ETHICAL ISSUES RELEVANT TO ADAPTATION TO RISING SEA …projects.swedgeo.se/searims/wp-content/uploads/... · AN OVERVIEW Anna Wedin TRITA-ABE-RPT-1826 ISBN 978-91-7729-986-8 Division

ETHICAL ISSUES RELEVANT TO

ADAPTATION TO RISING SEA LEVELS AN OVERVIEW

Anna Wedin

TRITA-ABE-RPT-1826 ISBN 978-91-7729-986-8

Division of Philosophy KTH, SE-100 44 Stockholm

www.kth.se

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Acknowledgements

This is the first report to be published within the research project Sea-rims, which addresses the question of how we should achieve a sustainable and ethical adaptation to rising mean sea levels. The research project runs 2017-2021 and is funded by Formas – the Swedish research council for sustaina-ble development. The main purpose of this report is to provide a common ground for further research within the project, with the additional hope that it will also be of interest to other researchers, as well as policy-makers in municipalities, regional authorities, and government agencies working with climate change adaptation. A special thanks to our project partners who have been available for meetings, interviews, and in other ways contributed with input to the project: municipalities of Båstad, Halmstad, Laholm, Mörbylånga, Trelleborg, Ystad, the County Administrative Boards of Skåne and Halland, the Foundation Halland County Museums, the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and White Arkitekter AB.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................... 3

Table of Contents ............................................................................. 5

Svensk sammanfattning ................................................................... 7

1 Introduction ........................................................................... 131.1 Delimitations ................................................................................. 141.2 Disposition .................................................................................... 15

2 Background ........................................................................... 162.1 Rising Mean Sea Levels ................................................................ 162.2 Adaptation to rising sea levels ....................................................... 172.3 Ethics of climate adaptation ........................................................... 18

3 Methodology ......................................................................... 203.1 Snowballing .................................................................................. 213.2 Structured literature search ............................................................ 21

4 Results – ethical issues........................................................... 24I) Distributive justice ........................................................................... 24II) Procedural justice ........................................................................... 25III) Intergenerational justice ................................................................ 27IV) Rights ........................................................................................... 28V) Responsibility and compensation .................................................... 29VI) Individual and collective responsibility ......................................... 30VII) Uncertainty and precaution .......................................................... 31VIII) Fundamental values .................................................................... 33Discussion ........................................................................................... 34

5 Concluding remarks ............................................................... 39

References ..................................................................................... 42

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Svensk sammanfattning

Som en följd av klimatförändringarna stiger de globala havsnivåerna, vilket kommer att påverka den stora del av världens befolkning som bor nära kus-ten. Det är svårt att veta exakt hur mycket eller hur fort havet kommer stiga. Dock vet vi med säkerhet att stigningen kommer pågå i många sekler fram-över, även om vi omgående och drastiskt lyckas reducera våra utsläpp av växthusgaser. Trots detta diskuteras havsnivåhöjningar sällan bortom år 2100, och samhällsplaneringen utgår då huvudsakligen från IPCC:s beräk-ning om en förväntad höjning på 0.53-0,98 meter vid seklets slut (Church et al., 2013). Dessa siffror kan vara alltför optimistiska eftersom de förutsätter en omställning av samhället som inte verkar vara förestående. Andra rap-porter pekar på ännu högre nivåer. Det är tydligt att anpassning till stigande havsnivåer kommer vara en omfattande och svår process där frågor om vad som är rätt och fel och i längden hur vi bör agera – det vill säga etiska frå-gor – kommer vara centrala. Inför, under och efter arbetet med anpassning till stigande havsnivåer upp-står många nya utmaningar. En havsnivåhöjning på omkring en meter skulle ha förödande konsekvenser för lågt liggande länder varav en del ö-riken sannolikt helt och hållet kommer försvinna i havet. I Sverige blir följ-derna inte fullt lika ödesdigra, men långt ifrån obetydliga. Redan nu arbetas det aktivt i många sydliga kommuner mot erosion för att bevara stränder och skydda kustnära boenden, och det kommer krävas mycket mer med förhöjda havsnivåer. Tre huvudsakliga alternativ för anpassning mot sti-gande havsnivåer presenteras i litteraturen: (1) skydda bebyggelse, med vallar eller andra byggda eller naturliga barriärer, (2) anpassa bebyggelse, exempelvis bygga flytande hus eller hus på styltor, eller (3) retirera, det vill säga flytta bebyggelse från kusten (Church et al., 2013). Fokus har hittills

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legat på det första alternativet men de andra två kan komma att få en mer central roll när kostnaderna för att försöka bevara status quo blir för höga. Trots den uppenbara relevansen av etik i klimatanpassning har det inte skrivits mycket om ämnet, och det som har skrivits handlar främst om in-ternationell rättvisa och omfördelning. Detta är inte nödvändigtvis av stor relevans för svenska kommuner när de ska utveckla och driva ett arbete för anpassning till stigande havsnivåer. För att kunna reflektera kring hur en hållbar och etisk anpassning till stigande klimatanpassning ska utformas, är det viktigt att veta vilken sorts frågor det handlar om. Genom en strukture-rad litteraturanalys har ett antal etiska teman av relevans för anpassning till stigande havsnivåer identifierats. I följande stycken ges en samman-fattning av dessa med ursprungspunkt i en svensk kontext:

Rättvis fördelning – vem får vad? Faktiska anpassningsåtgärder kan komma att påverka olika grupper och individer på olika sätt och fördelningen av både kostnader och förtjänster är därför en central fråga. Dessa frågor kan komma att aktualiseras inte minst om resurser är otillräckliga och det uppstår ett behov att prioritera mellan olika alternativ. Forskning visar att klimatförändringar ofta slår hårdast mot de mest sårbara grupperna i samhället och att anpassningsåtgärder kan för-stärka dessa ojämlikheter. Sårbarhet kan bero på många olika faktorer som exempelvis kön, socioekonomisk klass och ålder (Martinich et al., 2013). I litteraturen om klimat och distributiv rättvisa lyfts att det bästa sättet att försäkra en rättvis fördelning i klimatanpassningsprocessen är att utvärdera anpassningsstrategier utifrån sårbarhetsindikatorer, och på så vis försäkra att de svagaste i samhället inte befäster sin position (Boeckmann and Zeeb, 2016).

Processrättvisa – vem är med och bestämmer? Anpassning till stigande havsnivåer kommer föranledas av beslutsproces-ser. En viktig fråga är vilka som ska delta i dessa processer och varför. Flera forskare argumenterar för en inkluderande klimatanpassningsprocess. Två huvudsakliga fördelar med en inkluderande process lyfts fram i littera-turen: dels leder fler perspektiv troligen till ett bättre resultat, dels kan de

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bidra till att skapa en känsla av delaktighet bland dem som påverkas av åtgärderna (Edvardsson Björnberg and Hansson, 2013). I litteraturen har ”transformativ anpassning” seglat upp som ett tongivande begrepp när så-väl fördelning som processrättvisa diskuteras (Bassett et al., 2013). Det innebär att klimatanpassning ska användas som ett ramverk inom vilket rådande samhällsstrukturer kan omvärderas och förändras. Fokus på sociala strukturer och minskad sårbarhet väger inom det ramverket tyngre än tek-niska lösningar när det gäller att skydda människor mot klimatförändringar.

