§1. Climate change is a scientific, political, social issue. In what sense is it a moral question?
§2. Headings towards 2 degrees above Pre-industrial baseline
Before the 18th century, when humans in the industrial west began to burn coal, oil and gas, our atmosphere typically contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. We’re now well over 400 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. Warming of more than two or three degrees will badly impoverish nature. Many ecosystems will be damaged. About 20 to 30 percent of living species will be put at risk, and many more than that if temperatures rise as far as four degrees. Corals, which protect many coastlines, will be damaged by the warming and acidification of the oceans. Levels of atmospheric CO2 determine “equilibrium climate sensitivity,” or “climate sensitivity”, defined as the number of degrees by which the atmosphere would eventually warm if the concentration of carbon dioxide were to double from its pre-industrial level and stay at that doubled level forever.
§3. “The world is probably at the start of a runaway Greenhouse Event which will end most human life on Earth before 2040. This will occur because of a massive and rapid increase in the carbon dioxide concentration in the air which has just accelerated significantly. The increasing Greenhouse Gas concentration, the gases which cause Global Warming, will very soon cause a rapid warming of the global climate and a chaotic climate.” (Arctic News, Sept. 2013)
§4. 2018 IPCC Report: Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, according to the latest report from the world's leading body of climate change experts.
§5. Cost-benefit analyses of clean energy systems are engineering and economics problems but also moral problems insofar as they involve the balancing of different values and the interests of different beings.
§6. Public Vs Private Morality Questions: What should governments do to reduce carbon emissions by supporting clean energy systems and reducing carbon emissions?
Private morality: What are my own personal duties to respond to climate change?
Duties of Justice - To not harm others
Duties of Goodness - To improve the world
§7. Are CO2 emissions an injustice?
Causing floods, droughts, fires, forced immigration, famine
§8. Who suffers? Many currently living people, many people in poor countries who did not contribute to the problem, countless future peoples.
§9. How much should we sacrifice the resources (less travel, amenties, meat, etc). of those currently living for the sake of future peoples? What are our duties to the future? Depends on the “Discount Rate” Discount rate measures how fast the value of goods diminishes with time.
If the future generation is going to be richer than us, then the discount rate will be less. The Stern Report uses a discount rate of 1.4 %. A $trillion worth of goods received in 100 years is valued at $247 billion today. The world should invest 1% of total output (approx. $500 billion today) to reduce emissions.
William Nordhaus uses 6% discount rate. A $trillion received in 100 years is equal to $2.5 billion today, a very slight sacrifice.
§10. Duties of Governments
The atmosphere as a limited resource, concerns distributive justice. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty was adopted in 1992, and has been ratified by almost every nation on Earth. It aims to bring emissions under control through international agreement.
§11. COs emissions as an externality, left out of the cost of producing power, and so represent a market inefficiency, to be corrected by including the price of carbon in the cost of producing power, the ‘social cost of carbon’
§12. Two ways to do this: (a) a carbon tax (e.g. $0 to $200/ton of carbon emitted).
(b) Cap-and-Trade system (adopted by Kyoto Protocol 1997) - Each countries emissions capped, then carbon credits distributed - permits to emit which are then traded. Over time, the cap is
lowered. But what is the social cost of carbon?
§13. Personal Duties
Our personal carbon emissions cause harm to others. From a justice standpoint, we have a duty to pay restitution or to reduce harm by reducing emissions. Emissions will wipe out more than six months of healthy human life. Each year, your annual emissions destroy a few days of healthy life in total.On these figures, the monetary value of the harm you do over a lifetime ranges between $19,000 and $65,000, or between 65 cents and over $2 per day for every day you are alive. (half a billionth of a degree)
Two ways we can meet our moral duty:
Reduce personal emissions: Do not live wastefully. Be frugal with energy in particular. Switch off lights. Do not waste water. Eat less meat. Eat local food. And so on. Many of these are steps you can take at little or no cost to yourself, and you should certainly take those ones.
Offset the emissions: Plenty of commercial organizations offer to do this for you as an individual. You pay them a fee per tonne of offsetting you ask them to do. They use your money to finance projects that diminish emissions somewhere in the world. Most projects are located in developing countries. Most of them create sources of renewable energy. Suppose an average American causes 30 tonnes a year to be emitted. Her annual emission could be offset for a mere $300.
§14. Does it matter? If we have indeed passed it, your own emissions make no difference in the long run. There will be catastrophe whether you make them or not. But this should not make you think they are harmless. If we are on track to disaster, your emissions accelerate us along the way. They bring the disaster nearer, and that is harmful. If there is to be a catastrophe, the later the better. So even fatalism does not give you a good reason to doubt that your emissions are harmful.
§15. If we were certain that extinction was inevitable, how does this change our ethical obligations to each other? How should we live our lives?
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