Monday 3/5 13-15 Ethical dimension of financing climate change mitigation and adaptation (Seminar: RW)

Financing climate change mitigation and adaptation clearly have ethical dimensions. How to distribute costs between generations, but also between groups or nations within the same generation, is linked to questions about responsibility and justice. In this seminar, various ethical positions on mitigation and adaptation will be discussed.

Zoom link: https://gu-se.zoom.us/j/69907694182

This seminar will be organized as group discussions in ‘breakout rooms’ in Zoom. First, all of us meet for a few minutes of introduction and division into groups. In the groups, you should discuss the three topics below. Come prepared! Read Gardiner and reflect over the discussion topics below in advance.

The group should write a protocol from the discussions, where your answers to the questions are briefly summarized in 1-2 pages (bullet points are allowed). You don’t have to agree to everything, different opinions in the group should be reflected in the protocol. In it, refer to Gardiner (mandatory), and possibly to other texts (voluntary). Also include the names of the participants. Upload the protocol here on Canvas no later than May 6^th.

If you are unable to take part in the seminar, you should discuss the three topics individually in 1-2 pages and upload the paper here no later than May 6^th.

Topics for discussion:

Arguments against acting decisively on climate change include, according to Gardiner, economic arguments, such as the cost argument and the adaptation argument. Explain briefly how Gardiner dismisses these arguments. Are there further counter-arguments?
The philosopher Edward Page (2012) has distinguished between three justice principles for allocating costs for mitigation and adaptation to climate change: according to Contributor pays’ principle (CPP), often referred to as Polluter’s pays’ principle (PPP) or historical responsibility, “states should bear the costs of managing climate change according to their respective shares of the accumulations of greenhouse gas that drive climate change”, thus states who have emitted a lot of CO₂ should pay most; the Ability to pay principle (APP) “applies such that states should bear climatic burdens in proportion to their relative capacities to bear such burdens”, e.g. rich countries should pay the most; and Beneficiary pays’ principle (BPP), in which ”beneficiaries of activities that cause climate change should shoulder the principal financial and other costs associated with implementing policies designed to prevent or reduce human disadvantage arising from climate change”. What ethical strengths and weaknesses do you think that each of these principles have? Which one (or combination) would you prefer? Are there other, better ways to distribute climate burdens? Gardiner introduces four ways of allocating future emissions. Do you see similarities between them and the principles Page identifies? Are some of them based on CPP, APP or BPP?
Steven Gardiner’s chapter is 10 years old. Although the ethical arguments are still relevant (I think, at least), do you see signs in the text that time has passed (besides obvious references to old IPCC-reports, etcetera). Are, for instance, the main arguments against acting on climate change that he brings up still the same, or have they been substituted by other arguments in the public debate? Are the solutions he points to still part of the discussions, according to your knowledge?

Readings:

Gardiner, Stephen (2010): “Introductory overview”. In Gardiner, Stephen et al., Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, p. 3-35. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available as e-book at GUB.