Download The Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate

The Collaborative Program on
the Ethical Dimensions of
Climate Change
Global Integrity Project
July 5-9, 2006
Program website:
http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/index.htm.
Collaborative Program on
The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change
1. When we say climate change
raises profound ethical
questions what do we mean by
that
2. Explain the Collaborative
Program on The Ethical
Dimensions of Climate Change
3. Invite your ideas about how to
bring this work forward.
Thank you Samos Organizers
• For your dedication to human health and the
environment Colin, I dub you
– Hippocrates
• For your passionate attempt to integrate science with
ethics Brendan, I dub you
– Aristotle
• For your dedication to making public discourse live up to
the great ideas of history, Ron I dub you
– Plato
• For being the animating spirit of the global ecological
integrity project -Laura, I dub you
– Athena
The Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of
Climate Change
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Why is ethical
integration into
climate change policy
formation so
important and
urgent ?
What are the ethical dimensions of
Climate change
• At one level, the fact that climate
change raises ethical issues is
obvious
• Yet some are arguing that climate
change does not raise ethical
questions
• Many of the most important ethical
questions are not recognized
because they are hidden in the
dominant policy languages of
science and economics
The Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of
Climate Change-Collaborating Partners
• Rock Ethics Institute-Penn
State University (Program
Secretariat)
• The Pennsylvania Consortium
for Interdisciplinary
Environmental Policy
• IUCN-Commission on
Environmental Law-Ethics
Working Group
• Center for Applied EthicsCardiff University
• The Global Integrity Project
individuals
• Center for Global Ethics at
Birmingham University,
• Tyndall Center for Global
Climate Change
• Oxford Climate Policy
• EcoEquity
• Center for Ethics, University of
Montana,
• New Directions: Science,
Ethics, Policy
• The Federal University Of Rio
de Janeiro
And
with expertise and interest in climate change or
global ethics. Also cooperating with the World Council of Churches, Climate
Change Program
Program Milestones
• Launching in Buenos Aires in 2004
• Rock Ethics Institute secretariat, website
• Development of draft white paper (now 80
pages)
• Development of detailed climate change ethics
bibliography on website6
• Meeting on draft white paper in Montreal in 2005
• Meeting with collaborators from global south in
August 2006 in Rio de Janeiro
• Workshop in Nairobi at Cop-12 in November
2006
• Develop quick response blog in late 2006
• International conference in 2007/2008
Collaborative Program On The Ethical
Dimensions of Climate Change
• Program
Mission
– Encourage, facilitate,
and provide serious
ethical analyses of
concrete climate
change issues.
– Help ordinary
citizens around the
world see climate
change as an ethical
and moral problem.
Collaborative Program On The Ethical
Dimensions of Climate Change
• Program
Mission
– Support ethically
informed policy
development.
– Encourage ethically
responsible climate
change science.
The White Paper
• Seeks to identify the factual
context for eight issues
• Do preliminary ethical
analysis of issues where we
believe there is consensus
• Identify issues about which
deeper ethical analysis is
needed
Major Climate Change Ethical
Issues
Ethical issue one, the atmospheric
stabilization question.
•
•
•
As we have seen the level of warming that is permitted will determine
which humans, plants and animals survive.
If warming is allowed to rise above certain levels -- according to a
growing scientific consensus, about 2 degrees Celsius above current
world average temperatures -- millions of the poorest people around
the world will be at great risk from rising seas, disease, droughts and
floods, storms and killer heat waves.
As I have already noted the atmospheric GHG stabilization question
raises the most profound ethical questions,literally matters of life and
death. As we have worked through this issue we have concluded that
if one assumes rights to human life, all nations must immediately
reduce emissions to fair share of global emissions
Major Climate Change Ethical Issues
• Issue two, the national equity question. The
•
international community will not be able to duck the
question of how to allocate emissions targets among
nations so that total atmospheric concentrations of GHGs
do not exceed very dangerous levels. In the 1992 United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 180
nations, including the United States, agreed that each
country should reduce its emissions based upon equity
to prevent dangerous interference with the climate
system. As we have noted if nations take equity
seriously, they will have to reduce their emissions by
more than 90% not just the 60 to 80% reductions
required of the entire global community.
Therefore the second critical ethical question raised by
climate change is what does equity require of each
nation in determining its fair share of acceptable global
emissions.
Major Climate Change Ethical Issues
Issue three, who will pay for damages?
• Rarely discussed in the United States
• Becoming a huge issue in international negotiations
• Persons affected are to beginning to show up and
demand payment for damages (Small Island Developing
States, Intuit Indians, Sherpas from Nepal, victims of
drought and floods)
• Becoming a big focus of climate change negotiations, yet
it is an issue hardly visible in bcurrent climate change
debates in the US.
Climate change ethical issues
•
The fourth issue, scientific uncertainty.
