Download The Policy Implications of Climate Change Ethics

The Urgent and
Practical Need To Turn up the Volume on
The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change
Donald A. Brown
Scholar In Residence and Professor
Widener University School Of Law
Objectives of Presentation
• There are features of climate change unlike any other
environmental issue, that scream for attention as
seeing it as a moral problem.
• Neither the US media nor most environmental NGOs
groups are bringing to the attention of the public the
ethical, justice, and fairness issues of climate change.
Goals of Presentation
• Governments cannot think clearly about
policy options until they think clearly about
the ethical issues
• The strongest arguments made against the
five most frequent arguments made against
climate policies are arguments based upon
ethics and justice
• We need to call on the US government
(federal and state) and all governments to
expressly respond to the ethical issues raised
by various climate policy.
Why are ethical questions more salient
at the global scale?
This
here
Questions of: Damage
Responsibility: Distributive
Justice?; Welfare
Maximization? Procedural
Justice? Human Rights?
Makes
this
happen
here.
Why are ethical questions
more salient at the global
scale?
The Consequences Are Potentially
Catastrophic
US GHG Emissions Also Are Contributing
To Flooding Around the World
US GHG Emissions Also Are Contributing To
Loss of Food Supply
Glacier Dependent Rivers in Asia
Vulnerability to Drought: Exposure +
Sensitivity Mortality
Frequency
Government’s interests do not coincide with those harmed by
the emission of greenhouse gases*
In general,
the U.S.
government
represents
the interest
of its
citizens
only, not the
interests of
others!
These people
cant petition
their
government for
protection
Who
represents
these people ?
*responsible for climate change
271 Gigatonnes left for the entire world
The Justice Question: What
The Equity Question: Who gets to fill
levels of GHGs will be permitted in the
bathtub given that the higher the levels: (a)
the greater the harms to those countries
and millions of poor people that have done
little to fill the bathtub, and (b) the greater
the threat of rapid, abrupt, potentially
catastrophic climate change.
the rest of the atmospheric bathtub given
limited remaining space to limit atmospheric
GHG concentrations to safe levels, different
historical and per capita emissions that have
filled the bathtub to current levels, and the
needs of poor countries to grow economically.
The atmosphere is like a bathtub: a
space with a limited volume
450 ppm CO2 , 50 % chance > 2 deg C
400 ppm CO2 now
Some nations filled this space
much more than others
280 ppm CO2, approximate 10, 000 year level
before industrial revolution
Developing
Countries
Other EU
Russia
Germany
France
India
Brazil
Australia
USA
Canada
China
Donald A. Brown, Scholar In Residence and Professor, Widener University Law School, [email protected]
Lima Call to Action
• Reiterates its invitation to all Parties to
communicate their intended nationally
determined contributions well in advance of
the twenty-first session of the Conference of
the Parties (by the first quarter of 2015 by
those Parties ready to do so) in a manner that
facilitates the clarity, transparency and
understanding of the intended nationally
determined contributions;
Lima Decision
• Agrees that the information to be provided by Parties
communicating their intended nationally determined
contributions, in order to facilitate clarity, transparency and
understanding, may include, as appropriate, inter alia,
quantifiable information on the reference point (including, as
appropriate, a base year), time frames and/or periods for
implementation, scope and coverage, planning processes,
assumptions and methodological approaches including those
for estimating and accounting for anthropogenic greenhouse
gas emissions and, as appropriate, removals, and how the
Party considers that its intended nationally determined
contribution is fair and ambitious, in light of its national
circumstances, and how it contributes towards achieving the
objective of the Convention as set out in its Article 2;
Issues on the Paris Agenda
• More ambition from nations to close the ambition gap, whether nations will
take their responsibility to reduce their emissions based upon equity
seriously.
• Whether all, some, or developed nations will accept a legally binding target
• Funding for adaptation, where will the $100 billion needed for least
developed nations be based upon secure, predictable funding
• Whether a loss and damages fund will be created
• Whether 2 degree C warming limit will remain or whether 1.5 degree target
replace current agreement.
• Will Kyoto trading mechanisms survive? New market mechanism?
• Issues surrounding green fund, adaptation fund.
• Issues surrounding REDD and tech transfer
Twenty-Five Year Attack on Proposed US Climate Policies In Which the
Press and Many US NGOs Have Ignored the Strong Ethical Response
Arguments
• Cost Too Much
• Destroy jobs or specific
industries
• Cost-Benefit
• The US Should Not To Do
Anything Until Other
Countries Like China Act
• Not Sufficient Scientific
Support For Action
The major ethical issues
• The atmospheric stabilization goal
• Any nation’s or government’s fair share of safe
global emissions
• Who should pay for adaptation costs
• Who has responsibility for losses and
damages.
• The ethical obligations of subnational
governments, organizations, entities, and
individuals to stop emitting ghgs
The need for applied ethics
• All claims about what should be done about
environmental issues already have an implicit factual
claim and an implicit normative claim.
• Most academic environmental ethics has been
focused on theoretical distinctions such as how to
ground a non-anthropocentric basis for protecting
the environment. We need an applied climate ethics
• There is a huge need to help citizens and policy
makers unpack the implicit normative claims in
arguments about environmental policy that are often
hidden in technical language.
An Applied Ethics
• An applied environmental ethics group’s main
function would be to spot ethical issues raised
by various claims
• Get policy makers to understand that one not
need to agree on what perfect justice requires
to make progress on ethics and justice.
• The IPCC recent work on ethics and equity is
an interesting example.
What DO We Actually Know About
How Nations Have Considered or
Ignored Ethics and Justice
• National Climate Justice
Research Project on Ethics and Justice in
Formulating National Climate Change Policies
What Have We Learned
• All Governments are relying in part on
economic self-interest rather than global
responsibilities
• No nation has explained how its commitment
quantitatively links to an atmospheric carbon
budget or an equity framework.
• Some nations have acknowledged that their
commitments needs to achieve a 2 0C budget
and be based upon equity but don’t describe
how their target accomplishes this goal
How do we get the US media to
cover?:
• The ethical issues already at the center of
international climate negotiations;
• All nations must reduce their ghg emissions to
their fair share of safe global emissions
regardless of what other nations do;
• IPCC conclusions on ethics and equity in
Working Group III
• The unacceptable ethical responses to
arguments against US climate policies that
have been made for 20 years.
We must demand:
That US and all governments respond expressly to the ethical
issues such as:
–What atmospheric stabilization goal does your emissions goal seek to
achieve?
–How did you consider fairness in setting your emissions reduction
percentage goal?
–How does your climate policy lead to emissions reductions in the shortmedium- and long –term to prevent catastrophic harms to others
–On what ethical basis can you claim that high-emitting governments and
individuals have no responsibility to pay for adaptation, harms, and
damages to vulnerable poor people around the world.
Two web sites
• Ethicsandclimate.org (150 articles on ethics and
climate)
• Nationalclimatejustice.org (detailed analysis of the
extent to which ethics and justice have been taken
into account in setting climate policy in Australia,
Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China,
Equator, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, Kenya,
Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Malawi, Mauritius,
Marshall Islands, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Panama,
Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey,
Uganda, United Kingdom, USA, Zimbabwe)
Contact Information
Donald A. Brown
Scholar In Residence and Professor, Widener
University School of Law
Part-time Professor, Nanjing University Of
Information Science and Technology
Ethicsandclimte.org
[email protected]