Globethics Climate ethics collection is focusing on the gathering of latest scientific and journalistic documentation available on the ethical and theoretical framework around climate change regulation and ethics, including the problematic tendency toward "climate deregulation", i. e. measures taken to scale back climate mitigation standards. Globethics Library provides updated research papers showing the promises of progress, and good will as well as the concrete risks of regressus, inherent to this intergenerational problem and moral dilemma.

Recent Submissions

  • What, if Anything, is Wrong with Extreme Wealth?

    Robeyns , Ingrid; del Arco (Trad.), Juan Cruz; Elgarte (Rev. Téc.), Julieta (Centro de Investigaciones en Filosofía IdIHCS (UNLP - CONICET), 2023-12-01)
    This paper proposes a view, called limitarianism, which suggests that there should be upper limits to the amount of income and wealth a person can hold. One argument for limitarianism is that superriches can undermine political equality. The other reason is that it would be better if the surplus money that superrich households have were to be used to meet unmet urgent needs and local and global collective action problems. A particular urgent case of the latter is climate change. The paper discusses one objection to limitarianism, and draws some conclusions for society, as well as for the human development paradigm and the capability approach.
  • Ecowomanist (auto)ethnography (EWAE) as methodological intervention: BIWOC everyday resistance to Louisiana state-corporate crime, anti-resilient climate justice, and emergent feminist abolition ecologies

    De Master, Kathryn; Roberts-Gregory, Frances (eScholarship, University of California, 2021-01-01)
    Critical environmental justice scholars and feminist political ecologists currently call for more meaningful inquiry into the role(s) of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities, women, youth, and queer folk in resisting premature death, precarity, and racial capitalist climate patriarchy. Feminist activist researchers likewise strive to center feminist epistemological and methodological tools (i.e., intersectionality, embodied knowledge, partial perspectives, and an ethic of care) when researching climate change. (We) expose the under-theorization of gender in environmental justice studies and highlight the links between gendered vulnerability to climate change and the androcentricity of extractive economies. Despite these intellectual advancements, women of color (WOC) in the USA continue to be vastly underrepresented in climate policy, coastal adaptation planning, environmental decision-making, and natural resource management.My dissertation innovatively develops and applies an ecowomanist and (auto)ethnographic methodology to theorize Black and Indigenous women’s everyday resistance to state-corporate crime in Gulf Coast Louisiana. I methodologically employ Black feminist (auto)ethnography, participant observation, conversational and semi-structured interviews, and multi-sited ethnography to investigate how Gulf Coast Black and Indigenous women navigate contradictory relationships with energy and petrochemical industries, resist environmental violence, and imagine a just transition to fossil fuel freeish futures. I likewise interrogate WOC’s situated ecological knowledge, critiques of resiliency and activist frameworks, and pedagogical engagements with youth of color to facilitate decolonial and feminist political conscientization.I furthermore push back at the positivist aims of environmental science & studies (ESS); extractive methodologies within ESS continue to inflict emotional and bodily harm on communities of color and systematically erase and invalidate the epistemic contributions of WOC to environmental solution-making and climate policy. My findings moreover indicate that Gulf Coast Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) resist petro-hegemony and Louisianan politics of expendability through gendered and racialized acts of refusal, recovery, rejection, rest, restoration, and reimagining (R6). We strategically challenge and (re)frame relationships with polluting industries and resiliency frameworks to enact anti-resilient care ethics and embody gendered understandings of inter- and intragenerational accountability to human and more-than-human kin. Broader impacts of the work include increasing opportunities for Black and Indigenous women to shape climate policy, amplifying the intellectual genius of WOC advocating for energy and climate reparations, and resisting the devaluation of life in sacrifice zones. My research also highlights contradictions in women’s everyday lives that speak to contradictions in the larger environmental movement and our international dependence on fossil fuels. Feminist activist and ecowomanist methodologies thus hold the power to increase the representation of Gulf Coast women and youth of color in environmental and energy policy, build transnational solidarity around feminist climate justice, and (re)imagine toxic geographies and sacrifice zones as feminist abolition ecologies.
  • Achieving Climate Justice Through Land Back: An Overview of Tribal Dispossession, Land Return Efforts, and Practical Mechanisms for #LandBack

