The Urgent and Practical Need To Turn up the Volume on The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change Donald A. Brown Scholar In Residence and Professor Widener.

The Urgent and Practical Need To Turn up the Volume on The Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change

Donald A. BrownScholar In Residence and ProfessorWidener University School Of Law

Objectives of Presentation

• There are features of climate change unlike any other environmental issue, that scream for attention as seeing it as a moral problem.

• Neither the US media nor most environmental NGOs groups are bringing to the attention of the public the ethical, justice, and fairness issues of climate change.

Goals of Presentation• Governments cannot think clearly about policy

options until they think clearly about the ethical issues

• The strongest arguments made against the five most frequent arguments made against climate policies are arguments based upon ethics and justice

• We need to call on the US government (federal and state) and all governments to expressly respond to the ethical issues raised by various climate policy.

Why are ethical questions more salient at the global scale?

This here

Makes this

happen here.

Questions of: Damage Responsibility: Distributive Justice?; Welfare Maximization? Procedural Justice? Human Rights?

The Consequences Are Potentially

Catastrophic

Why are ethical questions more salient at the global

scale?

US GHG Emissions Also Are Contributing To Flooding Around the World

US GHG Emissions Also Are Contributing To

Loss of Food Supply

Glacier Dependent Rivers in Asia

Vulnerability to Drought: Exposure + SensitivityFrequency Mortality

Government’s interests do not coincide with those harmed by the emission of greenhouse gases*

In general, the U.S. government represents the interest of its citizens only, not the interests of others!

Who represents these people ?

*responsible for climate change

These people cant petition their government for protection

271 Gigatonnes left for the entire world

280 ppm CO2, approximate 10, 000 year levelbefore industrial revolution

400 ppm CO2 now

450 ppm CO2 , 50 % chance > 2 deg C

China

USAAustralia

Brazil India

Canada

FranceGermany Russia

Other EU

Developing Countries

The Equity Question: Who gets to fill the rest of the atmospheric bathtub given limited remaining space to limit atmospheric GHG concentrations to safe levels, different historical and per capita emissions that have filled the bathtub to current levels, and the needs of poor countries to grow economically.

The Justice Question: What levels of GHGs will be permitted in the bathtub given that the higher the levels: (a) the greater the harms to those countries and millions of poor people that have done little to fill the bathtub, and (b) the greater the threat of rapid, abrupt, potentially catastrophic climate change.

The atmosphere is like a bathtub: a space with a limited volume

Donald A. Brown, Scholar In Residence and Professor, Widener University Law School, [email protected]

Some nations filled this space much more than others

Above this line very dangerous climate change

Lima Call to Action

• Reiterates its invitation to all Parties to communicate their intended nationally determined contributions well in advance of the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (by the first quarter of 2015 by those Parties ready to do so) in a manner that facilitates the clarity, transparency and understanding of the intended nationally determined contributions;

Lima Decision • Agrees that the information to be provided by Parties

communicating their intended nationally determined contributions, in order to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding, may include, as appropriate, inter alia, quantifiable information on the reference point (including, as appropriate, a base year), time frames and/or periods for implementation, scope and coverage, planning processes, assumptions and methodological approaches including those for estimating and accounting for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and, as appropriate, removals, and how the Party considers that its intended nationally determined contribution is fair and ambitious, in light of its national circumstances, and how it contributes towards achieving the objective of the Convention as set out in its Article 2;

Issues on the Paris Agenda• More ambition from nations to close the ambition gap, whether nations will

take their responsibility to reduce their emissions based upon equity seriously.

• Whether all, some, or developed nations will accept a legally binding target• Funding for adaptation, where will the $100 billion needed for least

developed nations be based upon secure, predictable funding• Whether a loss and damages fund will be created• Whether 2 degree C warming limit will remain or whether 1.5 degree target

replace current agreement.• Will Kyoto trading mechanisms survive? New market mechanism?• Issues surrounding green fund, adaptation fund.• Issues surrounding REDD and tech transfer

Twenty-Five Year Attack on Proposed US Climate Policies In Which the Press and Many US NGOs Have Ignored the Strong Ethical Response

Arguments

• Cost Too Much• Destroy jobs or specific

industries • Cost-Benefit • The US Should Not To Do

Anything Until Other Countries Like China Act

• Not Sufficient Scientific Support For Action

The major ethical issues

• The atmospheric stabilization goal• Any nation’s or government’s fair share of safe

global emissions• Who should pay for adaptation costs• Who has responsibility for losses and damages.• The ethical obligations of subnational

governments, organizations, entities, and individuals to stop emitting ghgs

The need for applied ethics• All claims about what should be done about

environmental issues already have an implicit factual claim and an implicit normative claim.

• Most academic environmental ethics has been focused on theoretical distinctions such as how to ground a non-anthropocentric basis for protecting the environment. We need an applied climate ethics

• There is a huge need to help citizens and policy makers unpack the implicit normative claims in arguments about environmental policy that are often hidden in technical language.

An Applied Ethics

• An applied environmental ethics group’s main function would be to spot ethical issues raised by various claims

• Get policy makers to understand that one not need to agree on what perfect justice requires to make progress on ethics and justice.

• The IPCC recent work on ethics and equity is an interesting example.

What DO We Actually Know About How Nations Have Considered or

Ignored Ethics and Justice

• National Climate JusticeResearch Project on Ethics and Justice in

Formulating National Climate Change Policies

What Have We Learned

• All Governments are relying in part on economic self-interest rather than global responsibilities

• No nation has explained how its commitment quantitatively links to an atmospheric carbon budget or an equity framework.

• Some nations have acknowledged that their commitments needs to achieve a 2 0C budget and be based upon equity but don’t describe how their target accomplishes this goal

How do we get the US media to cover?:

• The ethical issues already at the center of international climate negotiations;

• All nations must reduce their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions regardless of what other nations do;

• IPCC conclusions on ethics and equity in Working Group III

• The unacceptable ethical responses to arguments against US climate policies that have been made for 20 years.

We must demand:

That US and all governments respond expressly to the ethical issues such as:

–What atmospheric stabilization goal does your emissions goal seek to achieve?–How did you consider fairness in setting your emissions reduction percentage goal?–How does your climate policy lead to emissions reductions in the short- medium- and long –term to prevent catastrophic harms to others –On what ethical basis can you claim that high-emitting governments and individuals have no responsibility to pay for adaptation, harms, and damages to vulnerable poor people around the world.

Two web sites

• Ethicsandclimate.org (150 articles on ethics and climate)

• Nationalclimatejustice.org (detailed analysis of the extent to which ethics and justice have been taken into account in setting climate policy in Australia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Equator, Germany, Ghana, India, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Malawi, Mauritius, Marshall Islands, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, USA, Zimbabwe)

Contact Information

Donald A. BrownScholar In Residence and Professor, Widener University School of LawPart-time Professor, Nanjing University Of Information Science and TechnologyEthicsandclimte.org

[email protected]