Individualized responsibility: 'if climate protection becomes everyone's responsibility, does it end up being no-one's?'

Jennifer Kent

doi:10.5130/ccs.v1i3.1081

Abstract

Whereas global compacts, such as the Kyoto Protocol, have yet to consolidate action from governments on climate change, there has been increasing emphasis and acknowledgement of the role of individuals (as citizens and consumers) as contributors to climate change and as responsible agents in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, along with the acknowledgement of the threat that anthropogenic climate change presents to the planet, governments and non-government organizations have focused on personal responsibility campaigns targeting individuals and households with a view to stemming the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian Government, for example, spent $25 million in 2007 on the climate change information campaign targeted to every Australian household, ‘Be Climate Clever: “I can do that”. Such measures centre on “personal, private-sphere ….. behaviour” (Stern 2005: 10786) that focuses on the “choice of goods, services and lifestyles” (WWF-UK 2008: 10) and imply that global greenhouse gas emission reduction targets can be met through the actions of individuals. There is growing concern in some quarters about climate change programs that emphasize individual behaviour change strategies that use “simple and painless steps” (WWF-UK 2008) and “small steps add up” (Accountability and Consumers International 2007) approaches. The emergent fear is that given the urgency of the climate change problem that such approaches will mean important opportunities for citizen-led action will be lost. This paper will explore how notions of individual responsibility have arisen and what the trend towards individualized responsibility may mean for active citizenship on climate change.

Highlights

Concern about human-induced climate change has grown over the last few decades and it is widely considered to be ‘the greatest threat to humanity’ (Hansen et al 2008; Hansen 2007; Watkins 2007)
A more sophisticated approach is typified by the Australian Conservation Foundation (2007) ‘Consuming Australia’ report which attributes all of the environmental impacts from the production and consumption of goods and services we consume to the level of each Australian household, implying that large scale, complex and “messy” (Garnaut 2008) problems, such as climate change, become solvable through individual consumer choice and action
Birnbacher (2000) suggests that individual responsibility exists in the form of a duty of care towards future generations. Could this moral imperative be garnered to overcome political inertia in the face of the impending climate crisis? Neoliberalism has generated rationalist models of individual responsibility towards environmental problems which rely on freedom of choice and freewill and encouraged through consumerism. Whilst such prescriptions are hegemonic in current societal approaches to climate change abatement, serious concerns are being raised on the ability of individuals as consumers to bring about the significant changes in carbon reduction required

Summary

Introduction

Concern about human-induced climate change has grown over the last few decades and it is widely considered to be ‘the greatest threat to humanity’ (Hansen et al 2008; Hansen 2007; Watkins 2007). The impacts of climate change (as described above) are based on scenarios that predict environmental and social conditions of the future (IPCC climate models predict up to the year 2100) yet according to emerging scientific understanding of climatic change, action to make deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions needs to be taken (by, say 2020).

Results

Conclusion