Generationsrättvisa – för framtida generationer Kostnader och förtjänster av anpassning till stigande havsnivåer kommer inte bara fördelas mellan olika grupper nu utan också mellan olika grupper över tid. Om vi exempelvis väljer att fortsätta bygga på lågt liggande mark så kommer kostnaderna för att skydda eller flytta bebyggelse och infra-struktur bli större i framtiden. Då har vi i praktiken valt att prioritera nuva-rande generationers behov framför framtida generationers, vilket kan ses som en orättvisa. Definitionen av hållbar utveckling är ”utveckling som tillgodoser dagens behov utan att äventyra kommande generationers möj-ligheter att tillgodose sina behov” (WCED, 1987). Den centrala frågan är hur vi bör balansera framtida generationers behov mot nuvarande generat-ioners behov i anpassningsprocessen.

Rättigheter – anpassning som kränker och skyddar rättigheter Stigande havsnivåer kan komma att inskränka våra mänskliga rättigheter till liv, trygghet och självförverkligande. Dessutom kan våra rättigheter som medborgare och fastighetsägare komma att påverkas. Autonomi blir ett centralt begrepp. Forskare har förespråkat individens rätt till sin bostad även i det fall att retirering vore att föredra ur exempelvis ett säkerhetsper-spektiv (Nine, 2016). Men vad händer med den rätten om själva egendomen befinner sig på havets botten? Och vad händer när rättigheter ställs mot varandra? Rätten till egendom och besittningsrätten har befästa positioner i vårt samhälle. Men om ett hyreshus drabbas av stigande havsnivåer finns en risk att fastighetsägares och boendes rättigheter ställs mot varandra. An-passning till stigande havsnivåer kan komma att kräva stora insatser, och det är viktigt att se över hur rättigheter passar in i den utvecklingen.

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Ansvar och kompensation – vem tar kostnaden? Anpassning till stigande havsnivåer kommer vara kostsamt, så vem är egentligen ansvarig för att genomföra åtgärder och vem bör betala? Ansva-ret att minska utsläppen, även kallat mitigation, har främst diskuterats på ett internationellt plan. Ansvaret kan tillskrivas aktörer på olika grunder, till exempel att aktören har bidragit till problemet, att aktören har resurser att hantera problemet eller att aktören är den som kommer tjäna på lösningen (Caney, 2005). Det är inte självklart hur dessa perspektiv bör tillämpas på anpassning till stigande havsnivåer. Enligt svensk lag är den enskilde fas-tighetsägaren själv ansvarig för att skydda sin fastighet mot stranderosion och mot stigande havsnivåer, vilket många uppfattar som problematiskt. Det finns ett behov av att vidare undersöka på vilka grunder ansvar för an-passning till stigande havsnivåer bör fördelas, och denna diskussion kom-mer inte minst drivas av försäkringsbolag inför ökade risker med kustnära boenden.

Individuellt och kollektivt ansvar – allas fel ingens ansvar? Det är svårt att tillskriva ansvar för klimatförändringarna och stigande havsnivåer då de inte kan härledas till enskilda individers handlande utan endast till summan av många individers handlingar. Om en enskild person skulle sluta släppa ut växthusgaser skulle det inte påverka havsnivåhöjning-en märkbart. Detta kallas ”the problem of many hands” (van der Poel et al., 2012). Likväl är det svårt att tillskriva grupper ansvar då grupper inte nöd-vändigtvis kan uppfattas som agenter. Hur ska vi då behandla ansvarsfrågan när det gäller anpassning till stigande havsnivåer? Det finns ett behov att undersöka infallsvinklar för att tillskriva individer ett framåtblickande an-svar.

Osäkerhet och försiktighet – hur ska vi veta vad vi ska göra? En stor utmaning med anpassning till stigande havsnivåer är att bedöma rimliga anpassningsåtgärder eftersom osäkerheten är stor gällande hur mycket och hur snabbt havet kommer stiga. Denna osäkerhet ökar också risken för att vi genomför åtgärder som är otillräckliga eller i värsta fall

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förvärrar situationen på sikt. Hur vi ska förhålla oss till osäkerheter är en etisk fråga just eftersom mycket står på spel om vi misslyckas, och därför är det viktigt att hitta ett rimligt förhållningssätt till osäkerheter. Traditionella riskanalyser grundas på sannolikheter, och sådana är svåra att göra gällande stigande havsnivåer. Försiktighetsprincipen är ett ramverk för den sortens situationer, och förespråkar handling även när det finns en viss vetenskaplig osäkerhet, i de fall när allmänhetens säkerhet står på spel (IPCC, 2014). Argumenten mot den sortens åtgärder är att det blir kostsamt att vara på den säkra sidan. Det är en avvägning och ett mellanläge kan vara att fokusera exempelvis på flexibla åtgärder som kan justeras under tidens gång och genomföra så kallade no-regret-strategies som har positiva följder oavsett om faran realiseras eller ej.

Grundläggande värden – det som inte går att sätta ett pris på Slutligen måste sägas att klimatanpassning är en etisk fråga eftersom det handlar om att bevara det som är värdefullt. Men vad är värdefullt och för vem? Det är lätt att förhålla sig till hus och infrastruktur som enkelt kan omvandlas till monetära värden, och dessa tenderar att ta stort utrymme i klimatanpassningsdebatten. Men det finns ju andra värden som kanske inte går att mäta i ekonomiska termer, exempelvis kulturvärden eller naturvär-den. Dessa kan anses ha ett instrumentellt värde, det vill säga att de är vik-tiga för att de bidrar till något annat, exempelvis människors lycka, eller så kan de anses ha ett värde i sig själva. Ytterligare andra värden har diskute-rats i de tidigare avsnitten, exempelvis människors autonomi och hälsa. För att försäkra sig om att anpassning till stigande havsnivåer genomförs på ett så bra sätt som möjligt är det viktigt att dessa värden också tas i beaktande.

Slutsatser Stigande havsnivåer och anpassningen till dem kommer att bli en stor ut-maning för samhället. Inte minst då det råder stor osäkerhet kring hur stor och hur snabb havsnivåhöjningen kommer vara. Det finns stora behov att diskutera anpassning till stigande havsnivåer ur ett etiskt perspektiv för att kunna ge normativ vägledning inför dessa utmaningar. I den här rapporten lyfts etiska områden med särskild relevans för anpassning till stigande havsnivåer fram. Detta är en introduktion till ämnet och kan ligga som

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grund till de viktiga diskussioner som måste föras av samhällsplanerare och beslutsfattare framöver. Några frågor som kommer behöva diskuteras är: Hur kan anpassningen påverka olika grupper olika? Vilka är med och be-stämmer? Vilka tidshorisonter använder vi oss av i planeringen? Hur bör ansvaret för anpassning till stigande havsnivåer fördelas? Hur kan indivi-dens rättigheter komma att påverkas när havsnivåerna stiger? Vad är det egentligen som behöver skyddas? Genom att bemöta dessa frågor och un-dersöka deras etiska dimensioner kan följderna av stigande havsnivåer för-hoppningsvis bli mindre katastrofala än annars.

