Ethical Issues Raised by the Work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Abstract

This report examines ethical issues raised by the work of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report summarizes conclusions reached at a workshop at the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP-13) of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bali, Indonesia on December 14, 2007. The sponsors of this workshop thank Dr. Ogunlade Davidson, Co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, for responding to the issues raised in the workshop. His thoughtful responses and remarks have been helpful in guiding our thinking. Climate change raises many different types of profound and unprecedented questions of justice and ethics for the world. By ethics in this report we mean the domain of inquiry that examines claims about what is right or wrong, obligatory or non-obligatory, or when responsibility attaches to human actions. A number of the most important ethical issues raised by climate change were examined in the White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change released by the Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change (EDCC) at COP-12 in December 2006 in Nairobi, Kenya. (White Paper, 2006). http://rockethics.psu.edu /climate/whitepaper-intro.htm