Abstract
Taking the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as representative, I argue that animal ethics has been neglected in the assessment of climate policy. While effects on ecosystem services, biodiversity, and human welfare are all catalogued quite carefully, there is no consideration at all of the effects of climate change on the welfare of animals. This omission, I argue, should bother us, for animal welfare is not adequately captured by assessments of ecosystem services, biodiversity, or human welfare. After describing the paper’s assumptions and discussing the role of the IPCC’s Assessment Reports in climate policy, I consider the presentation of climate impacts in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, noting the aspects of animal welfare that are (and are not) considered there, and comparing the report’s treatment of animal welfare to its treatment of human welfare. Next, I argue that the concepts of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and human welfare do not adequately capture the welfare of animals. Finally, I discuss concerns about human responsibility for animal welfare and the practicality of including considerations of animal welfare among the climate impacts studied by the IPCC.
Highlights
While the rift between animal ethics and environmental ethics is beginning to mend, one legacy of the conflict between the two fields is that certain areas of policy are still exclusively dominated by one set of concerns or the other.1 This paper is about one of those areas: climate policy
Taking the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as representative, I argue that animal ethics has been neglected in the assessment of climate policy
I discuss concerns about human responsibility for animal welfare and the practicality of including considerations of animal welfare among the climate impacts studied by the IPCC
Summary
While the rift between animal ethics and environmental ethics is beginning to mend, one legacy of the conflict between the two fields is that certain areas of policy are still exclusively dominated by one set of concerns or the other. This paper is about one of those areas: climate policy. Horta claims that most animals’ lives involve more suffering than pleasure, in part because most animals reproduce by having many offspring, very few of whom survive to adulthood (in technical terms, they are r-strategists rather than K-strategists) If this is true, if climate change increases the number of animals who reproduce this way, as Horta argues it will, or if it increases the number of animals who exist at all (by increasing available food resources, for example), this is a bad consequence from the point of view of animal welfare. Considerations of animal welfare ought to be taken into consideration when we make choices about climate policy
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