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1 Introduction

While there is much uncertainty on how much and how fast, there is a sci-entific consensus that global warming causes the global mean sea level to rise. We can already see the effects and have reason to believe that this will lead to great challenges for the large share of the world’s population that lives by the coast (Church et al., 2013). In order to cope, our societies will have to adapt to rising sea levels, but this will be challenging since it re-quires unusually long planning horizons and is surrounded by many uncer-tainties. Much has been written in the scientific literature on the biophysi-cal, social, and economic consequences of rising sea levels, and many prin-ciples and strategies for adaptation have been suggested (see e.g. Nicholls, 2011; Magnan et al., 2016). Yet, little has been written on the ethics of adaptation. The research project Sea-rims, which stands for sustainable and ethical adaptation to rising mean sea levels, has been launched in order to address this theoretical gap in the climate adaptation discourse. This report presents the results of a literature review and will serve as an inventory for ethical issues that arise in long-term adaptation to rising sea levels in a local or regional context. The purpose of this report is to serve as a common foundation within the research project and guide us as we proceed in gener-ating future scenarios and exploring strategies for sustainable and ethical adaptation to long-term sea level rise. The target group of this report is primarily the Sea-rims project group, secondarily stakeholders seeking guidance, and academics interested in the topic.

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1.1 Delimitations This report concerns the ethics of adaptation. Adaptation is one of two main responses to climate change presented in the climate change literature, and is defined as “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects” (IPCC, 2014). The other main response to climate change is mitigation, which concerns decreasing emissions or enhancing sinks of greenhouse gas emissions and as such slowing down or stopping the pro-cesses that constitute climate change (ibid.). How successful our mitigative actions are, will determine how extensive adaptation to climate change will have to be. However, while it is of central importance that we decrease emissions and slow down the processes of climate change, the focus of this report is on how we deal with rising sea levels, regardless of how success-ful our mitigative actions are. That said, mitigation and adaptation are in-terconnected and not always easy to separate. There are sometimes con-flicts and synergies between the two that needs to be taken into considera-tion to generate the best possible outcome (Shaw et al., 2014). Worth men-tioning is also that mitigation and adaptation are both more likely to be implemented if there are co-benefits. Hence, mitigation might take place in this report as an influencing factor of adaptation. Another concept related to adaptation is geoengineering. Geoengineering refers to a broad set of methods and technologies that aim to deliberately alter the climate system in order to alleviate the impacts of climate change (IPCC, 2014). In the case of rising sea levels, geoengineering could take the form of constructing barriers preventing (or slowing down) glaciers from melting and raising the sea level. This could be interpreted as an adaptive measure, but it is still not of relevance to this report. Such a project would be international, and the focus of the research project is on local and re-gional adaptive action. Another concept, which is not as established but gaining importance among climate change activists and academics, is ‘loss and damage.’ Loss and damage refers to the adverse effects of climate change that can no longer be avoided through adaptation and mitigation (Page and Heyward, 2017). So far, the literature on loss and damage is primarily concerning international liability and compensation, for example in the case of Pacific island states

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that will disappear as sea levels are rising (Boyd et al., 2017). Because of the global perspective in which loss and damage normally is discussed, ethical issues specifically related to loss and damage (as the term is com-monly used) are not included in this report which focuses on local and re-gional adaptation. A final delimitation regards the context in which adaptation is taking place. This research project is on adaptation in Sweden, so the focus is on cases in a similar context. Similarities mostly regard economic and institutional resources and capacity. When looking at adaptation in less economically developed countries, or non-democratic countries, the problems of adapta-tion can be fundamentally different. Naturally, there are lessons to be learned, but the focus will be on ethical adaptation in a Swedish or similar context, and issues that only belong to very different contexts will not be included in this report.

1.2 Disposition In chapter two of this report, background knowledge is provided and central concepts related to rising sea levels, adaptation to rising sea levels, and ethics of climate adaptation will be addressed. Chapter three presents the methodology of a structured literature review which seeks to answer the question of which ethical issues related to adaptation to rising sea levels can be found in the climate change literature. The results, taking the form of eight different ethical themes, are presented in chapter four. The eight themes are distributive justice, procedural justice, intergenerational justice, rights, responsibility and compensation, collective and individual responsi-bility, uncertainty and precaution, and fundamental values. In chapter five, concluding remarks as well as forward-looking suggestions for further re-search are presented.

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2 Background

2.1 Rising Mean Sea Levels One effect of human-induced climate change is that sea levels are rising. Rising sea levels are mainly caused by thermal expansion of the oceans and the melting of land-locked ice, including the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Greenland Ice Sheet (Nicholls, 2011). There is much uncertainty on how much and how fast the ice sheets will melt. What is known is that there was a global sea level rise of 17 cm in the 20th century, which was higher than in the previous century (ibid.). Furthermore, the current rate of sea level rise has been measured to be twice as high as it has been observed over the last century, which provides evidence of acceleration (The US National Climate Assessment, 2018). Naturally, there are local variations; in some places, the relative sea level rise will be lower due to land rise, and in others it will be higher due to subsiding land. In this report, however, we will focus on rising mean sea levels. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), projects global mean sea levels are likely going to rise between 0.53 - 0.98 m by 2100 unless we manage to move into a zero-emission society very soon (Church et al., 2013). Other scientists claim that it might be even higher (Steffen et al., 2018; Sweet et al., 2017). Moreover, irrespective of our future greenhouse emissions, sea levels will continue rising beyond 2100 as it can take centu-ries for the full depth of the ocean to adjust to the warming of the surface water. This has been termed the “commitment to sea level rise” and means that there will be a need to plan for continuously rising sea levels (Nicholls, 2011). The effects of rising sea levels include flooding, wetland loss, erosion, saltwater intrusion and higher water tables. This will negatively affect the

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large share of the world’s population that live in coastal areas. Globally, an estimated 20 million people live below normal high tide levels and over 200 million are vulnerable to flooding during extreme sea level events pro-duced by storms (Nicholls, 2011). IPCC (Church et al., 2013) lists five human systems that will be impacted by rising sea levels: (1) human set-tlements, (2) industry, infrastructure, transport, and network industries, (3) fisheries, aquaculture, and agriculture, (4) coastal tourism and recreation, (5) health. This shows that rising sea levels will have an impact on many aspects of society and human life. In Sweden, 1800 km of coastline face an increased risk of erosion as a consequence of climate change (Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2010). Moreover, almost half of the population of Sweden (49%) live within ten kilometres from the coast, including the majority of bigger cities and towns. Especially in the southern part of the country, citizens already face problems of erosion and intensified storms. The magnitude of these problems will increase as sea levels continue to rise.

2.2 Adaptation to rising sea levels Since sea level rise is an irreversible process, at least in the foreseeable future, adaptation will be necessary. Naturally, humans have always been adapting to a changing environment, but we are not used to such quick changes as we currently are facing. As previously mentioned, adaptation is defined as “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects” (IPCC, 2014). Unlike mitigation, which mainly is determined through global-scale climate policy, adaptation to rising sea levels takes place on a local to national scale. There are more or less concrete strategies for adaptation. IPCC (2014) lists six different types of adaptation: prevention of loss, tolerating loss, spread-ing or sharing loss, changing use or activity, changing location, and restora-tion. In terms of rising sea levels, this translates into the three main ap-proaches: accommodate, protect, and (planned) retreat (ibid.). An example of accommodation to rising sea levels is to build houses on stilts, an exam-ple of protection against rising sea levels is to build seawalls, and retreat can mean moving people and infrastructure from at-risk zones.

