Climate Change Ethics

Question 1

Ethics

Answer 1

“Ethics involves questions of justice and value. Justice is concerned with equity and fairness, and, in general, with the rights to which people are entitled. Value is a matter of worth, benefit, or good” (AR5)

Question 2

Hurricane Katrina - President bush

Answer 2

A bad situation became worse – President Bush chose to fly over the devastation instead of land and meet with victims. US citizens attempting to flee were called Refugees.

Question 3

hurricane Katrina - poor response

Answer 3

Water and food was delayed in reaching victims causing death; famished and dehydrated victims were deemed looters for seeking relief; Some fleeing New Orleans were shot and killed as they were welcome in neighboring communities; Families were forcibly separated around the country with little notification once buses arrived in New Orleans to remove citizens. It was later revealed that officials had been informed about the weakening levees and chose not to strengthen them.

Question 4

Disaster related deaths in developing countries

Answer 4

-96% of disaster related deaths occur in Developing countries (ADB et al, 2002)

Question 5

A moral problem is

Answer 5

• An individual acting intentionally to harm another individual
• AND both the individual and the harm can be identified
• AND the individual and the harm are closely related in time and space

Question 6

Example that poses a moral dilemma (Gardiner, 2011)

Answer 6

Acting independently George and a large number of unacquainted people set in motion a chain of events that causes a large number of people who will live in another part of the world never to have smoke alarms, and to have their houses set on fire

Question 7

What type of ethical dilemma is the example posed

Answer 7

o Uneven distribution of essential (development) and non essential (luxury) benefits (emissions)
o Unintentional but known harm (climate change impacts) that is now already happening
o Separation in time and space (developed – developing, current – future generations)
o Uneven distributions of impacts (coincidental, differential vulnerabilities)

Question 8

How are climate change ethics dealt with

Answer 8

• Treatment of scientific uncertainty
• Responsibility for past emissions
• Setting of mitigation targets
• Place for adaptation in policy
• Geoengineering

Question 9

Polluter pays principle

Answer 9

Those who cause the problem should pay to resolve it.

Question 10

Beneficiaries pay

Answer 10

Those who benefit should pay

Question 11

Ability to pay

Answer 11

Those who can afford to should pay

Question 12

Fair access

Answer 12

Those who have had limited access to date should have their current and future access rights protected, and should not pay to resolve climate change.

Question 13

Procedural justice

Answer 13

Due respect to all parties… but

• Compound injustice
• Inadequate representation

Question 14

Distributive justice

Answer 14

• Appropriate limit/carbon budget
• Distribution
• Equal per capita entitlements
• Inalienable right to emissions necessary for minimum level of wellbeing
• Equal burdens to mitigate e.g. 40% reduction by 2050. Equal sacrifice/fare chore division.

Question 15

If we accept that there is a moral responsibility to support adaptations, considerations are (Paavola and Adger, 2006):

Answer 15

• Responsibility for impacts
• Burden sharing of assistance to vulnerable countries and people
• Distribution of assistance among recipient countries, assistance mechanisms and adaptation measures
• Fair participation in planning and decision-making

Question 16

Principles for fair adaptation

Answer 16

Avoid dangerous climate change (UNFCC), forward looking responsibility, put most vulnerable first, equal participation of all

Question 17

UN declaration on Human rights

Answer 17

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person (UN declaration on Human Rights Article 3

Question 18

human Rights linked to effects of climate change

Answer 18

• Anthropogenic climate change violates rights to life, food, water, health, security, migration, culture
• Human right to freedom from dangerous climate change/climatic stability
• Right to development, right to emissions

Question 19

Three minimum human rights (Caney, 2010)

Answer 19

Three minimum human rights (Caney, 2010)
HR 1 – Human right to life
HR 2 – Human right to health
HR 3 – Human right to subsistence

Question 20

The 2013/14 Somerset Floods

Answer 20

• Wettest winter in the UK since 1766, but only the fifth wettest winter in Somerset
• Combination of saturated upland and lowland catchments, high river flows, high precipitation levels and high tides
• Severe and prolonged flooding on SLM, which continued for over six weeks

Question 21

Somerset Floods Response

Answer 21

Owen Patterson – Secretary of State for Defra – announced a 6wk period to develop a flood management plan
1 – To reduce the frequency, depth and duration of flooding
2 – To make the most of the special environmental characteristics of the SLM
3 – To maintain access for communities and business
4 – Ensure strategic road and rail connectivity
5 – Increase resilience to flooding
6 – To promote business confidence and growth

Question 22

somerset floods ethics

Answer 22

• History of flooding
• We live in a managed landscape
• Slow emergency response
• Local residents not listened to – “Owen Paterson’s visit to the area, when he has not even got a pair of wellies on, is a major irritation”

Question 23

Aftermath of Somerset Floods

Answer 23

• National funding for flood risk management: DEFRA £10 million; DfT £10 million; DCLG £0.5 million
• 8km of river dredged @ cost of £6 million
• Raised road accessing Muchelney
• 20 year Action Plan for the Levels and Moors developed by SCC
• Somerset rivers board

Question 24

Somerset floods recovery

Answer 24

Telegraph article – Somerset levels flooding: half of residents still unable to return home

Question 25

Ethics of flooding

Answer 25

• Uneven distribution of emissions
• Unilateral decisions to manage rivers differently
• Uneven distribution of impacts: location, age, mobility, residence
• Urban v Rural impacts: save towns and flood fields
• Impacts from response: emergency services, volunteers, media
• Insurance
• Likely re-occurrence
• New building in flood plains
• Re-locating to flood plains
• Strengthening and undermining community social capital
• Individual to collective responsibility.

