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Ethics in managing climate change most often involves two issues that are tightly connected. The first involves considerations about the just distribution of entitlements and burdens, and the second concerns the fair differentiation of responsibilities. The chapter explains the most important ethical implications of international climate politics a...
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The current climate crisis is linked to the negative impacts of human occupations, as enacted historically and currently, on the world’s ecosystems. Such impacts raise the questions: Are all occupational desires legitimate if their realization is incompatible with the preservation of ecosystems? How do the occupational choices we make today impact...
While nudging has garnered plenty of interdisciplinary attention, the ethics of applying it to climate policy has been little discussed. However, not all ethical considerations surrounding nudging are straightforward to apply to climate nudges. In this article, we overview the state of the debate on the ethics of nudging and highlight themes that a...
Citations
... While the climate ethics literature has primarily focused on the negative impacts of climate change and the fair sharing of burdens for their minimization, prevention, and compensation (cf. Gardiner et al., 2010;Hayward, 2012;Page 2008;Wallimann-Helmer, 2019), potential benefits from contributing to emissions reduction have been comparatively neglected. Normative literature on benefitting and climate change focuses on the Beneficiary Pays Principle (BPP), which holds that those who benefit from climate change have proportionally greater responsibilities for climate action (Heyward, 2014;Page, 2012). ...
... Similarly, the BPP places greater responsibility upon those who have benefitted more from actions that contributed to climate change, even if they did not directly cause the emissions (Page, 2012). Under both the PPP and the BPP, carbon majors carry unaddressed historical responsibilities deemed unjust and both principles identify duties to correct for this situation (García-Portela, 2023;Heyward, 2021;Wallimann-Helmer, 2019). Most importantly, investing in CDR may allow carbon majors to become 'carbon neutral' while continuing to contribute to climate change or to benefit from actions contributing to it. ...
Non-Technical Summary
Climate stabilization requires scaling-up technologies to capture and store carbon. Carbon removal could be very profitable, and some of the agents best placed to benefit are ‘carbon majors’, i.e. fossil fuel companies. We argue that in ordinary circumstances only agents without significant historical climate responsibilities would be entitled to the full benefits from carbon removal. Under non-ideal conditions, carbon majors might be entitled to benefit, provided that no other agent could remove similar quantities of carbon at similar costs. This burden of proof is only likely to be met in countries with poor governance capacities.
Technical Summary
Climate stabilization requires scaling up technologies to capture and store carbon. Some of the agents best placed to profit from carbon removal are ‘carbon majors’, especially fossil fuel companies. Yet incentivizing carbon majors to undertake carbon removal poses an ethical dilemma: carbon majors have made significant historical contributions to climate change and have significantly benefitted from such contributions without being made to compensate for resulting climate harm. This is why it seems unfair to reward them with additional economic benefits. However, carbon majors possess the technological skills and infrastructure to upscale carbon removal efficiently. We argue that in ordinary circumstances, only agents without significant climate responsibilities would be morally entitled to fully benefit from carbon removal. Yet under non-ideal conditions, it might be permissible to reward carbon majors if no other agent were capable of removing as much carbon at similar costs and on similar timeframes. We believe this argument faces an imposing burden of proof that is only likely to be met in countries with poor governance capacities. In more favorable circumstances, including those of most OECD countries, rewarding carbon majors without having them pay for their historical climate responsibilities remains impermissible.
Social Media Summary
Rewarding carbon majors to undertake carbon dioxide removal is unjust due to their historical climate responsibilities. Where possible, governments should empower other agents to remove CO 2 .
... From a deontological perspective, climate change is typically approached through theories of distributive or corrective justice that aim to identify and justify a series of principles for guiding global climate governance 1 (Baatz, 2013;Caney, 2005;Gardiner, 2004;Page, 2008Page, , 2012Shue, 1999). Usually, such climate ethics theories aim to specify how to understand the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities as a principle underlying global climate governance (Wallimann-Helmer, 2019b). ...
... In addition, this universalistic moral perspective clearly differs from the recommendations on climate change adaptation formulated in the IPCC's fifth assessment report, which are more in line with a particularistic ethical framing (Voisard, 2021). Climate action and the diverse areas of climate policy require not a universalistic but a context-specific point of view if their ethical implications and challenges are to be properly addressed (Wallimann-Helmer, 2019b. ...
This paper discusses two approaches to climate ethics for practical
reflection and decision-making in concrete local climate change governance. After a brief review of the main conceptual frameworks in climate ethics research, we show that none of these leading approaches is sufficiently context specific and pluralistic to provide guidance appropriate for concrete local climate governance. As alternatives, we present principlism as a methodology of midlevel principles and environmental pragmatism as an ethical approach. We argue that the two methodologies of principlism and pragmatism offer a new pluralistic framework that allows realworld conditions and contexts to be properly integrated into ethical analysis and decision-making in climate governance.
... The rise of the average temperature on the earth"s surface is referred to the global warming, this increase in temperature is because the world uses fossil fuel that produces the gasses emissions such as Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ), and water vapor [1][2][3]. One solution to decrease the temperature of the earth by reducing the using fossil fuel by using Renewable Energy Sources (RES), they are several types of (RES) such as Photovoltaic (PV) systems, wind energy, biomass, nuclear energy, and hydropower [4][5]. ...
There are various types of renewable energy
sources worldwide, including Photovoltaic (PV) systems.