    Racehorse, Vanessa (UNM Digital Repository, 2023-01-01)
    Due to the increasing pressures of the climate change crisis, federal and state governments are beginning to acknowledge that Indigenous-led stewardship and control over Tribal aboriginal homelands is a crucial component of addressing climate change. In the United States, Tribal nations have a long history of responsible land stewardship, with environmental conservation and respect for the world's biodiversity being an inextricable piece of Tribal customs, traditions, and knowledge. This Article strives to pay due respect to traditional land stewardship and its important role in the past, present, and future. Part I of this Article starts with an overview of the history of forcible dispossession of Native American land, and provides initial thoughts on the myriad of meanings that the expression "Land Back" can hold. The United States has a long history of forcibly removing Native American Tribes from their ancestral homelands and relocating them to smaller plots of land, with some estimates indicating Tribal nations ultimately lost 98.9% of their aboriginal homelands post-contact. Part II will discuss how this change in land tenure and land use can be linked to climate change, with Indigenous communities often at the frontline of climate change events. Additionally, areas predominantly occupied by Indigenous peoples are frequently more prone to experience extreme weather conditions, such as extreme heat, drought, greater wildfire risks, and extreme flooding, the latter of which has caused the relocation of some coastal Indigenous communities. Parts III, IV, and V of this Article explore the efforts being made on the federal, state, and Tribal level to return land to its original caretakers and discusses practical ways that Tribal governments and organizations are achieving Land Back through mutual goals of conservation and repatriation. While the preferred method used by the federal and state governments and their respective agencies has been to extend opportunities for Tribal co-management, this is not enough to curb the urgency of the impending climate disaster, the effects of which have been, and will continue to be, felt first and foremost by Indigenous peoples. It is time for Land Back. There is no clearer argument for Land Back than to prevent irreparable harm to the planet-a cause that is unquestionably in the greatest good for all people.
  • Africa and climate justice at COP27 and beyond: impacts and solutions through an interdisciplinary lens

    UCL Press, 2023-08-01
    Climate justice is not just a financial transaction to protect the environment. It needs to be seen as the protection of the most vulnerable in society after centuries of resource exploitation. African countries disproportionately face impacts of climate change on their environments, their economies, their resources and their infrastructure. This leads to greater vulnerability and increased exposure to the negative effects of a changing climate. In this article, we highlight the importance of climate justice and its role within the United Nations negotiations, and ultimately in concrete action. We discuss current climate impacts across key sectors in the African region, with a focus on health, infrastructure, food and water scarcity, energy and finance. All sectors are affected by climate change. They are interconnected and under threat. This triggers a ripple effect, where threats in one sector have a knock-on effect on other sectors. We find that the current set of intergovernmental institutions have failed to adequately address climate justice. We also contend that a siloed approach to climate action has proven to be ineffective. As we head towards the next set of negotiations (COP27), this paper argues that the economic and social conditions in Africa can be addressed through financial and collaborative support for adaptation and localised solutions, but that this will only be achieved if climate justice is prioritised by the decision makers. This needs to include a global-scale transition in how climate finance is assessed and accessed. Climate justice underpins real, effective and sustainable solutions for climate action in Africa.
  • Oil and gas corporations as anti-racist decolonial liberators? A case study of propaganda from the struggle against Shell in South Africa

    Alex Lenferna (University of Arizona Libraries, 2024-02-01)
    Oil and gas corporations and their lobbyists are increasingly appropriating the language of racial justice, anti-imperialism, and decolonization to block climate action and advance a polluting, extractive, and neocolonial agenda. This article argues that these appropriations are a form of propaganda called 'undermining demagoguery', which serves to subvert the very ideals it claims to uphold. Shell's attempt to explore for oil and gas off the Wild Coast of South Africa is used as a case study. The article shows how such propaganda efforts are becoming increasingly prevalent and recommends strategies that can be used to counteract them.
  • Surviving the Globe

    Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale (HES-SO); Ray, Gene (HAL CCSDHEAD-Genève, Hes-so, 2024-02-19)
    International audience
  • CLIMATE CHANGE AND INDUCED MARGINALIZATION: PERSPECTIVES