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Adaptation to rising sea levels will not merely be a technical challenge, but also an economic and social one (Hinkel et al. 2018). This relates to ‘resili-ence’, a concept which is gaining influence in the climate discourse. Resili-ence is a systems-oriented approach (Nelson et al. 2007), and unlike sus-tainability not about preserving something, but about the capacity that a system has to cope with a disturbance and “maintain their essential func-tion, identity and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adapta-tion, learning and transformation” (IPCC, 2014). Tompkins et al. (2010) presents elements needed for successful adaptation: research, planning, networks, legislation, awareness raising, implemented change, training, and advocacy. These primarily relate to how well institutions cope with adapta-tion challenges. ‘Adaptive capacity’ is a key concept in the climate adapta-tion discourse and refers to the ability of an institution to implement adap-tive action; it can be promoted through: fair governance, variety, learning capacity, room for autonomous change, leadership, and resources (Gupta, 2010). Research shows, however, that even with high adaptive capacity, adaptation is unlikely to happen unless there is a political will to act (Ber-rang-Ford et al., 2011). There are institutional challenges with colliding policy agendas, values and priorities.

2.3 Ethics of climate adaptation There is a growing literature on the ethics of climate change, although it mostly has been focused on mitigation rather than adaptation (see e.g. Gar-diner et al. 2010). Ethics is about systematising right and wrong, and the study of ethics concern justification for action and providing tools for such justifications. Climate ethics thus concerns what is right and wrong to do in the unique context of climate change. Adaptation to climate change pro-vides an even more specific context where ethical analysis can be applied. Adaptation has been argued to be an ethical issue “as it deals with fair pro-cesses and fair outcomes” (Adger et al., 2017) and “because the aim of adaptation is to preserve that which we value” (Hartzell-Nichols, 2011). The central topics within the climate adaptation ethics discourse are pre-cisely those of procedural and distributive justice and issues of value and

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goal conflicts. How these issues are approached depends on moral founda-tions. People with different moral understandings might disagree as to what the best adaptive action is, or at least on the methods used to find out. Adaptation can be seen as precaution to climate-induced damage, and this can take many different forms. Pelling (2011) presents three forms or adap-tation: adjustment adaptation, reformist adaptation, and transformative ad-aptation. The three differ in their idea of how far-reaching adaptation is or should be, from adjustment adaptation that is more about putting out fires and coping, to transformational adaptation that promotes deeper systematic change in public and private organisations. Reformist adaptation occupies a middle ground between the other two. Adjustment adaptation views climate impacts as the major source of vulnerability and is the most common in practise. On the other side of the spectrum is the school of transformative adaptation, which stresses the interaction of social, economic and environ-mental factors. In transformative adaptation, it is not enough to build walls to keep the sea out, we must address governance, socio-economic issues and other aspects of vulnerability. The systematic change that is transfor-mation includes the potential creation of new systems and processes (Schlosberg et al., 2017). The further we move towards transformative ad-aptation, the ethical landscape which is to be analysed becomes more com-plex. This will become clearer in chapter 4.

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3 Methodology

To get an overview of the ethical issues relevant to rising sea levels, a liter-ature study has been conducted. Ethics of adaptation to climate change it is a relatively small but growing field, and there is a need to map a landscape ranging through several disciplines such as climate policy, human geogra-phy, economics, urban planning, as well as philosophy. This mapping brings an understanding to the extent by which these questions are re-searched, and within which fields they primarily are discussed. A literature review is also useful in pinpointing central topics and questions within the discourse. Moreover, it helps to identify key thinkers and authors. The research question investigated in this literature review is: which ethical issues of relevance to adaptation to sea level rise can be identified in the scientific literature on climate change? After mapping existing research, the next step is assessing the status and quality of it. This involves both critically examining presented arguments and ideas, as well as seeing where there are gaps that need to be filled. This will help in highlighting questions or issues that need further study. By gaining a thorough understanding of the field, it will be clearer where valu-able contributions to it can be made. The literature search was done in two parts. First, literature was collected using the method of snowballing. Second, a more structured literature anal-ysis was conducted in which three main elements of the research question were expanded into clusters that broadened the search.

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3.1 Snowballing Initially, the literature study was conducted using the snowballing tech-nique. Snowballing refers to departing from one known sample and contin-uing to new elements given by the original sample (Thomas and Hodges, 2010). In a literature study, this means starting with one or a few known sources and then continuing by following up on the references for that text. As such, knowledge of the field is expanded. This helps to get an initial understanding of some of the relevant questions, ideas, and thinkers, as well as an understanding of how they relate to each other.

3.2 Structured literature search In order to get a fuller picture and trying to ensure that important texts are not missed out on, a more structured literature study was made. According to Thomas and Hodges (2010), a structured literature study is to be carried out in four steps:

1. Developing and refining the topic and scope of the literature to be

reviewed 2. Searching for and retrieving copies of relevant research material 3. Reading through the studies located and assessing them 4. Writing a report summarising the key information found

How each of these steps is carried out will be discussed below.

Develop and refine the topic and scope of the literature to be reviewed In order to develop and refine the scope of the literature to be reviewed, it is helpful to have a basic understanding of key concepts and terminology. The initial process of snowballing helped in achieving this. It became clear that not that much is written with direct reference to the ethics of adaptation to rising sea levels, but that relevant questions arise in various academic fields. This suggests the importance of conducting a search that is not too narrow in scope but that also includes similar but not directly related topics.

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The research question investigated in this literature review is: which ethical issues of relevance to adaptation to sea level rise can be identified in the scientific literature on climate change? The three key terms are ethical, adaptation and sea level rise. To achieve the broadness of our search we chose to create clusters for each of these terms with similar or related terms. As a complement to adaptation, maladaptation was included. Since we are interested in ethical issues of relevance to sea level rise in the scientific literature on climate change, sea level rise was complemented with the terms climate change, global warming, and natural hazard. Within each cluster, the terms are joined by the connective OR. The full scope of research terms is shown in the table below: Ethical Adaptation Sea level rise Justice Fairness Philosophy

Maladaptation Climate change Global warming Natural hazard

The search string is built such that at least one term from each cluster must be included for it to be a hit. Excluding any one cluster would most likely lead to a large number of unrelated hits. If the first cluster is to be excluded, it is likely that more technical texts on adaptation to various climate change issues would appear; if the second cluster is excluded, literature on e.g., emission trade would appear; if the third cluster is to be excluded we would probably find ourselves with literature on biological adaptation. Hence the three clusters are joined by the connective ‘AND’. To include variations of our original terms (such as philosophical instead of philosophy, or adaptive instead of adaptation), we chose abbreviated ver-sions of the words with asterisks in the actual search string. This gives: (((ethic*) OR (justice) OR (fair*) OR (philosoph*)) AND (("climate change") OR ("global warming") OR ("sea level") OR ("natural hazard")) AND ((adapt*) OR (maladapt*)))

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Search for and retrieve copies of relevant research material After having formulated the search string, literature was retrieved from four databases: GreenFile, Philosopher’s Index, Scopus, and Web of Science. The first two are slightly more specialised, where GreenFile focuses on environmental topics across different disciplines, and Philosopher’s Index is a database for philosophical literature. Both are EBSCO databases. Sco-pus is Elsevier’s database and Web of Science is run by Clarivite Analytics. To narrow our search somewhat, we wanted our search terms to appear as ‘subject terms’, ‘keywords’, or ‘topic’ for the respective database. The da-tabases are using their own terminology, but these terms all indicated a central role of the search term to the paper. Regarding type of publication, we chose to not make any specifications. The result of the literature search is shown in the table below: Database Date of

search Search speci-fications

No. of hits

Relevant hits

GreenFile/Philosopher’s Index

171120 “Subject terms”

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Scopus 171120 “Keywords” 140 43 Web of Science 171130 “Topic” 597 85 759 137

Read through the studies located and assessing them Through manually screening the titles and abstracts of the 759 hits (includ-ing duplicates), a total of 109 individual hits were considered to be of po-tential relevance to the research question and worth looking further into. In the next step of the literature review, a more thorough reading of the litera-ture was carried out, in which ethical issues of relevance to adaptation to sea level rise were identified. While philosophical and ethical terminology often comes across in the literature, ethical issues are generally not explicit-ly articulated. Hence, in order to answer the research question and identify the ethical issues, interpretation of underlying issues was necessary. While reading, ideas and issues were noted down and grouped into the thematic categories that will be presented in the next chapter.