PV systems have witnessed significant growth in recent
years to meet the demands o f economic, technological,
and environmental advancements. However, as Distributed
Energy Resources (DER) penetration increases, active
distribution networks face numerous challenges, making it
increasingly complex for distribution system operators to
effe ctively manage and design their networks. One of the
key challenges involves maintaining voltage profiles
within specified limits to avoid load reduction or
decreased renewable energy production. To address this
issue, Photovoltaic (PV) inverter Volt VAr control
schemes offer a potential solution. This paper focuses on
the implementation of reactive power (Volt VAr) control
using both Model Predictive Controller (MPC) and PI
controls. The objective is to maintain the voltage profile
within prescribed limit s at the bus connected to the PV
system in a low voltage distribution network. The study
considers two scenarios: over voltage and under voltage,
demonstrating the enhancement of Hosting Capacity (HC)
through reactive power control. MATLAB SIMULINK is
empl oyed to analyze the effects and quantify the
improvements. The findings of this research highlight the
significant support provided by smart inverter (Volt VAr)
control in increasing the integration of PV solar systems
into the grid, thereby enhancing the HC of the system.
... Both policy domains concern measures to minimize the risks of near-term climate impacts that cannot be prevented by mitigation efforts. The objects of responsibility in these domains are the measures to be taken to minimize risks of negative climate impacts (Wallimann-Helmer et al., 2019). Responsibilities must be differentiated for financing, implementing and maintaining these measures. ...
... To better understand why I believe this to be the case, it is helpful first to look more closely at the structure of international climate politics. International climate politics is a system with at least two levels of policy-making (Miller, 2008;Wallimann-Helmer, 2019). At the first, international level, the parties to the UNFCCC have to negotiate and accept differentiations of responsibilities among them. ...
Ethical challenges concerning climate change most often involve two issues that are closely connected. The first of these involves the just distribution of entitlements and burdens, and the second concerns the fair differentiation of responsibilities. Although the fairness of any differentiation of responsibilities must rely on principles of justice, the applicability of these principles and the demands they make depend strongly on three factors. a) the climate policy domains of mitigation, of adaptation or of loss and damage, b) the agents, i.e. most often states or other communities, bearing the responsibilities, and c) the international, regional, national or local policy levels at issue. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is not only the starting point of climate justice. It also shapes what combinations of principles of justice are most appropriate for the varying agents of climate action.
The consideration of justice has become a critical area of focus for researchers, as awareness is increasing that (perceived) injustices are a main barrier for effectively tackling the interconnected global grand challenges, such as the climate and the biodiversity crises. Insufficient attention to perceptions of justice is a major issue slowing progress on climate change and other major policy issues. Justice, however, is difficult to grasp as it is a multi-dimensional and culturally diverse term and is in many instances of global socio-environmental issues not formally institutionalized.
This working paper introduces the first version of the IIASA/EQU justice framework, which comprehensively outlines justice in its multiple aspects with the aim to facilitate justice assessment across diverse research and policy contexts. It is thus a descriptive framework with no normative objectives. The framework is grounded in philosophy and is applied and tested in a variety of applications, to be useful for research and decision-making. It is meant to be accessible across disciplines, powerful in terms of capacity to express a variety of justice ideas, and modular so researchers can select and deploy the aspects that are most appropriate or useful.
The framework as presented here serves as a baseline for further refinement, expansion, applications, and evaluation across disciplines, subject areas, and cultural backgrounds.
From a nonideal justice perspective, this article investigates liability and compensation in their wider theoretical context to better understand the governance of climate loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The usual rationale for considering compensation takes a backward-looking understanding of responsibility. It links those causing harm directly to its remedy. This article shows that, under current political circumstances, it is more reasonable to understand responsibility as a forward-looking concept and thus to differentiate responsibilities on grounds of capacity and solidarity. The article argues that loss and damage entitlements in UNFCCC governance should be understood as entitlements to a threshold of capabilities for resilience. While compensation merely means redressing the situation ex ante a threat, entitlements to capabilities for resilience can entail more demanding responsibilities of support. This means that Article 8 of the Paris Agreement has much more demanding implications than it might at first appear.
The agricultural use and conversion of tropical peatlands is considered a major source of land-based greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, the protection and restoration of tropical peatlands has recently turned into an important strategy to mitigate global climate change. Little research exists that has investigated the impacts and dynamics that such climate mitigation efforts evoke in local communities living in and around peatlands. We present insights on this from Sumatra, Indonesia and use a climate justice lens to evaluate local outcomes. We show how an increasingly transnational network of state and non-state actors has become involved in developing new laws, policy programs and land-use agreements on Sumatra's coastal peatlands, aiming at supposedly win-win low-carbon development pathways. We argue that such efforts are open to much of the same criticism that has been raised regarding previous policies and projects aimed at reducing GHGE from deforestation and forest degradation. These projects disregard local perspectives on development, fail to deliver the promised benefits and, through a reconfiguration of local land-use rights, reduce the capabilities of smallholder farmers to benefit from their land. In sum, our analysis suggests that recent policies and projects aimed at mitigating GHGE from tropical peatlands contribute to a redistribution of the global climate mitigation burden onto smallholder farmers in Indonesia. This occurs through their threefold assignment to protect forests, prevent fires and help restore degraded peatlands.