    DERRY PAUL TM (Globus et Locus, 2024-01-01)
    The global arena of international relations is placing increasing importance on the subject of climate change. The disruptions in natural weather patterns are giving rise to a wide array of challenges in ecological, sociopolitical, and economic systems. This piece of writing investigates the concept of marginalization brought about by the effects of climate change. The analysis adopts a multi-faceted approach, utilizing the framework of climate justice. The primary focus lies in understanding how climate-induced marginalization impacts a nation’s social structure, especially affecting disadvantaged communities. Following that, the conversation delves into making a comparison among different countries, examining their contributions to climate change and the subsequent difficulties they encounter. The article also underscores the insufficiencies in international frameworks aimed at mitigating climate change, underscoring the lack of accountability during their development. Additionally, the problem of climate-induced marginalization is evaluated in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, and suggestions are put forth to effectively tackle this issue.
  • Continuing to Talanoa: storytelling dialogues for youth engagement in climate action and justice

    Sarah Hautzinger (BMC, 2024-02-01)
    Abstract This article recounts a classroom application of a dialogue, story-telling process used at COPs beginning in 2017. In that year, the Fijian President of the United Nations climate summit, COP23 in Bonn, proposed the entire assembly use his nation’s Talanoa Dialogue process for building ambition for national commitments to the Paris Agreement. When youth, women’s and Indigenous voices were heard in unprecedented ways, many committed to continuing the practice. A florescence of the Asian-Pacific-inspired, conflict-resolution storytelling and dialogue practice ensued, with some continuing for years afterward. This paper recounts eight rounds of varied Talanoa Dialogues employed in higher education contexts. Purposes ranged from internal team-building, to forging community partnerships, to serving as vehicles for youth representation in international contexts like climate COPs. All dialogues nonetheless prioritized listening, recording, and representation through ethnographic, anthropological lenses. These experiences support recommendations to (1) Create chances for youth to listen empathetically to the stories of others in ways attentive to varied national, ethnic and other intersectional (e.g. gendered, class-based) social locations, expanding their awareness and linking their affective and intellectual selves; (2) Make opportunities for youth to voice their own stories and perspectives on climate challenges and work, considering their developmental trajectories in intergenerational contexts, while emphasizing the need to “scale” from individual through global dimensions; (3) Explore the implications of borrowing from exogenous cultural traditions, considering what factors may render this relatively legitimate, as opposed to appropriative. I explore particularities of the cultural origins of Talanoa Dialogues, which mediate hierarchy and egalitarianism, arguing that this function is especially apt for navigating conundrums of youth leadership and so-called “youth-washing.”
  • Climate Change in Regional Perspective

    Springer NatureSpringer Nature Switzerland, 2024-03-13
    This Open Access book addresses climate change in Europe and Latin America from a comparative regionalism studies (CRS) perspective. Written by an international team of scholars and experts, chapters critically analyze proposals for mitigating climate change while contributing to the mutual understanding about the issues at stake across regions. The book is divided into three main sections. In the first section, authors discuss EU and Latin American cooperation, negotiations, and perspectives on climate change, exploring their agendas, the interests and key challenges at the global, regional and interregional levels. The second section focuses on the challenges to finance development and a greener economy. The third section explores new green solutions to climate change in the agriculture sector and initiatives such as nature-based solutions to climate change and best practices. Providing policy oriented solutions for combatting regional climate change at a critical juncture, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students of international relations, international law, and environmental politics, as well as public officials and climate change activists.
  • Reframing sustainability initiatives in higher education

    Diane White Husic (BMC, 2024-02-01)
    Abstract Amidst the ever-changing and increasingly complex challenges facing the planet and humanity, there is a growing need to educate the next generation of environmental stewards and leaders who are global citizens with sustainability mindsets. Universities have come a long way in developing sustainability programs – both in the curriculum and in terms of campus operations. Many research universities are highly focused on cutting-edge science and technology to address global challenges, and funders are looking for that innovation and entrepreneurialism. These are noteworthy efforts, but do they give students what they need or want? Has the commercialization and corporatization of college campuses led to a shift away from the notion that higher education is a public good that benefits society, not just individuals? Beyond the technical expertise, 21st century challenges demand that the workforce be diverse and capable of recognizing and tackling ethical, cultural, and equity issues for a sustainable and just future. An ethics-driven and interdisciplinarity curriculum framed around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), civic engagement, and experiential learning that allows students to put their knowledge into action is needed to prepare individuals for such a workforce. This paper provides both a critique of areas in which higher education is falling short of its responsibilities and some translatable models and opportunities for improvements in reframing sustainability initiatives on campus, including in the curriculum. Policy and Practice Recommendations • Campus leaders and faculty should take note of surveys of younger generations, especially Gen Z and Gen alpha, as they provide valuable insights into what youth are focused on and what knowledge and set of skills they desire to become innovative problem solvers and builders of more resilient communities. • To prepare the next generation of environmental stewards and leaders, high impact practices that move knowledge to action are needed. • Sustainability topics should be incorporated across the curriculum on campuses, not just in certain majors. • Higher education needs to re-embrace the notion of service to the public good and work collaboratively across institutions and sectors to address complex societal challenges.
  • Disclosing the Danger: Climate Change Meets Attorney Ethics

