Climate Ethics

Environmental Justice and Climate Change

Joerg Chet Tremmel, Katherine Robinson

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781780763637
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857735973
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Environmental Law
• Index: Law

Climate change is perhaps the most important issue of our time and yet despite the urgency of the problem, the measures necessary to mitigate it have not been implemented. International cooperation has not been forthcoming and there remains a general reluctance towards any major change of lifestyle. Given the urgency of the problem, why has so little been done? In Climate Ethics Joerg Tremmel and Katherine Robinson identify the reasons behind this crucial paradox and propose a way forward. In the first part of the book the authors provide an accessible account of the basics of climate change. In clear and accessible terms they explain the science behind climate change and demystify the complicated terminology that so often hinders a proper understanding of the subject. They identify the substances that cause climate change, reveal which industries are responsible and which aspects of people's everyday lives have the highest emissions connected with them. They explore the consequences of ignoring climate change and, importantly, analyse the obstacles to addressing the issues.
In the second part of the book the authors introduce the concept of climate ethics, and explore its importance at a personal, national and international level. They place it firmly at the centre of any successful resolution of the challenges associated with climate change. They review the classical theories of justice and how they relate to climate change, and they examine the complex ethical and moral questions that need to be addressed if long-term solutions are to be found. What moral responsibility do we have to future generations? How should we share out emission rights? Do we take into account past emissions, allowing those who have historically caused more pollution fewer emissions rights than developing countries? Who is to finance the measures to abate climate? And just what is the fairest approach to the politics of climate change on a global scale? The result is an original and timely engagement with one of the most pressing problems facing us and future generations.

PART I

CLIMATE CHANGE:
PHYSICAL CAUSES AND EFFECTS

1

INTRODUCTION: WHY AN IMMINENT THREAT STAYS ON THE BACK BURNER

In his book Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, Al Gore deplores the effect media networks have had on the progress in implementing environmental policies.

[S]ome opponents of progressive change have grown weary of warnings of catastrophe as a basis of mobilizing support for policy changes. As a consequence, they regularly discount the scientific evidence. This is one of the reasons it has been so difficult to convince civic and business leaders who ought to know better that the climate crisis is not exaggerated.¹

There is undoubtedly a massive gap between measures recommended based on research results in the natural sciences and those actually implemented; however, it seems implausible that leaders at all levels would fail to act simply because they are tired of hearing about an issue. On the contrary, would this not spur them to act all the more quickly, at the very least so they could stop hearing about it? Given the vast complexity and multifaceted nature of the problem, it seems more reasonable that the ‘people who ought to know better’ do not simply dismiss scientific evidence as insignificant and irrelevant but instead are put off by its technical nature. Furthermore, it does not typically serve the immediate interests of concerned parties to act on the scientific findings related to climate change. In the minds of most people and countries with the means and influence to affect change, taking measures to prevent or mitigate the effects of climate change implies exorbitant costs, negative economic impacts and disgruntled citizens/customers. None of the catastrophic events predicted by climatologists has come to pass yet, so as the old saying goes – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The fact of the matter is, though, that there is indeed something broken – quite a few things, actually. The human species has continually and increasingly adjusted the Earth we inhabit to suit our needs. The rapidity and immensity of our adjustments have upset the delicate balance of the Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystems, thus endangering many species, including, to a certain extent, our own. The goal of this book is to present you, the reader, with a consolidated, readable work that makes the issues of climate change accessible, relevant and – well – interesting.

This book is divided into a natural science part and an ethical part and proceeds as follows:

The rest of this introductory chapter discusses the obstacles that prevent the problem of climate change from making it to the forefront of policy agendas, and it lays the groundwork for the next four chapters. There is a brief overview of the development of climate science and general attitudes towards climate change. We introduce the contradiction that exists in the seriousness and urgency of the problem of climate change versus our failure to effectively implement measures that would mitigate it. This sets the stage for the discourse on the science of climate change and its significance in our daily lives as well as in natural disasters and global developments.

