The strong Scottish moral leadership on climate change compared to the absence of any acknowledged ethical duty In the US Debate

Abstract

"This post examines the strong moral and ethical leadership of a number of Scottish Parliamentarians on climate change, leadership that is particularly striking when compared to how the US climate change debate is unfolding. In a prior post, I discussed attending a meeting of the Scottish Parliament on behalf of the United States State Department to give a talk on climate change policies where I heard an argument made by a Scottish Parliamentarian in support of a tough climate change bill that was being debated. That post was “The Crucial Missing Element in Media Coverage of the US Climate Change Debate: the Ethical Duty to Reduce GHG Emissions. The argument made by the Parliamentarian was that Scotland had a moral duty to the rest of the world to adopt the pending legislation despite the fact that it could impose significant costs on the Scottish economy. "(p.1)