    Flatt, Victor B. (Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons, 2020-01-01)
    This article suggests a novel concept in climate change law and attorney ethics law by proposing that many states’ attorney ethics laws could be interpreted to require, or at least permit, attorneys to disclose client activity relating to greenhouse gas emissions. Every state has some form of ABA Model Rule 1.6(b), either requiring or allowing attorneys to disclose client activities that result in death or substantial bodily harm. This article asserts that prior precedent surrounding this disclosure rule indicates that it could be applicable to greenhouse gas emissions. Attorney disclosures in turn, could impact a wide swath of greenhouse gas emission activity, making it more transparent, and in certain cases requiring attorneys to counsel cessation of such activities or withdraw from representation. Because there is growing climate activism seeking to use all legal tools to slow or stop greenhouse gas emissions, this attorney ethics issue could be a strategic tool to try and control greenhouse gas emissions activities. Thus attorneys from the private sector to government should be aware of the potential ethical issues they face in handling greenhouse gas related legal work.
  • Project Earthrise: Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of inVIVO Planetary Health.

    Prescott, Susan; Wegienka, Ganesa; Kort, Remco; Nelson, David; Gabrysch, Sabine; Hancock, Trevor; Kozyrskyj, Anita; Lowry, Christopher; Redvers, Nicole; Poland, Blake (eScholarship, University of California, 2021-10-12)
    The Earthrise photograph, taken on the 1968 Apollo 8 mission, became one of the most significant images of the 20th Century. It triggered a profound shift in environmental awareness and the potential for human unity-inspiring the first Earth Day in 1970. Taking inspiration from these events 50 years later, we initiated Project Earthrise at our 2020 annual conference of inVIVO Planetary Health. This builds on the emergent concept of planetary health, which provides a shared narrative to integrate rich and diverse approaches from all aspects of society towards shared solutions to global challenges. The acute catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn greater attention to many other interconnected global health, environmental, social, spiritual, and economic problems that have been underappreciated or neglected for decades. This is accelerating opportunities for greater collaborative action, as many groups now focus on the necessity of a Great Transition. While ambitious integrative efforts have never been more important, it is imperative to apply these with mutualistic value systems as a compass, as we seek to make wiser choices. Project Earthrise is our contribution to this important process. This underscores the imperative for creative ecological solutions to challenges in all systems, on all scales with advancing global urbanization in the digital age-for personal, environmental, economic and societal health alike. At the same time, our agenda seeks to equally consider our social and spiritual ecology as it does natural ecology. Revisiting the inspiration of Earthrise, we welcome diverse perspectives from across all dimensions of the arts and the sciences, to explore novel solutions and new normative values. Building on academic rigor, we seek to place greater value on imagination, kindness and mutualism as we address our greatest challenges, for the health of people, places and planet.
  • Centering Equity in the Nations Weather, Water, and Climate Services.

    Tripati, Aradhna; Shepherd, Marshall; Morris, Vernon; Andrade, Karen; Whyte, Kyle; David-Chavez, Dominique; Hosbey, Justin; Trujillo-Falcón, Joseph; Hunter, Brandon; Hence, Deanna (eScholarship, University of California, 2024-02-01)
    Water, weather, and climate affect everyone. However, their impacts on various communities can be very different based on who has access to essential services and environmental knowledge. Structural discrimination, including racism and other forms of privileging and exclusion, affects peoples lives and health, with ripples across all sectors of society. In the United States, the need to equitably provide weather, water, and climate services is uplifted by the Justice40 Initiative (Executive Order 14008), which mandates 40% of the benefits of certain federal climate and clean energy investments flow to disadvantaged communities. To effectively provide such services while centering equity, systemic reform is required. Reform is imperative given increasing weather-related disasters, public health impacts of climate change, and disparities in infrastructure, vulnerabilities, and outcomes. It is imperative that those with positional authority and resources manifest responsibility through (1) recognition, inclusion, and prioritization of community expertise; (2) the development of a stronger and more representative and equitable workforce; (3) communication about climate risk in equitable, relevant, timely, and culturally responsive ways; and (4) the development and implementation of new models of relationships between communities and the academic sector.
  • The Animal Question: The Key to Coming to Terms with Nature

