Donald Brown On the Extr aord i nar y Ur ge ncy of Nati ons Respond i n g To Cl i m ate Chang e ont he Ba sis o f Eq u i ty. Th is ar t icl e seeks to ex p lain in understand ab le t er m s w h y nat io ns must n ot onl y aggressively respond to climate change but respond at levels required of them by equity if the world is going to have any hope of avoiding dangerous climate change. And so, this article seeks to help citizens around the world understand why their nations must create climate change policies consistent with their equitable obligations and that if their nations fail to respond on the basis of equity, there is vey little hope of an adequate global solution emerging that has any potential of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Once again there has been some renewed interest in responding to climate change this week in response to the announcement by the National Oceanic and Atm ospheric Administration (NOAA) th at carbon dioxide (CO2) atmospheric concentrations have reached 400 ppm(parts per mil lion). This concent ration of C O2 is not only higher than experienced in the last 3 million years of Earth’s history (Kunzig, 2013), it is additional evidence that the world is rapidly running out of time to Adapt ation and Responsibility for Dam ages (13) agenda 21 (4) Allocation Issues (15) Atmospheric Targets (27) cancun (3) cap and trade (3) climate change and markets (9) climate change commercials (1) climate change disinformation (12) clim ate change ethics (41) climate change governence (11) climate change impacts (5) climate change policy-making (32) climate change video (3) climate ethics (17) Contraction and Convergence (3) Copenhagen (7) crime against humanity (7) Hom e St ar t Her e and I ndex About Et hi cs and Cl i m at e Blog r ol l Cont ac t Search Subscribe Categories On th e Ex traordinary U rgen cy of Nations Responding T o Clim ate Chan ge o... ht tp://blogs.law.widen er.edu /climate/2013/05/09/on -the-extraordinary-ur... 1 of 11 7/10/2013 3:06 PM
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7/28/2019 On the Extraordinary Urgency of Nations Responding to Climate Change on the Basis of Equity
This article seeks to explain in understandable terms why nations must not only
aggressively respond to climate change but respond at levels required of them by
equity if the world is going to have any hope of avoiding dangerous climate change.
And so, this article seeks to help citizens around the world understand why their
nations must create climate change policies consistent with their equitableobligations and that if their nations fail to respond on the basis of equity, there is vey
little hope of an adequate global solution emerging that has any potential of avoiding
catastrophic climate change.
Once again there has been some renewed interest in responding to climate change
this week in response to the announcement by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that carbon dioxide (CO2) atmospheric
concentrations have reached 400 ppm (parts per million). This concentration of CO2
is not only higher than experienced in the last 3 million years of Earth’s history
(Kunzig, 2013), it is additional evidence that the world is rapidly running out of time to
Adaptation and Responsibility forDamages (13)
agenda 21 (4)
Allocation Issues (15)Atmospheric Targets (27)
cancun (3)
cap and trade (3)
climate change and markets (9)
climate change commercials (1)
climate change disinformation (12)
climate change ethics (41)
climate change governence (11)
climate change impacts (5)
climate change policy-making (32)
climate change video (3)
climate ethics (17)
Contraction and Convergence (3)
Copenhagen (7)
crime against humanity (7)
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prevent dangerous climate change. NOAA posted on its website Wednesday night,
May 9, that the daily average for CO2 was 400.03 ppm. (Kunzig, 2013) The last
time the concentration of the CO2 reached this mark, horses and camels lived in the
high Arctic and seas were at least 30 feet higher. (Kunzig, 2013) This sea level rise
would inundate major cities around the world and cause harm to hundreds of millions
around the world when temperatures finally responded to these elevated greenhouse
gas (ghg) atmospheric concentrations.
Although this story made it to the front page of the New York Times, (see Schuetze
2013), the US press continues to fail to educate American citizens fully about the
seriousness of the problem that the world is facing particularly in regard to the urgent
need of nations to take immediate steps to reduce their emissions to their fair share
of safe global ghg emissions. Ethicsandclimate.org has previously examined the
failure of the US press to communicate to American people the importance of the
equity issue in formulating US policy. (See, The US Media’s Grave Failure To
Communicate The Significance of Understanding Climate Change as A Civilization
Challenging Ethical Issue.Yet, as we will explain, in light of the rapidly decreasing
amount of time remaining for the world to prevent dangerous climate change, there is
now more than ever a need to increase political support at the national level around
the world for the adoption of policies on climate change that reflect each nation’s fair
share of safe global emissions.
When almost all nations around
the world agreed to the 1992
United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), they promised to
adopt policies and measures to
limit warming based upon
“equity” to prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with
the climate system. (UNFCCC,Art. 3) Up until very recently it was possible for nations to ignore that they had a
responsibility to reduce their ghg emissions to levels based upon “equity.” And so
many, if not most, nations have been entering international climate negotiations as if
they need only look to their national economic interest to determine what ghg
emissions reductions commitments they need to make under the UNFCCC.