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4 Results – ethical issues

In this chapter, the results from the literature review are presented. It con-sists of eight categories of ethical issues that are of relevance to adaptation to rising sea levels, and that were prominent in the reviewed literature. The themes are distributive justice, procedural justice, intergenerational justice, rights, responsibility and compensation, individual and collective responsi-bility, uncertainty and precaution, and fundamental values. In this chapter, these will be explained and discussed.

I) Distributive justice A central ethical issue in the adaptation literature relates to the distribution of climate-related risks and benefits across populations. An ethical analysis of this of these will enable us to shape our adaptive practices to ensure a just outcome. As sea levels are rising, different groups might experience different risks. Especially in less economically developed countries with weaker social security, climate change and natural disasters tend to hit the vulnerable the hardest and thereby exacerbate vulnerability and inequality (cases from Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Namibia are given in Thompson and Bendik-Keymer, 2012). It can also be the case that the outcomes of adaptive action are benefitting some more than others. For example, if adaptive action translates to protecting and maintaining infrastructure for cars, those who use public transport, where women, children, the elderly and the poor are overrepresented, will be disfavoured (Edvardsson Björn-berg and Hansson, 2013).

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This raises the question of whether we have an obligation to assist those who will be harmed by climate change and rising sea levels and the adapta-tion towards it? Much of the literature suggests that we have such a duty, but then we need to know who the most vulnerable are. In the climate change literature, there are some typologies for factors that can affect social vulnerability to climate change. Otto et al. (2017) point to four well-being dimensions that can affect your vulnerability, these are health, safety, food security, and displacement. Martinich et al. (2013) mention income, em-ployment rate, age, gender, and urban/rural dynamics as dimensions of vulnerability. According to Edvardsson Björnberg and Hansson (2011), unequal distributions of risk and vulnerability to climate change depend on how identity, socio-economic position, place and time interact. Another framework for evaluating climate change adaptation with regards to justice is presented by Boeckmann and Zeeb (2016) with focus on different do-mains that affect human health; these are social, economic, infrastructure, institutional, community, environment, and culture. By evaluating adaptive practices departing from these factors, the authors suggest that the perspec-tives of those who are vulnerable are taken into consideration. The frame-work can be used by adaptation planners in the design and evaluation pro-cess. What connects these scholars writing on distributive justice in climate ad-aptation is that they focus on social structures rather than on the distribution of physical or financial benefits from adaptation. This is in line with the school of transformative adaptation. It is also related to the idea of capabili-ties as a way to assess distributive issues (Doorn, 2017; Schlosberg et al., 2017). Focusing on social structures and vulnerabilities, it is possible that use the same framework for adaptation in very different settings. Doing social impact assessment or using vulnerability maps are methods to ensure that the benefits of adaptation are not unevenly distributed.

II) Procedural justice Procedural justice and fair decision-making are also central issues in the ethics of climate adaptation discourse. Procedural justice deals with a just

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process behind climate adaptation; it is a matter of who has a say when deciding on appropriate action. Central questions are: who should be in-volved in the process and why? Should an inclusive bottom-up, alternative-ly top-down process be motivated by instrumental or its inherent value? Martinich (2013) argues that climate change will hit the vulnerable the hardest, but yet their voices are heard the least in adaptation processes. This, in turn can lead to inefficient or unfair distributions of adaptation benefits. Edvardsson Björnberg and Hansson (2013) performed a gendered analysis of local adaptation process and point out two main benefits of in-volving marginalised groups (in this case, women); being part of the deci-sion-process both means that you have a say in determining appropriate actions, and also creates a sense of ownership of the decision. In that sense, procedural justice can be considered a key factor of legitimacy of decisions regarding adaptation to climate change and rising sea levels. Departing from the philosopher Nussbaum, there is an idea that individuals have a right to have control over their political environment. Researchers have consequently argued that we should strengthen capacities of lower levels of government that will endure in order to achieve procedural justice (Head, 2014; Hurlimann et al., 2014). This would enable that those who are directly affected by climate change and rising sea levels should have a say in adaptation decisions that concerns them. In reality, the literature sug-gests, this is often not the case. Despite adaptation primarily being a local action, research reveals how it is common that people feel that decisions regarding climate adaptation are taken above their heads at a more central-ised level. As an example, Graham et al. (2015) mention a general feeling of injustice felt by citizens in Lakes Entrance, a small rural town where the citizens felt decisions regarding adaptation were made in political centres and that the consequences disfavoured them. They felt that their views were not accounted for. Furthermore, it is often the case that authorities and community groups differ in their views on climate change and adaptation. This can be seen by observing the difference in how regional authorities and community groups prioritise between different kinds of adaptive ac-tions. Through assessing the language used by regional authorities and community groups in Australia, it was shown that the former group was more concerned with risk in a more traditional sense, while the latter pro-

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moted capacity building more in line with transformative adaptation (Schlosberg et al., 2017). This suggests that there can be a difference be-tween bottom-up and top-down approaches in formulating adaptive measures. Holland (2017) argues that only when adaptation is understood as an on-going process of transformation, in which vulnerable populations come to have voice and power in the struggle among competing interests, a procedurally just adaptation can be achieved.

III) Intergenerational justice Sea levels will rise at least for the coming centuries, and the effects will be felt by several generations. Likewise, the decisions we make regarding adaptation today will have consequences that will affect future generations. If we choose to build on low-lying land today, we add costs for future gen-erations who will have to protect or retreat. A central question of adaptation to sea level rise is how the costs and benefits will be distributed over time, and the idea of intergenerational justice is thus relevant. Intergenerational justice is an important concept in the climate change literature, not the least because of its centrality to the idea of sustainability. Within the very con-cepts of sustainability and sustainable development lies the idea that we have duties towards future generations: “sustainable development is devel-opment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the abil-ity of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). This idea has often translated into restrictions on how we use finite resources so that there will be enough left for future generations. In that sense, the concern for future generations have often been used to motivate mitigation. Howev-er, since adaptation in a sense can be seen as the instrument through which we can ensure that future generations will be able to meet their needs, in-tergenerational justice is also of relevance to adaptation to climate change and rising sea levels. How then should we balance the needs of future generations against the needs of future generations? In the definition of sustainable development, the interests of future generations are given the same importance as the interests of present generations. If we accept the goal of sustainable devel-

