1. Climate Change Ethics and Policy: Some Basic Considerations
Dane Scott
Director, Mansfield Ethics and Public Affairs Program
Associate Professor, Department of Society and Conservation
College of Forestry and Conservation
The University of Montana

2. Ethics
Ethics: codes and standards of practice Ethics: theories and principles. Ethical principles help us decide what is the right thing to do. Ethical principles are often developed as part of an ethical theory.

3. Questions of Justice:
Questions of Justice: How do we distribute goods: wealth, duties, rights, powers, opportunities, offices, honors… Principles of justice are found within ethical theories. The goal of political philosophy is to bring moral clarity to the alternatives we confront as citizens. Climate change presents citizens with many complex and confusing alternative courses of action.

4. Article 3, 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change
“The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effect thereof.”

5. Four Dominant Approaches to Distributive Justice in the West
Maximizing Welfare: Utilitarianism
Freedom: Free-Market Libertarians
Fairness: Focus on Human Rights
The Good or Just Society

6. Monkey Cooperation and Fairness

7. Climate Change and Justice
How to think ethically about a world with limited resources, a growing population, and a wide gap between the rich and the poor.
Modern Western ways of thinking about justice evolved in world where there were unlimited resource.

8. Two Types of Ethical Questions for Mitigation Policies
Questions of risk and precaution
involving mitigation targets
The question of distributing costs, benefits, risk, harms, burdens, advantages, and the like, that come with cutting GHG emissions.

9. Risk, Precaution and Mitigation Targets
“The really vital issue does not concern the presence of scientific uncertainty, but rather how we decide what to do under such circumstances (Gardiner).”

10. West Antarctic Ice Sheet

12. Climate Impacts & Developing Countries

14. Unstoppable

15. Unstoppable

16. “Stoppable”

17. Moral Dilemmas

18. Climate Change Dilemmas: What’s the right thing to do?
Humans versus Non-humans Species
Present Generation versus Future Generations
Emerging Economies versus Developed Economies

19. Biodiversity

20. Human versus Non-Humans Species
The rate of climatic change has severe consequences for the abilities of species and ecosystems to adapt. The slower the rate of change the more likely adaptation can occur, conversely, the faster the rate of change the more likely extinction and ecosystem collapse will occur. Stated simply, analyses have shown that a more rapid rate of climatic change corresponds to higher extinction rates and a loss of biodiversity.
Thomas, Chris D. et al. “Extinction Risk from Climate Change.” Nature. 427 (2004):

21. “Tragedy of the Commons” Garrett Harden, Science, 162 (1968): 1243-1248

22. Solution: “Mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon.”
“Ruin is the destination towards which all men run, each pursuing his own best interest in a a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.”
Solution: “Mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon.”

23. Present versus Future
John Broome: “It is people who are now children and people who are not yet born who will reap most of the benefits of any project that mitigates the effects of global warming.”

24. World Population

25. Future Generations
We have strong moral reasons involving responsibilities to future generations for an aggressive search for alternative sources of energy—sources other than coal, oil, and gas.
Henry Shue, “Responsibility to Future Generations and the Technological Transition”

26. Climate Change Policy is Energy Policy

27. The Technological Transition ate of Technological Transition
Date of Technological
Transition for Society B
Quantity
GHGs
Difference in
Quantity of GHGs from A & B
Date of Technological
Transition for Society A
Time

28. Poor versus Rich
“There is something inconsistent about people who profess to be terribly concerned about the welfare of future generations but do not seem to be terribly concerned about the welfare of poor people today.” --Robert Solow

29. Climate Change and Development
“ The climate issue is part of a larger challenge of sustainable development. Implementing climate change policies can be more effective when consistently embedded within broader strategies designed to make national and regional development paths more sustainable.”

30. Population Growth

31. Economic Growth

32. Poverty Rates

33. Development, Social Welfare and Justice, and Fossil Fuels

34. COAL
The cheapness and security of coal are overwhelming the desire to be clean.

35. CO2 Emissions

36. What is an just distribution?
Maximizing Welfare: Utilitarianism
Freedom: Free-Market Libertarians
Fairness: Focus on Human Rights
The Good or Just Society

37. Four Approaches Historical Principles of Justice (Responsibility)
Non-historical/Allocating Future Emissions
Equal Per Capita Entitlements (Equality)
Rights to Subsistence Emissions (Human Rights)
Priority to the Least Well-Off (Fairness)

38. 38

39. Backward-looking Considerations
Two ways of looking at this:
“Developed countries must compensate developing countries for overuse.”
Developing countries must now be given their share of the atmospheric commons.
Objections: Ignorance and Impractical
Problem: How to allocate future emissions.

40. Equal Per Capita Entitlements
“The central argument for equal per capita rights is that the atmosphere is a global commons, whose use and preservation are essential to human well being (Baer).”

42. Example Proposal (Maximizing Welfare): Peter Singer
“A well-regulated system of per capita entitlements combined with global emissions trading would, by internalizing the true costs of production, lead to a solution that is both fair and efficient. “

43. Fairness: A Proposal Most likely to increase global welfare
Equal per capita is a political compromise that is most like to succeed.
Equal per capita is much easier on developing countries than historical principles

44. Problem
The proposal does not take into account the fact that emissions may play very different roles in people’s lives. In particular some emissions are used to produce luxury items, whereas others are necessity for most people’s survival.

45. Objections
Objection: Does not require developing countries to do anything?
Reply: Not true
Objection: Too dislocating on developing countries
Reply: Emissions trading

46. Climate Change Dilemmas: What is the right thing to do?
In what ways is global climate change like the trolley problem?
Humans versus Non-humans Species
Present Generation versus Future Generations
Emerging Economies versus Developed Countries

47. Final Thought.”
“If the end result of negotiations is not fair then it will not be fully implemented. Little or no mitigation of climate change is then the unfair outcome to those who will have to bear the brunt of the impacts.” “An unjust law is no law at all.”