Climate change and ethics

Abstract

This chapter examines the ethical issues with which we are confronted with climate change. It does not seek to explore the extensive literature on the subject, but rather is an introduction to the relevance of ethics to the debate but also the limitations of ethics in identifying solutions. The chapter looks at mitigation (the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions); adaptation (the adoption of measures to combat the consequences of climate change which will inevitably arise from the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere - such as sea level rises) and loss and damage (the cost of damage resulting from climate change which cannot be avoided even with adaptation. Both mitigation and adaptation throw up ethical questions around what measures should be taken, by whom and when and all three beg the question, at whose cost? The chapter reviews the extent to which the international framework has, from its outset, as reflected in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, acknowledged these questions and how the different impacts on different states and generations need to be taken into account. The chapter concludes that whilst a recognition of the ethical dimensions of all the climate change issues is essential to finding fair and lasting solutions, it is also not enough on its own. The application of 'fairness' alone will not point to unequivocal, unchallengeable outcomes: in some cases, what may seem fair to one party /state may seem wholly unreasonable to another. The author seeks to exemplify this through the application of historic emissions as the yardstick for applying fairness between states as regards the allocation of costs and emissions reductions.