In Chapter 2 we outline the science of climate change. Unlike other descriptions of how and why climate change is happening, we avoid technical jargon that makes global warming² seem abstract and impossible to understand. The goal of this chapter is to explain climate change in everyday language to which any reader can personally relate. Where technical terms are absolutely necessary, we break them down in a way that makes them as comprehensible as possible to the non-expert. We talk about the substances that cause climate change as well as the physical manifestations of climate change, such as rising temperatures, rising sea level and a higher frequency of some types of natural disasters.

Chapter 3 breaks down the human causes of climate change. We explain first which actions/industries are responsible for what emissions. In the first part of the chapter the substances that cause climate change are tied to their sources, thus providing a concrete context for the ‘abstract’ substances introduced in Chapter 2. We then select the factors with the highest emissions that are most common in the daily lives of the average person – such as driving/transportation or eating meat – and break down the emissions further. This establishes a material relationship between global warming, the substances that cause them and our part in it.

Climate change is not just about global warming, disappearing species and dying trees. This would be bad enough, but in addition to this, there are very real, very human costs. These costs are already beginning to manifest themselves and are certain to escalate as climate change progresses. Chapter 4 explicates the implications of not addressing issues associated with climate change. These include contagious diseases, sickness, poverty, malnourishment and death. Such consequences are not hypothetical or futuristic. This chapter makes clear that ignoring climate change will result in more problems that will affect us all.

Chapter 5 explores options for and challenges to addressing climate change. The majority of these obstacles have to do with people’s mentalities, lifestyles and habits. Ethical aspects are not addressed here in depth; rather the (im)practicality of various adaptations required to mitigate climate change and the costs to individuals. Previous chapters established the reality of climate change and provided ample proof of its existence. Here we first discuss some of the most basic but effective mechanisms that could be employed to mitigate or adapt to the effects of climate change. We then turn to the challenges policymakers face in addressing climate change in the form of the climate sceptics mentioned briefly in Chapter 1. Climate sceptics and fossil fuel industry lobbyists are a significant, if not the main, force hindering efforts to raise awareness of climate change amongst the general public. We first present and refute some of their favourite anti-climate change arguments, then look at their aggressive and sometimes appalling propaganda campaigns. Their refusal to acknowledge the consequences of their actions and the ethical implications serves as a foreword to our discussion of climate ethics in Part II.

Next to the expanding bookshelves in the natural sciences, in international relations and in economics, there is a growing library on the ethics of climate policy. This comes as no surprise when we consider that anthropocentric climate change is one of the greatest problems for the future of mankind. But climate change poses a serious problem for established ethical theories. Gardiner calls the ethics of climate change ‘a perfect moral storm’,³ emphasising the especially intricate nature of the problem of climate change for political philosophy, a Pandora’s box involving questions of pure distributive justice, international justice, historical justice, intergenerational justice and compensatory justice. There is no dearth of literature on climate ethics breaking down the complexity of the issue, thereby enabling one to arrive at partial conclusions such as: ‘Historical Justice demands we do this . . .’ or, ‘Intergenerational justice demands we do that. . .’. Here, in contrast, we attempt to face up to this complexity: that is, to end with a synthesis of the arguments into what we consider to be the most reasonable and the fairest approach to the politics of climate change on a global scale.⁴

In Chapter 6, the object of contention is clarified. The good to be distributed could be a) the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb greenhouse gases, b) the well-being produced by greenhouse gas emissions, c) the economic growth they generate or d) the costs of mitigation and adaptation. This chapter discusses the merits and drawbacks of each perspective. After scrutinising it, it may be said: greenhouse gas emissions, or its correlate, the ‘absorptive capacity’ of the atmosphere should be regarded as the climatically relevant object of distribution.

With an established object of distribution, Chapter 7 asks how atmospheric resources should be divided between the members of present and future generations according to the principles of intergenerational justice. The presently living generations should not fill up the atmosphere with more than 560 billion tons of CO₂e between 2010 and 2050 if a dangerous rise in global temperature is to be avoided. This notion of a safe emissions budget is a restriction for the current generations’ consumption of atmospheric resources during their lifetimes. Theoretically, we could arbitrarily set this available budget to 1,000 billion tons and gain more leeway for distribution schemes in the present, e.g., between north and south. This manoeuvre – beneficial for the existing generations, but at the expense of future generations – would contradict what intergenerational justice demands from us. In this chapter we explicate how atmospheric resources can be distributed so as to satisfy the conditions of intergenerational justice.