Question 26

Five areas of discussion particularly relevant to substantive climate policy

Answer 26

the treatment of scientific uncertainty, responsibility for past emissions, the setting of mitigation targets, and the places of adaptation and geoengineering in the policy portfolio. Gardiner (2006)

Question 27

Costs of Kyoto compared to giving 3rd world inhabitants access to basics

Answer 27

Kyoto ‘will likely cost at least $150 billion a year, and possibly much more’, whereas ‘just $70-80 billion a year’ could give all 3rd world inhabitants access to the basic like health, education, water and sanitation. Lomborg in Gardiner (2006)

Question 28

Lomborg in Gardiner (2006) - two main ideas

Answer 28

-The first is a straightforward appeal to opportunity costs: the resources used for climate change mitigation could produce greater net benefits if employed elsewhere. second idea is that future people will be better off and so should pay more. This approach ignores all issues of responsibility. Many people in the future may be worse off than people now due to climate change

Question 29

Gardiner, 2006 - geoengineering

Answer 29

• Claim that Geonegineering is cheap focuses on the costs of implementation, but appears to ignore the risk of dangerous side effects, and the fact many geoengineering options leave some aspects of the carbon dioxide problem.
• This ignores the moral and political implications of unilateral geoengineering, and the real possibility of geopolitical conflict.

Question 30

Four principles for fair adaptation in climate change regime

Answer 30

We propose adoption of four principles for fair adaptation in the climate change regime. These include avoiding dangerous climate change, forward-looking responsibility, putting the most vulnerable first and equal participation of all
Paavola and Adger (2005)

Question 31

Initializing the principles - Paavola and Adger (2005)

Answer 31

• A safe maximum standard of 400-500 ppm of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and a carbon tax of $20-50 per carbon equivalent ton could provide initial instruments for operationalizing the principles

Question 32

Adaptation to climate change providing justice dilemmas to the global community

Answer 32

• Adaptation to climate change presents several justice dilemmas to the global community which include: what is the responsibility of developed countries for climate change impacts? how much should developed countries give assistance to developing countries for adapting to climate change and how should the burden be distributed among developed countries? How should assistance be distributed between recipient countries and adaptation measures? What procedures are fair in planning and making decisions on adaptation? Paavola and Adger (2005)

Question 33

Climate change burdening vulnerable populations

Answer 33

Climate change impacts will burden especially those populations who are already vulnerable and struggle with current climate variability and extreme weather events (O’Brien et al, 2004)

Question 34

Distributive justice

Answer 34

Distributive justice relates to the incidence of benedits and costs, broadly conceived so as to encompass non-pecuniary advantages and burdens
- Distributive justice is unlikely to be sufficient for climate justice
Paavola and Adger (2005)

Question 35

Procedural justice

Answer 35

• Procedural justice relates to the way in which parties are positioned vis-à-vis processes of planning an decision-making, encompassing issues such as recognition, participation and distribution.
  – procedural justice is needed to underpin the legitimacy of climate change regime.
  Paavola and adger (2005)

Question 36

Burden sharing justice

Answer 36

the principle that those who have caused the problem should bear the burden; the principle that those who have the ability pay should bear the burden; and the principle that those who have benefited from the activites that cause climate change should bear the burden.
Caney (2014)

Question 37

Harm avoidance justice

Answer 37

• Another perspective is concerned with the potential victims – harm avoidance justice.
• If our aim is to avert dangerous climate change, then is makes sense to commence our analysis with an account with what needs to be done to achieve this – specify second-order responsibilities required.
  Caney (2014)

Question 38

first type of harm avoidance justice

Answer 38

• The first is enforcement: those who have the political power to set up enforcement mechanisms may have a responsibility to do so.
  Caney (2014)

Question 39

Second type of harm avoidance justice

Answer 39

• Second type of second-order course of action is incentivization – offers benefits to non-compliers in exchange for compliance. – WTO and EU insist that those seeking to join must satisfy certain criteria.
  Caney (2014)

Question 40

Third type of harm avoidance justice

Answer 40

• A third type is enablement – the capacity to enable others to engage in mitigation or adaptation
  Caney (2014)

Question 41

Fourth kind of harm avoidance justice

Answer 41

• Fourth kind of second-order policy – some agents can influence the behavior of others by creating norms that discourage high emissions lifestyles.
  Caney (2014)

Question 42

Fifth kind of harm avoidance justice

Answer 42

undermining resistance to effective climate policies. – one service that some (in the media) can provide is to give an accurate portrayal of the state of climate science, reporting the levels of agreement on the existence of anthropogenic climate change.
Caney (2014)

Question 43

Civil disobedience

Answer 43

citizens can discourage, impede and even prevent their governments from engaging in activities which increase emissions above an acceptable level by engaging in civil disobedience.
Caney (2014)

Question 44

Developed countries high standard of living

Answer 44

“the current developed countries readily accept the benefits from past emissions in the form of their high standard of living and should therefore not be exempted from being held accountable for the detrimental side-effects with which their living standards were achieved.
Neumayer in Caney (2014)

Question 45

Carbon emissions as a human right

Answer 45

“People have human rights to whatever is needed to meet their basic needs as human beings”. Carbon emissions should not be the object of a human right because a decent human life does not inherently depend on them. There is a human right “not to be exposed to dangerous climate change”

Caney (2014)

Question 46

The precautionary principle

Answer 46

general idea is that if there is a potential for harm from an activity, and uncertainty about the magnitude of impacts or causality, then anticipatory action should be taken to avoid the harm
Caney (2014)

Question 47

When we cannot chose to be precautionary

Answer 47

McKinnon argues it could nevertheless be defensible with respect to climate change: if the consequences of failing to take precautionary action could be such extreme scarcity of resources as to render the pursuit of justice itself impossible, then we cannot choose not be precautionary”
Caney (2014)