Climate change ethics

Climate change has become a concern for a number of disciplines due to its potentially catastrophic impacts on environmental systems, wildlife, nature, and humans.

Climate change poses a serious threat to the global economy as economic development, especially in the West, has been largely dependent on the extraction and burning of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution.

[5] Burning fossil fuels increases the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which is the primary driver of current global anthropogenic climate change.

Ethical implications due to spatial dispersion are those discussed in the previous section on global justice: those causing the problem are not in the same physical space as those experiencing the worst of its effects.

[13] This notion of pushing climate change impacts on future people poses epistemic difficulties, making it hard to grasp cause and effect, which could undermine motivation to respond.

Such analyses discount future generations and prioritize human interests, failing to consider all relevant costs and benefits of climate change mitigation.

[14] Using different discount rates, economists can arrive at very different conclusions regarding how much of the global budget should be dedicated to climate change mitigation, adaptation, or other things.

[15] Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities and disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, such as low-income communities, indigenous peoples, and small island developing states.

This approach involves identifying a set of moral principles that establish the minimum standards of protection required to ensure that human rights are not violated by climate change.

[15] The moral threshold approach also involves identifying the duties and responsibilities of different actors in addressing climate change, including states, corporations, and individuals.

It is also an open moral question whether or not acts of civil disobedience by individuals or groups aimed at raising awareness of the climate crisis can be justified.

It is the responsibility of all actors, including states, corporations, and individuals, to take action to address climate change and protect human rights.

Size corresponds to climate change vulnerability (determined by the University of Notre-Dame’s ND-Gain Index), with larger countries being more vulnerable. Color corresponds to total GHG emissions including land-use change (2011), with a darker shade indicating higher emissions.
Global warming—the progression from cooler historical temperatures (blue) to recent warmer temperatures (red)—is being experienced disproportionately by younger generations. [ 12 ] With continued fossil fuel emissions, that trend that will continue. [ 12 ]