Keeping in mind our provisions for future generations, how can atmospheric resources be fairly distributed among contemporaries? In Chapter 8, we posit that, according to the maxim of pure distributive justice (without further assumptions), the ‘presumption for equality’ applies: Everyone gets an equal share of the pie, i.e., every person has the same greenhouse gas emissions budget. For a (static) world population of approximately 7 billion people and a ‘safe emissions budget’ of 560 gigatons, this results in a per capita emissions budget of 2 tons per year between 2010 and 2050. Dividing the limited budget by the number of individuals corresponds to the ethical stance of emissions/certificate egalitarianism. It grants each person on the planet an equal share of the atmospheric resources. This approach, also called ‘Contraction and Convergence’, is currently the concept most advocated in ethics. Other distribution schemes, like prioritarianism or the ‘difference principle’, can’t compete with ‘Contraction and Convergence’.

In Chapter 9, we explore the concept of international justice, which addresses justice between different countries, regardless of distribution practices within the respective countries. Nations and their political leaders, not individual citizens, make decisions about emission rights in the international arena. Pure distributive justice (see above) could only be applied if we had one world government that had the power to allocate resources fairly among its citizens. In reality, however, the international domain is divided into countries vying for influence and in possession of various bargaining powers, many of whom strictly pursue national interests. The implications of this reality for ‘Contraction and Convergence’ are discussed in this chapter. A significant part of it is devoted to the question of whether or not population changes are relevant to how emissions rights should be distributed.

In Chapter 10, we discuss what role historical justice, or justice with regard to past generations, should or should not play in the distribution of atmospheric resources. The ability to produce the natural resources coal, oil and gas on a large scale made the Industrial Revolution possible; however, this did not take place everywhere at the same time. Rather, industrialisation arose in various (groups of) countries at different points in history. The cumulative historical emissions of greenhouse gases, i.e., those generated since 1850, are much higher in North America, Europe and the former Soviet bloc than in Africa or Latin America. Based on this, one could support a right to ‘overshoot’ for low-emission countries. However, several counterarguments can be cited. The weight of these is so considerable that there is no moral obligation for the North to compensate the South for initial access to the scarce resource ‘atmosphere’ (before 1990). The concept of retributive compensation does not apply. Thus, in this chapter we conclude that countries with low historical emissions have no right to ‘overshoot’, since they were not wronged in any way. They were harmed, but not wronged.

Up to this point we have not addressed the amount of financial compensation that the North owes the South. We address this issue in Chapter 11, moving from the currency of greenhouse gases to questions of monetary distribution. We distinguish ‘historically founded financial claims’ from ‘financial claims that are founded with an eye towards the future’ and draw conclusions for both sorts.

In Chapter 12, we aggregate the four concepts of justice (intergenerational, pure distributive, international, historical) that have now been applied to the climate problem. This chapter formulates a comprehensive answer to the question: ‘What is just with regard to the climate?’

In Chapter 13, we address the question: Can – and should – the language of justice be replaced by the language of rights? ‘Rights talk’ is used in several ways in the context of climate change. First, it is argued that the present population in developing countries should have a right to greenhouse gas emissions if these emissions are indispensable for a minimum standard of living (so-called ‘subsistence emissions’). The hope here is that ‘rights talk’ can combat poverty in developing countries and reduce inequalities in the living standards between the North and the South.

Second, it is argued that ‘rights talk’ can help prevent dangerous climate change. Human rights, so the argument goes, provide an effective clarion call for stronger mitigation efforts. Granting such rights to people would impose duties on present people or mankind in general to refrain from emitting too many greenhouse gases. There are two variations of this argument:

a) The position that protecting present people’s human rights will help stop present emitters from emitting excessive greenhouse gases (in short: ‘present people’s right to a stable climate’ approach).

b) The position that protecting future people’s human rights will help stop present emitters from emitting (in short: ‘future people’s right to a stable climate’ approach).

We start with the proclaimed ‘right to emit of present poor people’. This chapter address...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Climate Change: Physical Causes and Effects
• Part II Climate Ethics
• Notes
• Works Cited