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opment, we have a duty to make sure that climate change will not affect how well future generations can meet their needs. A problem of intergener-ational justice is that we do not know exactly what future generations will need or value, however, we can assume their needs will be similar to ours. Therefore, some argue that we should preserve ‘capabilities’ for future gen-erations to fulfil their own ideas of a good life and promote their own well-being (Doorn, 2017; Schlosberg, 2013; Schlosberg et al., 2017). A more demanding suggestion is that we have a duty to enable the best possible life of future generations. This is in line with a growing literature of climate virtue ethics (e.g. Schlosberg et al., 2017; Thompson and Bendrik-Keymer, 2012) and relates to the increasingly influential concept of ‘transformative adaptation’. Proponents argue that maintaining status quo is not enough, we should strive to transform and improve society for future generations through adaptation. The way we perceive our duties towards future genera-tions is part in determining how adaptation should be modelled. And like-wise, how we choose to model our adaptive measures will affect future generations. Transformative adaptation proposes a direction rather than an end-state solution. This also ties to the fact that the effects of climate change are largely uncertain. Avoiding end-state solutions saves us from becoming more vulnerable when things do not turn out the way we have expected. O’Brien and Selboe (2015) state that “end-state solutions to the problem of climate change may be doomed to fail from the start”. A practi-cal example of this would be building sea-walls based on a predicted fixed sea level which turns out to be too low.

IV) Rights Climate change and rising sea levels arguably undermine human rights to life and self-determination. Moreover, as sea levels are rising, our rights as citizens and property owners might have to be compromised or redefined. For example, what happens to your right as a property owner when your property is under water? So far, little has been written on the rights and duties of individuals and property owners in the adaptation discourse, but what has been written seems to favour a strong sense of autonomy. Nine (2016) argues for a strong right against displacement in relation to rising

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sea levels, arguing that the home “provides a functional context for condi-tions of autonomous agency.” Even under environmental pressures, it is argued that individuals have a right to access to their homes. Lo (2014), have conducted a questionnaire and found that while the majority of people believe forced retreat can be justified if homeowners are compensated, 13% of those questioned “held a strong rights-based belief that can be couched in terms of deontological libertarianism in the present context.” These are only two examples suggesting that there will be conflicts regarding rights when it comes to adaptation to climate change and to rising sea levels. There is a need to investigate how it is possible to balance protecting indi-vidual rights when larger adaptive actions are to be implemented. There is reason to believe ethical issues related to rights will become more central in the adaptation discourse.

V) Responsibility and compensation Adaptation to climate change in general and rising sea levels, in particular will be costly, so a pressing question in climate change literature is who is responsible for paying for adaptation. The discussions on responsibility and compensation in the climate change literature has mostly been held regard-ing historical emissions, north-south relations, and corrective justice. The focus has therefore been on mitigation and suggested policies are over-whelmingly global by their nature. Three main schools of determining who is responsible have been put forward: polluter pays, ability to pay, and ben-eficiary pays (Caney, 2005). Polluter pays means that those who have con-tributed and still contribute the most to climate change are responsible for acting. Ability to pay bases responsibility on capacity and loosely translates to ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ which was formulated at the Rio conference on sustainable development in 1992. Beneficiary pays, means that those benefitting from mitigation or adaptation should pay. When it comes to adaptation to climate change and rising sea levels, these general ideas also apply. Who should pay for adaptation? Should we base this on contribution, on capacity, or on something else? And if it is not pos-sible to protect, should we compensate? And if so, who should be responsi-

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ble for compensating? Despite this becoming an increasingly pressing is-sue, the discussion is mostly theoretical and less is written about what this could mean for adaptation in practice. The few available examples from the literature indicate that there is a tendency towards accepting a shared re-sponsibility of compensation. Linneroth-Bayer and Vári (2006) discuss a practical example of public-private systems where a national pooling sys-tem has been introduced in Hungary for reducing and sharing disaster loss-es. A study from France used a questionnaire to assess the policies of man-aged retreat. The result showed that in general, most responders favoured some kind of national solidarity for those who needed to retreat from the coast, although a larger share of those who lived by the coast favoured cen-tralised tax solutions instead of insurance, compared to those living in the hinterland (Clement et al., 2015). This is an issue that will need further attention.

VI) Individual and collective responsibility Since climate change and rising sea levels do not depend on any single individual, but on the aggregated actions of many individuals over time, it is difficult to assign responsibility (Vanderheiden, 2006). In the philosophi-cal literature, the situation in which there are many who contribute to an outcome (such as climate change), but no single individual makes a signifi-cant difference, is known as the problem of many hands. This relates to the rich academic discussion on the roles of collective versus individual re-sponsibility, which I will only touch upon here. Van der Poel et al. (2012) investigate the problems of many hands in a climate change context and suggest that it is possible to assign individuals backward-looking responsi-bility on the basis of blameworthiness, accountability, and liability, and forward-looking responsibility on the basis of obligation and virtue. Hor-mio (2017) has also written on individual and collective responsibility for climate change, and argues that individuals have direct responsibility qua individuals, shared responsibility qua members of collective agents, and shared responsibility as individuals qua constituents of unorganised collec-tives. The discussion is focused on mitigation, but there is a need to fill the gap and show what kind of forward-looking responsibility is required for us

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to actively adapt to climate change. These cases suggest that it is possible to find motivations for individuals to see their individual responsibility to act, even though their contribution to the problem is negligible. Having an individual responsibility arguably depends on the capacity to understand the dangers of climate change and one’s role in the problem. Blennow and Persson (2009) writes on the topic of how people’s strength of belief in climate change positively affect how prone they are to promote adaptive actions. Grasso (2013) explains humanity’s inability to handle climate change by referring to neuroscience and the fact that the human brain has not evolved to react upon gradual and easily undetected harm. Based on the seeming incapacity of humankind to handle climate change and its consequences, there is a concern that a focus on the individual will not bring about the needed change. Studies indicate that individuals tend to prefer adaptation to be a centralised decision. In one study, which was based on a survey in France, the attitudes towards planned retreat were studied. It showed that people support a planned retreat if it is centrally planned and carried out; however, were it up to the individual they would rather put it off until the future (Rulleau and Rey-Valette, 2017). Climate change in general and particularly rising sea levels are slow in their onset and as such do not seem like an urgent risk. Hormio (2017) suggests that institutional agents with a capacity to process this kind of information do have a larger obligation to know about climate change, and presumably to act upon it. Many do not see it as a potential danger as they cannot see it happening now, and many do not want to act since they do not know the exact consequences. Individuals do not have the knowledge, capacity or the motivation it takes to make these long-term decisions under uncertainty. Is it reasonable to put such a responsibility on actors who lack capacity to perceive the risk? What and how? And if not, what is an alternative?

