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Climate Change What Does It Mean to Say It Is An Ethical Issue? Donald A. Brown, Associate Professor Environmental Ethics, Science and Law Penn State University [email protected] Why are moral questions so salient at the global scale? This here Questions of: Damage Responsibility: Distributive Justice?; Welfare Maximization? Procedural Justice? Makes this happen here. Why are ethical questions more salient at the global scale? The Consequences Are Potentially Catastrophic Hurricane Katrina • August 29, 2005 Photo: NOAA Source: Getty Images/Marko Georgiev Source: Getty Images/David Portnoy Climate change is already happening , warming is small compared to what we will see in the next decades. Governments interests don’t coincide with who they may harm in emitting GHGs This government represents the interest of only its citizens not the interests of others If Climate Change Is An Ethical Issue, So What? • People, nations, organizations have obligations, duties, responsibilities, not just interests. • Excuses for not taking action are not justifiable such as: – is not in my national interest, – solution will not maximize global preference utility, – Solution will be costly Climate Change Ethics Ethics - the domain of inquiry that examines statements about what is bad or good, obligatory or non-obligatory, or when duties attach to human actions. Basis for ethical positions conflict – Religion (see prior slide) – Anthropocentric • Utilitarian and other consequentiality • Relationship based ethics • Virtue • Rights based or other duty based • Distributive and other theories of justice – Non-anthropocentric • Biocentric • Ecocentric Remove some proposals Overlapping Consensus Ethics and Morality Different theological statements on climate change – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Catholic World Council of Churches Church of the Brethren Methodists Quaker National Association of Evangelicals, Episcopal Anglican American Baptist American Jewish Committee, Central Conference of American Rabbis Lutheran Presbyterian Rabbinical Assembly. Unitarians United Church of Christ Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change • • • • • • • • 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 Ethics-Cardiff University The Global Ecological Integrity Project Sustainability Research Center, Leeds University Brazilian Forum on Climate Change Coordination of Post Graduate Programs in Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro-The Energy Planning Program • • • • • • • Tyndall Center for Global Climate Change Oxford Climate Policy EcoEquity Center for Ethics, University of Montana, Center for Global Ethics at Birmingham University, New Directions: Science, Ethics, Policy IVIG International Virtual Institute on Global Change-Federal University Of Rio de Janeiro And individuals with expertise and interest in climate change or global ethics. Also cooperating with the World What are the major ethical issues? Issues – GHG atmospheric stabilization level – Equitable allocation – Who will pay for damages? – Scientific uncertainty – Cost to national economies – Can nations wait until others reduce emissions – Can nations wait for new cheaper technologies – Fair processes and procedure – Human rights violations – Ethical Issues In trading – Solutions • Biofuels • Carbon capture and storage • Nuclear Why are the ethical dimensions of climate change practical as well as moral urgent concerns? • Most of the climate debate structured by scientific and economic discourses • Policy-makers turn to scientists to determine facts and economists to look at harms and benefits of proposed policy actions-ethics rarely comes up in policy discussions • These discourses often hide the ethical issues which inhibits serious ethical analysis • Many of the barriers to a global solution are issues that raise profound ethical questions • As we go forward scientific and economic uncertainty will not go away. GHG Stabilization Issue • Will determine who lives or dies and what nations survive? • Lots of uncertainty • Need a global approach based upon national targets CO2 Emissions vs CO2(atm) 500 ppmv 400 ppmv 382 ppmv Data from Vostok Total Primary Power vs Year 1990: 12 TW 2050: 28 TW China USRussia EU Need a treaty to control this Bathtub will continue to overflow unless water is kept below this line. Canada India Cant solve the climate change problem by slowing the rate of water down Atmospher e like a bathtub has a fixed volume Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise • Potential for catastrophic sea level rise • Destabilization threshold 1-4 0C • Timing very uncertain 5m 7m Courtesy of M. Oppenheimer Allocation question • Who gets the 3 billion tons? • Per capita • Difference between survival tons and luxury tons The Moral Dilemma of Climate Change Highest vulnerability vs. largest per capita CO emissions 2 Highest vulnerability towards climate change vs. largest CO2 emissions (from fossil fuel combustion and cement production, and including land use change, kg C per person and year from 1950 - 2003) Largest per capita CO2 emitters Largest per capita emitters, and highest social and / or agro-economic vulnerability Highest social and CO / or2agro-economic vulnerability Highest per social and CO / or2agro-economic vulnerability Largest capita emitters, and highest social and / or agro-economic vulnerability Areas with highest ecological vulnerability Source: Who will pay for damages? • Polluter pays principle? • Historical emissions? • Questions of proof? Issue 4-Scientific Uncertainty • Does the fact that there may be some uncertainty about climate change impacts raise ethical issues? • Two ethical questions are raised: – Who should have the burden of proof? – And what quantity of proof should satisfy that burden of proof Cost As Justification for Nonaction? • Cost to one country alone ? • Cost-benefit analysis? – Disaggregation of harms and benefits – Discounting future benefits – Everything is a commodity-nothing sacred – Health is more than income – Victims rights Other climate change ethical issues – A Nation Can Wait Until Others Act – A Nation Can Wait Until New Technologies are Invented – Ethics of Technological Solutions • nuclear, wind, biofuels, – Ethics of Geoengineering – Ethics of Trading – North-South tech transfer – Other major climate change ethical issues • Who is going to pay for damages and adaptation? • Should developing nations pay for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions? • What to do about forests? • What about excuses many make, such as scientific uncertainty, cost, • Solutions to climate change Who are the duty holders. • Nations have a duty under the UNFCCC to reduce their emissions based upon equity to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system – Nations could distribute their national allocation based upon fair distribution • As a matter of international law, the “polluter pays” • Under human rights theory, any one (federal government, state, regional, local government, business, individuals) who can prevent harms to others that interfere with the ability to live a life of basic human dignity have a duty to take action. • Climate change is classic problem of distributive justice. According to distributive justice the burdens of preventing climate change should distributed equally unless other mo,rally relevant criteria for distributing the burdens will justify other distributions. • All persons, businesses, organizations, have a duty to reduce their emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions. Carbon Sequestration Biofuels • Two major controversies with ethanol; – The amount of land needed to grow the plants and the consequent effect on food and loss biodiversity of such use. – The amount of energy used in production of ethanol Donald A. Brown, Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law, Penn State University [email protected] http://climateethics.org 814-865-3371