However, now that the world is running out of time to prevent dangerous climate
change, the urgent need of nations to reduce their emissions to levels required of
them on the basis of equity and basic fairness is now obvious and undeniable. This
was not the case only a few years ago. For instance, just three years ago it was
possible for the United States to ignore what was required of it as a matter of basic
fairness because nations were happy when the United States made any commitmentto reduce its ghg emissions having refused to do so from the early 1990s through
2010. Any US commitment was viewed as a positive step. And so, when President
Obama made a voluntary commitment in 2010 in Copenhagen to reduce US
emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, it was widely celebrated throughout
the international community even though most observers knew this commitment was
far short of what justice required of the United States. Yet just two years later in
Qatar, the same US commitment was almost universally condemned on justice
grounds. (See: Qatar: Bumping Up Against Climate Change Limitations On Human
Activities Makes Ethical and J ustice Issues Unavoidable)
disinformation campaign (see alsoclimate change disinformation) (5)
Distributive and International J ustice(18)
Durban (2)
Duty to aknowledge risk (8)
Economics and Climate Change (23)
Economics and Cost (25)
equity and climate change (5)
ethical questions raised by climatechange (28)
ethics and energy policy (12)
ethics and scientific uncertainty, Addcategory (12)
ethics of anti-Agenda 21 campaign (3)
ethics of climate change (31)
fair ghg emissions targets (4)
General Climate Ethics (86)
global warming ethics (41)
Higher education and climate changeethics (3)
Human Rights-Universal Rights (7)
hurricanes and climate change (1)
Independent Responsibility to Act (11)
J ust allocation of gig emissions (2)
liability for climate change (1)
magnitude of needed greenhouseemissions reductions (5)
Market Theory (1)
Media and climate change (5)
Media Coverage of Climate Change(13)
Mitigation (4)
natural gas and climate change (1)
Obama and climate change (4)
Practical need to see climate changeethical issues Add category (6)
Presiden Obama and climate change (4)
press and climate change (8)
Procedural J ustice and Fair Process (8)
propaganda and climate change (2)
Qatar climate negotiations (2)
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The importance of each government entity’s responsibility to limit their emissions to
their fair share of safe global emissions has become undeniably obvious to most
observers of international climate negotiations now that it has become clear to all
that there is precious little time for the global community to avoid dangerous climate
change. The central importance of the need to get nations to respond to climate
change on the basis of “equity” becomes very obvious once a number of scientific
aspects of climate change are fully understood. However, too few people understand
these scientific aspects of climate change and the press is failing to educate citizens
about these issues.
To
fully understand the importance of national responses on the basis of “equity” it is
necessary to understand some features of climate change that make it unlike any
other environmental problem facing the world. The atmosphere is like a bathtub, it
has limited volume. Nations have been filling up the atmospheric bathtub since the
beginning of the industrial revolution in the late 1790s. Because CO2 is long-lived inthe atmosphere, the bathtub continues to fill up with CO2 even if rates of CO2
emissions slow down somewhat unless all ghg emissions are reduced to the rate at
which the Earth’s natural carbon cycle can remove CO2, an amount which is less
than 20% of existing emissions levels. Decreasing ghg emissions does not prevent
global atmospheric concentrations from increasing unless they are cut back globally
by huge amounts. And so to prevent dangerous climate change nations have to do
much more than cut back on the ghg emissions levels that they are entering the
atmosphere, they have to cooperate to prevent the level in the bath tub from
reaching levels that will cause dangerous climate change. As we shall see, this is a
level that the world is fast approaching. Furthermore because CO2 is well mixed in
the atmosphere it makes no difference where on Earth the ghgs come from, theatmospheric concentrations of ghg continue to rise without regard to location of the
source of emissions.
What makes the current climate change threat so ominous is that the levels of CO2
that have been building up for over 200 years are quickly approaching levels that
could trigger dangerous climate change as emissions are increasing in many parts
of the world.
In our experience, most Americans don’t understand the scale of the climate change
facing the world. In Copenhagen in 2010 the international community agreed to set
as a goal warming limit of 2°C not withstanding there are some scientific evidence to
reasonable skepticism (17)
renewable energy ethics (3)
Romney and climate (1)
scientific disinformation (20)
Scientific Uncertainty and Risk (35)
states and climate change (1)
subnational governments and climatechange (1)
sustainability ethics (9)
sustainability law (4)
sustainable development (5)
sustainable development ethics (4)
temperature limits (1)
the ethics of natural gas and climatechange (1)
tornadoes (1)
Trading Issues (2)
Uncategorized (2)
united nations (1)
US Climate Ethics (20)
US Congress and climate change ethics(14)
US media and climate change (7)
US participation in international climatenegotiations (11)
US responsibilitlty (26)
Video (11)
wind power (1)
An Ethical Analysis of Obama’s ClimateSpeech, the Adverse Political Reactionto It, and the Media Response.
