actions which together produce an outcome that is not intended at the level of an individual action. It cannot be solved by any one agent acting unilaterally. Instead, climate change action must be enacted and supported by numerous agents. The second way to conceptualize climate change as a question of collective responsibility focuses on the collective entities that bear responsibility for climate change. As a global problem, climate change is linked to the realm of international politics, where states, governments, and intergovernmental organizations are the main collective entities. Other important agential collectives in terms of climate responsibility are corporations, including carbon majors who have produced the bulk of emissions. Climate change has also been theorized as a structural injustice, which combines elements from both the viewpoints on what is collective about responsibility for climate change.

中文翻译：

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气候变化的集体责任

气候变化可以从两种不同的角度被解释为集体责任问题：气候变化本质上是一个集体问题，或者集体实体对气候变化承担责任。因此，在讨论气候变化的集体责任时，“集体”可以指气候变化问题本身，也可以指造成损害和/或承担责任的实体。第一种观点侧重于气候变化如何是一种集体造成的危害。集体行动问题指个人行动的集合，这些行动共同产生的结果并非个人行动层面的预期结果。这一问题不可能靠任何一个代理人单方面行动来解决。相反，气候变化行动必须由众多机构制定和支持。将气候变化概念化为集体责任问题的第二种方法侧重于对气候变化承担责任的集体实体。作为一个全球性问题，气候变化与国际政治领域密切相关，国家、政府和政府间组织是主要的集体实体。就气候责任而言，其他重要的代理集体是企业，其中包括产生大量排放的碳巨头。气候变化也被理论化为结构性不公正，它结合了关于气候变化集体责任的两种观点的要素。