Climate Change, Justice and Future Generations


Book Description

Climate Change, Justice and Future Generations is a valuable contribution to the debate on both theoretical and applied justice in climate change, and it fills a manifest gap in the current literature. Marco Grasso, International Environmental Agreements Page effectively marries the issues raised by climate change science with analytical philosophy to provide a perspective on why or why not measures should be taken to reduce climate change and the risks/harm it poses for future generations. . . a valuable book for politicians and policy makers who seek to change the world and manage its climate. Antoinette M. Mannion, Electronic Green Journal We are badly in need of ways of understanding global problems that go beyond the current economic paradigms. Climate Change, Justice and Future Generations helps us with this task by effectively linking climate change with some important mainstream work on political justice. It should be a very useful book not just for the classroom and the academy, but also for the realm of policy. Stephen Gardiner, University of Washington, US The book begins with a detailed account of the science of climate change that is user friendly for non-scientists without sacrificing depth. . . Page s analysis is impressive in both its scope and execution, and has a relevance and potential appeal in a number of fields. Kerri Woods, Political Studies Review Climate Change, Justice and Future Generations is an authoritative, analytical and extremely scholarly integration of scientific and technical information, empirical data and modelling concerning global climate change and high-level normative analysis. Page convincingly and patiently lays out the argument, including the ways in which climate change challenges settled modes of ethical thought, despite it being one of the most, if not the, important ethical issues of the age. As a book on both theoretical and applied ethics it makes an important contribution to the field. John Barry, Queen s University Belfast, UK What the climate change policy called Contraction and Convergence has lacked until now is an authoritative theoretical grounding. Here Ed Page puts this right. In masterful fashion, he dissects the issues at stake in designing climate change policy, and leaves his readers in no doubt that there is a fair and effective alternative to rising tides. This is a book for students, researchers and for anyone with the feeling that business as usual is no longer an option. Andrew Dobson, University of Keele, UK Global climate change raises important questions of international and intergenerational justice. In this important new book the author places research on the origins and impacts of climate change within the broader context of distributive justice and sustainable development. He argues that a range of theories of distribution notably those grounded in ideals of equality, priority and sufficiency converge on the adoption of the ambitious global climate policy framework known as Contraction and Convergence . Climate Change, Justice and Future Generations will be of great interest to academics and students specialising in environmental ethics, politics and environmental sustainability. It will also be of general interest to those concerned with climate change and the environment.




In Fairness to Future Generations


Book Description

In this book Professor Weiss combines thorough research and careful analysis with imaginative solutions and a moral fervour, to show how rules of international law can be applied in an intertemporal dimension, and how the basic principles of the intergenerational equity can be developed to provide new standards for human behaviour. She manages to communicate to the reader not only that the situation is getting desperate but also that human intelligence can in time devise adequate remedies, without destroying completely our way of life.




Fair Weather


Book Description

Is a unique, cross-disciplinary assessment of fairness and equity issues in the context of global climate change - a crucial dimension in current international negotiations - written by a collection of leading scientists in economics, sociology and social psychology, ethics, international law and political science. How should responsibility for adapting to climate change be distributed? Who should bear the costs of mitigating its impacts and how should these costs be measured? Answers to these questions differ, often according to the vulnerability, wealth and level of industrial development of the country. Finding a fair solution is controversial, but crucial to the complex and vital negotiations over global warming. This illuminating and accessible volume explores the policy dimensions and analytical needs of the negotiation process. It is essential reading for policy makers and students and teachers of economics, sociology and social psychology, ethics, international relations, law and political science. FERENC L TOTH is project leader at the Department of Global Change and Social Systems at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany. CONTRIBUTORS H Asbjorn Aaheim Frank Biermann Samuel Fankhauser Carsten Helm Juliane Kokott Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer Volker Linneweber Elizabeth L Malone Shuzo Nishioka Originally published in 1999 David W Pearce Steve Rayner P R Shukla Dominik Thieme Michael Thompson Richard S J Tol David G Victor







Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World


Book Description

Climate change is a pressing international political issue, for which a practical but principled solution is urgently required. Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World aims to make normative theorising on climate justice more relevant and applicable to political realities and public policy. The motivation behind this edited collection is that normative theorising has something to offer even in an imperfect world mired by partial compliance and unfavourable circumstances. In the last years, a lively debate has sprung up in political philosophy about non-ideal theory and there has also been an upsurge of interest in the various normative issues raised by climate change such as intergenerational justice, transnational harm, collective action, or risk assessment. However, there has been little systematic discussion of the links between climate justice and non-ideal theory even though the former would seem like a paradigm example of the relevance of the latter. The aim of this edited volume is to address this. In doing so, the volume presents original work from leading experts on climate ethics, including several who have participated in climate policy. The first part of the book discusses those facets of the debate on climate justice that become relevant due to the shortcomings of current global action on climate change. The second part makes specific suggestions for adjusting current policies and negotiating procedures in ways that are feasible in the relatively short term while still decreasing the distance between current climate policy and the ideal. The chapters in the third and final part reflect upon how philosophical work can be brought to bear on the debates in climate science, communication, and politics.




The Oxford Handbook of the Macroeconomics of Global Warming


Book Description

Dialogue on global warming has progressed from the Kyoto Protocol to meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun and will soon resume in meetings in South Africa. Some observers consider the Copenhagen conference a failure. EU representatives, in contrast, present an optimistic evaluation of achieving a global temperature rise limit of not more than 2°C by 2100. Geoscience researchers and lead investigators of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have supported CO2 emission reduction pledges and contend that we can achieve the 2°C limit through international coordination. This position conflicts with evaluations of United States Congressional and Presidential advisors, who do not believe the Copenhagen CO2 reduction commitments can hold the global warming increase to below 2°C and who have not supported the agreement. Developing countries are alarmed, because climate change is expected to hit them hardest. The developed world will use energy to mitigate global warming effects, but developing countries are more exposed by geography and poverty to the most dangerous consequences of a global temperature rise. The Oxford Handbook of the Macroeconomics of Global Warming analyzes the macroeconomics of global warming, especially the economics of possible preventative measures, various policy changes, and potential effects of climate change on developing and developed nations.




Climate Change, Intergenerational Justice, and Restorative Justice


Book Description

In anticipation that future generations will charge the present generations with recklessness by exacerbating climate change, this dissertation grapples with the proposition that future earthlings have a moral claim of justice on us. Questions to be addressed are these: What does justice require of the current generation in tackling climate change to safeguard the wellbeing of future generations? How can the current generation achieve a just relationship with those to come in the context of the atrocious violations caused by global climate change? Policy discussions of intergenerational justice predominantly frame the matter as one of distributive justice, how to distribute the benefits and burdens of climate change policy across generations. This dissertation demonstrates theories of distributive justice have the potential to be productive. However, an important aspect that needs substantial treatment, the aspect of remediation, is undertreated in theories of distributive justice. I argue that restorative justice can operate alongside the theories of distributive justice to better address the demands of intergenerational dimensions of climate change. This dissertation gives substance to ways the restorative justice framework can operate intergenerationally. Restorative justice can address not only environmental crime, but also the harms that future generations will experience because of climate change. I demonstrate the unique contributions of the restorative justice framework to the discussion of intergenerational justice.




Climate Ethics


Book Description

This collection gathers a set of seminal papers from the emerging area of ethics and climate change. Topics covered include human rights, international justice, intergenerational ethics, individual responsibility, climate economics, and the ethics of geoengineering. Climate Ethics is intended to serve as a source book for general reference, and for university courses that include a focus on the human dimensions of climate change. It should be of broad interest to all those concerned with global justice, environmental science and policy, and the future of humanity.




Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change


Book Description

This publication is extracted from a much larger report, Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, which addresses the full range of the scientific issues concerning global environmental change and offers guidance to the scientific effort on these issues in the United States. This volume consists of Chapter 7 of that report, "Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change," which was written for the report by the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Research Council (NRC). It provides findings and conclusions on the key scientific questions in human dimensions research, the lessons that have been learned over the past decade, and the research imperatives for global change research funded from the United States.