•
•
•
•
•
For over 20 years , the United States has argued that it need not
reduce its emissions because of scientific uncertainty
Despite consensus some uncertainty about timing and magnitude of
impacts will remain
The way the scientific community deals with the uncertainty is to set
upper and lower bounds for expected warming.
Scientific uncertainty arguments will continue.
When the Evangelical Environmental Network tried to get Americans
to see the ethical dimensions of climate change in a campaign
launched in March of last year, they were attacked on the basis that
climate change is a scientific issue, and nonscientists should keep
quiet about it. The attackers cited scientific uncertainty about climate
change for their position.
One example of ethical analysis a climate change
issue-decision making under scientific uncertainty.
Ethical dimensions of scientific uncertainty
Why burden of proof should be on emitters of GHG.
–
The enormous adverse potential impacts on human health and
the environment from human induced climate change.
–
The disproportionate effects on the poorest people of the world.
–
The real potential for potentially catastrophic climate surprises
much greater than often quoted predictions that rely on
assumptions of linear responses to climate change.
–
The fact that much of the science of the climate change problem
has never or is not now in dispute even if one acknowledges
uncertainty about timing or magnitude of climate change
impacts.
–
The fact that climate change damage is probably already being
experienced by some people.
–
The strong likelihood that before serious and irreversible
damage will be experienced all scientific uncertainties can be
eliminated.
–
The fact that the longer nations wait to take action, the more
difficult it will be to stabilize greenhouse gases at levels which
don’t create serious dam
Ethical Limits of Climate Change Policy
Tools
Ethical dimensions of scientific
uncertainty -Quantity of Proof
•
•
•
•
•
Type 1 versus 2 statistical error
IPCC synthesizes “peer reviewed” research
Models can only be rough predictors
Ethics requires that all plausible impacts be
identified
Victims of climate change have right to free,
informed consent about all risks being imposed
upon them
Ethical Limits of Climate Change Policy
Tools
Science uncertainty creates rights for victims to
free, informed, consent to bar the risk
•
In order to give free informed consent about
climate change policy options, persons must:
–
–
–
–
–
Not be forced to take a position
Understand policy options
Be in possession of all relevant information, and.
Be competent to make policy judgments.
Harms and benefits must be disaggregated
Climate Change Ethical Issues
Ethical Issue Five-Cost
– Argument Takes Two Forms
• Cost to national economies
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Multiple Ethical Problems
– No person or country as a right to use another as a means to
their ends
– CBA aggregates costs and benefits
– Victims have rights to full informed consent
– All values become instrumental value alone, nothing is sacred
– Discounting makes benefits that are experienced makes future
generations interests worthless
Other Ethical Issues
• What does ethics have to say about the
excuse that we can wait to new
technologies will be invented
• What does ethics have to say about the
excuse that no nation need to reduce
its emissions until other nations reduce
their emissions
• How to we have a fair process that
provides opportunities for victims of
climate change to participate.
Collaborative Program on
The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change
• Why express examination of climate change ethical issues is urgent
– Unless the ethical dimensions are considered, the international
community may choose responses that are ethically
unsupportable or unjust;
– Many profound ethical questions are hidden in scientific and
economic arguments about various climate change policy
proposals;
– An equitable approach to climate change policy is necessary to
overcome barriers currently blocking progress in international
negotiations;
– An ethically based global consensus on climate change may
prevent further disparities between rich and poor, and reduce
potential international tension that will arise from climate-caused
food and water scarcities and perceived inequitable use of the
global atmospheric commons as a carbon sink;
– Climate ethics will drive climate science.
Collaborative Program on
The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change
• How Is CPEDCC going to assure that its work is relevant
to policy formation;
– Focus on issues that are actually in contention in climate change
policy formation;
– Use interdisciplinary teams that set out scientific, economic, and
social context before doing ethical analysis of specific issues
– Collaborate with those who know climate change issues in
contention;
– Seek to set agenda that coincides with issues under discussion
in policy formation
– Develop two types of literature
• Serious ethical critique.
• Non-specialist accessible literature
Collaborative Program on
The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change
The way forward
– White paper-first attempt to structure the issues
– Further papers
– Consultation with representatives from the global south in
August in Rio
– Meeting at COP-12 in Nairobi in November
– Add other collaborators
– International conference in 2006/2007
• Interdisciplinary teams around issue
– Keep track of independent work of others
• Bibliography
• Conferences
– Quick response capability
The Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of
Climate Change
We seek additional collaborators to
work on interdisciplinary teams.
Collaborators can be either
individuals or institutions with interest
or knowledge about climate change
policy, climate change ethics, or
global ethics. We particularly seek
collaborators from places vulnerable
to climate change
We will provide the analysis that
others can use in public policy
debates
Collaborative Program on
The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change
For more information:
– Program website:
http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate/index.
htm
– Call or contact Don Brown at
[email protected] or 717-783-8504.