Ethics, human rights, and distributive and procedural justice must be an integral component of international negotiations seeking any comprehensive solution to climate change, according to a new report released here today (Nov. 8) at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The report asserts that many nations are taking positions that are ethically problematic.
The White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change draws strong ethical conclusions about positions taken by some governments in climate change negotiations on several issues. For instance, the paper concludes that those nations that use scientific uncertainty, cost to their national economy alone, lack of action by other nations, or waiting for new, less costly technologies to be invented as justifications for not reducing their emissions to a level that represents its fair share of safe total global emissions, are acting unethically.
In particular, the report disparages the notion that a country may contribute to global warming without consideration of any other nation's well-being, noting, "climate change policies developed by nations that result in harm to life, liberty, and securities of people in other nations violate basic human rights." The paper adds, "The world community must refuse giving credence to these arguments as a matter of justice and ethics."
The report contends that there is a consensus among ethicists for many of its preliminary conclusions while also identifying other issues about which additional ethical reflection is needed.
The White Paper is the work of the Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change (EDCC), whose secretariat is the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State, University Park.
Collaborating organizations and individuals that included ethicists, scientists, economists, legal experts, philosophers and negotiators are Penn State's Rock Ethics Institute, Secretariat; Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy; Brazilian Forum on Climate Change; Center for Ethics, University of Montana; Centre for Applied Ethics, Cardiff University, U.K.; Centre for Global Ethics, Birmingham University, U.K.; Coordination of Post Graduate Programs in Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro-The Energy Planning Program; EcoEquity; Global Ecological Integrity Group; IUCN Environmental Law Commission-Ethics Specialist Group; International Virtual Institute of Global Change, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; New Directions: Science, Humanities, Policy; Oxford Climate Policy; Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, U.K.; and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, U.K.
The report, its authors say, was created for policy makers and environmental professionals who routinely participate in policy making with the goal of getting them to begin looking only at those options that can be justified ethically. It defines ethics as "the field of philosophical inquiry that examines concepts and their employment about what is right and wrong, obligatory and non-obligatory, and when responsibility should attach to human actions that cause harm."
The White Paper contends that ethics and justice require a different approach to international negotiations on climate change than that which has been taken by many nations thus far. More specifically, the paper asserts that ethical principles require that all nations must:
-- Immediately acknowledge that they have an ethical duty to reduce their emissions as quickly as possible to their fair share of safe total global emissions;
-- Immediately agree that an international greenhouse gas (GHG) atmospheric stabilization target should be as low as now possible unless those who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts have consented to be put at risk from higher atmospheric concentrations of GHGs;
-- No longer use scientific uncertainty as a justification for refusing to reduce emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions;
-- No longer use cost to their national economy alone as justification for their willingness to reduce emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions;
-- No longer act as if they are just in refusing to act to reduce their emissions to their fair share of global emission on the basis that all other nations have yet to reduce their emissions;
-- No longer refuse to reduce emissions on the basis that new less costly technologies will be invented in the future;
-- Agree that all nations need to come up with positions on allocating greenhouse gas targets among nations that are based upon ethically relevant criteria;
-- Consider and consult with other nations and peoples who will be most adversely affected by climate change in setting national climate change policies;
-- Acknowledge that climate change policies that do not consider the ethical dimensions of climate change could lead to violations of human rights and unjust distribution of harms and benefits of climate change;
-- Admit that those nations who are most responsible for human-induced climate change have responsibility to pay for human-induced caused harms from climate change;
-- Support a post-Kyoto round of negotiations that will lead to both adequate reductions to minimize atmospheric concentrations of GHGs and be ethically and equitably supportable.