Property Rights and Sustainability
Equity Remains At The Center of BonnClimate Change Talks
An Opportunity to Learn About LinksBetween Global Governance andEnvironmental Ethics
Responding To the Anti-Agenda 21
ArchivesMonth/Year
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Returning to the use of a bathtub as a metaphor for the atmosphere, we note that
there is already elevated levels of ghg (metaphorically water) in the bathtub that have
risen to current levels from over 200 years of human activities. That is CO2 has
increased in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 400 ppm since the beginning of the
industrial revolution. If we assume that atmospheric concentrations of CO2
equivalent should be limited to 450 ppm to give the world a 50% chance of keepingwarming from exceeding the 2°C warming limit, atmospheric concentrations have
increased already by120 ppm from pre-industrial levels and only 50 ppm of
atmospheric space are left to allocate to the entire world. The 120 ppm increase in
atmospheric CO2 concentrations that has already been put into the bathtub by
human activities has overwhelmingly been caused by activities in some rich,
developed countries much more than poor developing countries. The following chart
shows which countries have contributed the most elevated concentrations of CO2 in
the atmosphere.
(EPA, 2002)
And so some countries more than others have contributed far more than others toelevated ghg concentrations. Given that there’s only 50 ppm of atmospheric space
left to allocate (assuming and atmospheric goal of 450ppm giving approximately a 50
% chance of exceeding the 2°C) and some developing countries desperately need
to use the remaining atmospheric space to escape grinding poverty, it is obviously
unfair or inequitable to require all countries to reduce emissions by the same
amount.
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Furthermore, the above chart demonstrates that some countries including the United
States, Canada, and Australia, for instance, far exceed others in per capita levels
of emissions from their citizens compared to other countries such as India.
If it is determined that the entire world must reduce its emissions by 80% below 1990
levels to prevent dangerous climate change, high-emitting nations or governments
around the world, including the US, Canada, and Australia, will need to reduce their
emissions to even greater levels on the basis of equity and fairness. To require each
nation or government to reduce emissions by the same percentage amount would
freeze into place unjust emission levels for high-emitting governments and very low
emissions rates for poor developing countries. For this reason, almost all the
nations of the world, including the United States in 1992 when it ratified the
UNFCCC, agreed that each nation must reduce its emissions on the basis of
“equity” to prevent dangerous climate change. (UNFCCC, 1992: Art 3, Para 1) If all
nations need only reduce their emissions by equal percentage amounts, then a
high-emitting nation like the United States that emits ghg at rate of 17.3 tons per
capita would be allowed to emit at a level 10 times more per capita than a country
like Vietnam that emits 1.7 tons of ghg per capita. (World Bank, 2012b) As a result,
all nations have agreed that national targets must be based upon fairness or equity.
Given that the entire world has only 50 ppm of atmospheric space left to allocate to
give the world a reasonable expectation of preventing dangerous climate change,
the equitable and fairness dimensions of national ghg emissions reductions
commitments become obvious and crucial to increasing the ambition of nations to
reduce their ghg emissions. Yet most citizens seem completely unaware of the equity
issues entailed by climate change and many high-emitting nations are ignoring their
equitable responsibilities.
However, the ability of nations to ignore what equity requires of them will become
more and more difficult as the world wakes up to the hard-to-imagine stringent
carbon budget that the world must face to avoid catastrophe warming. In addition thelonger nations wait to respond to climate change on the basis of equity, the more
difficult it will be in the future to do so because the steepness of their emissions
reductions pathways needed to comply with what equity requires increases the
Category: Atmospheric Targets, climate change ethics, climate ethics, equity and climatechange, fair ghg emissions targets, General Climate Ethics, J ust allocation of gig emissions,sustainability ethicsTag: cliamte justice, climate change and morality, climate change ethics, climate ethics, distributive
justice and climate change, equity and climate change, equity and national ghg emissions, Ethics andClimate Change, Ethics and Global Warming, nation's fair share of safe global emissions, nationalclimate change policy and equity, US ethical responsibility for climate change.
May9,2013at11:44pm 10comments DonaldA.Brown
World Bank, (2012), CO2 Emissions (Metric Tons Per Capita),
As you know, I have long been encouraging to write about the urgency of the AGW
problem. In this blog, you have written what I believe not is your best blog but one of the best, if not the best, written about AGW. It absolutely excellent.
A couple of comments/questions, although none meant to be critical:
1. I understand why the 2C degrees temperature rise is used. However, as you
know, most science is now telling us that a so–called ‘safe’ level for temperature rise
is about 1.5C degrees, which computes to about 350 ppm carbon dioxide eq. instead
of 450 ppm eq. This, of course, makes your article all that much more scary.
2. My primary question now, given this exemplary article of yours, is following your
arguments about the urgency of the problem, what does this imply for considerations
of ethics to resolve the problem. Surely, if the problem is as urgent as you describe,
which I and many other scientists believe, urgency itself must allow the use of
different ethics or modes of conduct to resolve the problem. Any thoughts about
this? (Hint: I think this should be your next blog topic)
Don, thanks so much for writing this very excellent piece.
J ohn Lemons
DonaldA.Brown says:
10Responses
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