VII) Uncertainty and precaution

Seeing how sea levels will continue to rise for centuries, adaptive action of some form, such as managed retreat or protecting existing infrastructure is not an option, it is a necessity. However, there is still uncertainty regarding

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how much and how fast sea levels are rising and as such decision will have to be made under uncertainty. This causes problems for planners who expe-rience a “mismatch between climate change impacts and planning hori-zons” (von Oelreich et al., 2013). This causes normative questions of how this should be done. It is difficult to address a future threat of which there is uncertainty regarding its exact impact and timing. Since most adaptive ac-tions are very costly, many planners struggle in finding the balance between what is safe, and what is considered realistic. What is a reasonable level to plan for? Should we not build on land that will be submerged when the water has risen one, three or twenty meters? How exactly we should we go about in managing the risk that is rising sea levels? Traditional risk evalua-tions are determined calculating the probability of an event times its impact. If we do not know the impact, this becomes problematic. One solution to this problem is the precautionary principle, which is a theoretical frame-work which allows us to justify acting to prevent potentially harmful cli-mate-change outcomes even when there is a lack of scientific certainty (IPCC, 2014; Magnan et al., 2016). The precautionary principle implies that there is a social responsibility to protect the public from exposure to harm, when there is a plausible risk, and that we should act according to the de-vice ‘rather safe than sorry’. Hartzell-Nichols (2011) further argues that a ‘catastrophic precautionary principle’ is useful in motivating adaptive ac-tion. It is argued that the precautionary principle alone is too vague to shape adaptation policy, but a limited catastrophic precautionary principle which applies to situations where millions of people are affected, such as climate change, is easier for policymakers to agree upon. Uncertainty is not just a central theme in whether we should adapt and when, but also in the literature on maladaptation. Maladaptation is when adaptive action goes wrong and fails to address the original problem or creates new ones; it is the adverse effects, intended or not, of an adaptation initiative that can result in increased vulnerability. Magnan et al. (2016) put forward a precautionary framework with different strategies to avoid mala-daptation. Foremost, we should seek to implement so-called ‘no-regret strategies’ where we will gain benefits even in the absence of climate change. Secondly, we should aim to implement reversible strategies. Due to the uncertainty, it is beneficial if the cost of being wrong is low. Third, soft

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strategies are promoted. This means using institutional or financial tools rather than technical strategies, as being promoted by proponents of adap-tive capacity and transformative adaptation. Fourth, we can be precarious by implementing strategies that reduce decision-making time horizons, in order to be able to re-evaluate suitability more frequently. The fifth and final strategy to avoid maladaptation is to take conflicts and synergies be-tween strategies into account. Sometimes mitigation can have negative effects on adaptation and vice versa, by attempting to make holistic climate policy, the possibility of failure decreases. Distributing risk is different from distributing goods, since not all risks materialise (Doorn, 2018). Hence, even if we can never be certain of how much sea levels will rise, we will benefit from increasing risk awareness and promoting robust solutions (i.e. solutions that are acceptable across a range of possible scenarios in contrast to planning to a single projection) and flexible solutions (von Oel-reich et al., 2013; Kates et al., 2012).

VIII) Fundamental values Rising sea levels will have an impact on many things of different values and an important question is how we should weigh these against each other (Tschakert et al. 2017). Adapting to continuously rising sea levels will mean making priorities between e.g. economic, natural and cultural values. In the climate change policy process, cost-benefit analysis is a central tool, in which different values tend to be translated into economic terms and compared against each other. However, some concern is raised for values that might not easily be translated into economic terms, such as cultural values and natural values. Guillaume and Neuleeters (2015) discuss the concept of cultural justice in terms of adaptation. There are people who are forced to relocate from their homes, in extreme cases their countries, which in effect means a loss of territorially-bound features of a culture that cannot be substituted. While this might not appear as an urgent issue in a Swedish context, climate change can cause losses of e.g. food resources that might contribute to cultural loss: “imagine French food culture without local wine” (ibid.). Arguably, the undervaluation of such values limits adaptation (Adger et al., 2008). Cultural values can also be important on a more local

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scale. Graham et al. (2013; 2014; 2015) have investigated the values of citizens in a small Australian coastal community. They present a method for identifying the values that citizens in a community wish to prioritise when adapting to rising sea levels. Through assessing the way inhabitants lead their lives, the authors were able to identify what is valued and hence what should be preserved. They call these ‘lived values’. Using this meth-od, local cultural values can be accounted for in adaptation policy, howev-er, there is a risk that the local citizens fail to recognise some values, such as the value of a preserved nature. The issue of anthropocentrism is raised and runs through all of the above-mentioned themes. Generally, adaptation literature is very human-centred. We have to ask ourselves: what is worth preserving? And who is to decide that? There is some literature on the value of preserving nature in adapta-tion, but mostly from a human perspective. Kuhfuss et al. (2015) discusses natural values when discussing coastal wetlands and whether they should be allowed to retreat as part of adaptive policy. The wetlands provide ample ecosystem-services for humans and if the wetlands were allowed a natural retreat, these could remain. However, that would happen at the expense of agricultural land. This leads to a value conflict where adaptation causes us to choose between maintaining natural values, or agricultural land that might have historical and cultural values, besides its economic and food-security values. If this assessment is made on economic terms, natural val-ues rarely come out on top. This raises the issue of whether it is right to make comparisons between arguably incommensurable values.

Discussion The eight themes presented in this report shows a complex landscape of ethical themes with relevance to the adaptation to rising sea levels in a Swedish context, that are to be found in the scientific literature on climate change. At first glance, the eight themes seem broadly philosophical and not necessarily of specific relevance to the adaptation to rising sea levels. I will now attempt to summarise them in a way that shows that they are of

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concern to Swedish policy-makers and local planners who face the multi-faceted challenges of rising sea levels. Adaptation to rising sea levels, especially in a longer time perspective, will entail huge changes and most likely substantial financial investments. Who will benefit from these investments or the lack thereof, is a question of dis-tributive justice. If we imagine a Swedish municipality with limited re-sources having to decide between raising sea walls and protecting either a wealthy residential area with a high property value or between a school or an area with low-income housing, how should they choose? Should we spend common resources to protect those who live by the sea, and if so, at the cost of what? This is an urgent issue at the local, regional, national, and international level. It is vital that planners address vulnerability and equity in the adaptation process to minimise the risk of adaptation reinforcing inequality. Another justice issue regards who will be involved in the decision process leading up to adaptation, this is procedural justice. We must ask ourselves, how should a just adaptation process look, and who should be involved? Adaptation to rising sea levels, more than adaptation to other climate change effects, will most likely require large-scale projects and thus risk to become top-down enterprises. How can local planners involve those whom the adaptive measures concern? It is also interesting to think about how distributive justice and procedural justice interact, and whether it is possible to achieve them independently or if either of them presupposes the other. Thinking about what makes an adaptation process and outcome just will be of central importance as we adapt to rising sea levels. Both distributive justice and procedural justice becomes more complex when we involve the needs and voices of stakeholders belonging to future generations. Imagine a person from a few hundred years into the future, being able to assess our current approach to rising sea levels. What would they think? While the person might be (justifiably) mostly angry that we did not manage to stop climate change in the first place, they might also be upset that we have placed an unfair burden on them by continuing exploit-ing and building in low elevated coastal zones, adding to their burden of

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retreating as sea levels continue to rise. Some argue that future costs can be discounted, or that future generations might have the technology and other means making them better equipped to face these challenges. Others would side with the person from the future in thinking that we currently are plac-ing unjust burdens on future generations. In planning and adapting to rising sea levels, even at a local scale, keeping future generations in mind is vital to achieve intergenerational justice. Practical implications could be to ex-tend planning horizons beyond the 20-50 years that are currently standard and seek to avoid added future costs. With climate change and rising sea levels, the question of rights become central. Thus far, in the climate change discourse, more attention has been paid to the implications the effects of climate change have on our rights, and rising sea levels can be said to compromise human rights to life, safety and, self-fulfilment. However, adaptation itself can also affect our rights, in several forms. If we choose to protect against the sea, this might have im-plications on property rights, as land might need to be expropriated. If we choose managed retreat, this will also cause problems related to property rights. Adaptation will most likely require collective solutions; what role do individual rights play in that? There is a need to assess what and whose rights are at risk and seek ways to address potential rights problems. Concern of the different dimensions of justice and of rights lead us to the question of responsibility and compensation. In practise, this issue will in part be regulated by legal frameworks. What responsibility does an individ-ual property owner have facing rising sea levels? The municipality? And what about regional authorities and the state? Today, in the Swedish legal context, property owner carry responsibility to deal with adaptation. This seems to be based on a beneficiary-pays-principle, meaning that whoever benefits from an adaptive measure should be responsible for carrying it out. Arguably this is unjust as the individual has not caused the sea levels to rise, it is merely a matter of poor luck. Would our intuitions regarding re-sponsibility differ if we compare someone who lives in a house that has been in the family for generations and someone who is building a house in the coastal zone now? And if so, what are the implications on responsibil-ity? There is a need to investigate these issues and insurance companies

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will likely take a leading role in this debate, which has already begun in Sweden. This debate ties in with the more philosophical question of individual and collective responsibility. On what basis is it possible to assign responsibil-ity? Should we assign responsibility to individuals because we as a collec-tive have caused climate change even though no individual can be said to have caused climate change themselves? Or should we attempt to assign responsibility to collectives such as the state, even though the state is not an actor but merely a conglomerate of individuals? These questions are not necessarily of practical relevance to policy-makers, but still important as action is needed, and no action appears to take place unless the question of responsibility is resolved. We must find a way to assign forward-looking responsibility, be it based on our contribution to the problem or an obliga-tion not to cause future generations unnecessary harm, to effectively deal with the threat that rising sea levels constitute. Besides the issue of the responsibility, the great uncertainties surrounding sea level rise halter action. Naturally, defence against rising sea levels will look very different if we are to expect one or five meter of sea level rise. How should planners and decision-makers deal with this uncertainty? If we imagine building a wall to keep the water out, we do not want it to be too low, but we also do not want to spend resources on building it too high. What exactly is the right level to adapt to? Is it best to always be guided by precaution and be rather safe than sorry? Perhaps, but if we think of a worst-case scenario, we would have to plan for 70 meter higher sea level, which indeed would be drastic. If we, on the other hand, stay on the low side, there is a risk that we have taken measures in vain. Flexible solutions seem like a good option. The final theme which ties in with the other concern fundamental values. Adaptation is about protecting that which is of value, but to do that, we need to know what is valuable, to whom and why. To exemplify, we can look at the town Kiruna, which is currently carrying out the managed re-treat as the city is dangerously built on top of a mine. In conducting this managed retreat, some buildings are selected to be transported to the new

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town centre. Of course, it would be cheaper to rebuild the whole town, but they have chosen to move entire structures to preserve the town’s cultural identity. This indicates the importance of looking at other values than eco-nomic when it comes to making assessments regarding what is worth pre-serving. Similarly, natural values, such as unique beach environments are threatened by the rising sea levels and an eroding coast, and as we build more and more in low-lying coastal zones, there is little space for the beach to retreat, meaning that ecosystems simply must vanish. These values need to be accounted for, but the instruments planners have for doing that, such as environmental impact assessments or social impact assessment has an anthropocentric core, and often try to transform other values into economic ones. It would certainly be interesting to assess if and how decision-makers talk about various values in relation to rising sea levels.

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5 Concluding remarks

While conducting this literature study, it became clear that little has been written explicitly on the ethics of adaptation to rising sea levels. However, it also became clear that it is a growing field, and that issues related to an ethical adaptation to rising sea levels are discussed to an increasing extent, with an ever-increasing number of published articles over the last years. As the effects of climate change and rising sea levels are becoming more visi-ble and as we can see that it is too late to merely mitigate, issues of value conflicts and justice in the adaptation process are becoming more noticea-ble in the literature on climate change. Within the read literature, eight distinct ethical themes have been identified that spread over a wide range of topics, each of importance to Swedish local and regional planners in charge of adaptation to rising sea levels. The themes are not commonly prevalent in the public debate, but as the global mean level continues to rise, it is likely that they will gain a more central role. It is recommendable for anyone working with adaptation to climate change in general, and to rising sea levels in particular, to start thinking about these issues to manage a sustainable and ethical adaptation. Each of the eight themes would benefit from further investigation as we proceed in establishing how an ethical adaptation would look, and many of the ques-tions mentioned in this report need further thought. I will now mention two questions I believe are most urgent, and necessary to solve in order for us to successfully approach the others. Most pressing from a planner or policy-maker perspective, arguably, is the question of uncertainty. Planners and policy-makers want a number to re-late to in the decision process, and as the exact level and pace of the sea level is unknown, they struggle to make decisions, and the adaptation pro-

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cess stifles. This is dangerous as it increases the risk of maladaptation, and increases the risk of injustices. It is therefore important to begin by address-ing what knowledge decision-makers need in order to make ethical deci-sions, and how they should approach any remaining uncertainties. On the one hand, everyone wants to be safe rather than sorry, and on the other, no one want to come across as a doomsday prophet. In order to enable action, perhaps it would be wise to move away from static numbers of rising sea levels and instead focus on decreasing vulnerabilities and transform sys-tems and processes. This is in line with the capability centred idea of trans-formational adaptation, and will enable fairer processes and outcomes in the long run. Another central issue is that of assigning forward-looking responsibility to act on rising sea levels. Climate ethics generally and in relation to responsibility have so far primarily focused on mitigation and changing the perspective to adaptation will require new ways of thinking. It is difficult enough to assign individuals responsibility to mitigate based on past emissions, but it is even more complicated to assign forward-looking responsibility, meaning assigning obligation to act. By managing this chal-lenge, ethics of adaptation would establish itself as a distinct field from the ethics of mitigation. Besides delving deeper into the various themes previously mentioned, there are a few other areas that would benefit from further attention. To begin with, more research is needed to explore context-specific ethical issues for different adaptation options. In this report, we talk about the ethics of adap-tation, but the practical and procedural problems will differ greatly if we choose protection or managed retreat as our strategy. Generally, when ris-ing sea levels are discussed, an illusion that we will be able to protect our-selves against them without too big sacrifices is maintained. However, were sea levels to rise more than one, let alone three meters, we would most def-initely need to retreat from large areas, including many densely populated places and cities. Despite this risk, managed retreat is rarely discussed in the literature or the public discourse. It would be beneficial to investigate why and see what ethical implications managed retreat would have specifi-cally. It would also be interesting to apply this framework of ethical themes on a case, preferably to a Swedish municipality to see if these issues are at all articulated or at least between the lines present in the planning process.

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This would be less of a philosophical endeavour but would nevertheless contribute in understanding the complex nature or ethical adaptation in practice. A final comment on the results from the literature study regards that rising sea levels have been treated as somewhat independent from other climate impacts in this report. Nothing could be falser, rising sea levels will be fur-ther exaggerated with an increased frequency of storms, and the impacts will hit societies harder if they are strained by expected future mass move-ments of climate refugees. It is important to discuss these issues intercon-nectedly, or at least keep in mind that the issue of rising sea levels does not exist in a vacuum. The threat of sea level rise seems not to be taken serious-ly, and a general understanding seems to be that we still have time to act. Regardless of how much time we have, we will certainly be more likely to adapt sustainably and ethically if we have addressed some of the questions that have been mentioned in this report, before the arrival of the flood.

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