    Mason, Jim (Lewis & Clark Law School Digital Commons, 2007-01-01)
  • The Lawyer's Duty of Competence in a Climate-Imperiled World

    Dernbach, John C.; Russell, Irma S; Bogoshian, Matthew (UMKC School of Law Institutional Repository, 2024-01-01)
    The United States has more than 1.3 million practicing lawyers. Under Model Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and every state’s rules of conduct, each of these lawyers owes clients competent representation. Under the rule, “[c]ompetent representation requires the knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the services.” While law and rules will undoubtedly change in response to the climate crisis, the duty of competence does not await such change or legal reform. The ubiquitous nature of the duty of competence means it is applicable to each lawyer now and will continue to evolve as the client’s needs and the perils in the real world change.The Article first examines the concept of competence for lawyers and other professionals and provides examples of how professional competence evolves under changing circumstances. It explores the mandate and structure of Model Rule 1.1 and identifies the related issue of professional malpractice. Then it applies the concept of competence to the legal professional’s role as new facts and conditions concerning climate change emerge. It also describes guidance on these responsibilities issued by the Law Society of England and Wales in early 2023. The Article next describes the benefits of systems leadership skills and capacities as a means to effectively practice law as standards of competence evolve. We are not arguing that leadership is included in the duty of competence. But the increasing pace of the climate crisis, and the increasingly sophisticated tools and practices that lawyers now have to address the crisis, expand what lawyers should reasonably do for clients. Finally, the Article identifies principles for climate-competent lawyering.
  • Pipelines, provocateurs and pacifists

    Spetz, Johanna (Lunds universitet/Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2024)
    Would you fight climate change at any cost? In the modern day debate, opinions on the appropriate measures to draw attention to the climate crisis are divided. When conventional methods fall short, some activists resort to more assertive approaches. The green left is debating climate strategies, with intellectuals like Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg offering opposing views on the morality and effectiveness of violent measures. This essay aims to explore the intersection between ethics and climate issues by examining which normative values underpin the identified premises of arguments both in favor of and against the use of violence in climate activism. The results give us cause to assume that despite apparent differences, Malm and Hornborg hold similar foundational values. What instead ultimately separates them may hold the key to understanding why having a fruitful debate on climate activism proves challenging.
  • Szenarien der Ernährungswende: Gastrosophische Essays zur Transformation unserer Esskultur

    Lemke, Harald (transcript VerlagDEUBielefeld, 2024-02-23)
    Ernährungsverhältnisse beeinflussen das menschliche Leben und die Zukunft der Erde mehr als vieles andere. Und das Bewusstsein der Notwendigkeit einer radikalen Ernährungswende im Zeichen der ökologischen Krise nimmt seit einigen Jahren deutlich zu. Als Wegbereiter und Ideengeber dieses neuen Diskurses durchstreift Harald Lemke in seinen neuen Studien die komplexe Welt unserer Esskultur: Bildung, Immunsystem, Fleischkonsum, Klimawandel, Weltwirtschaft, Food Wars, Geschmacksfragen, Kochkünste, Widerstandsbewegungen, Alltagspraxis, Gesellschaftsutopie. Er zeigt: Die Kultur des Essens verbindet alles mit allem - und diese Zusammenhänge zu verstehen ist philosophisch ebenso reizvoll wie gesellschaftlich notwendig.
  • Climate Change Rating of Countries

    Nowarski, Joseph (Zenodo, 2024-02-19)
    <p>This work proposes a system of Climate Change Rating of countries (CCR). The parameters included in the rating are CO2 emissions per capita and per GDP, cumulative CO2 emissions in the last 30 years, and changes in CO2 intensity in the last 10 years.</p> <p>The parameters are compared to the world averages.</p> <p>The CCR for 2020 includes 208 countries, 99.99% of the global CO2 emissions and population, and 99.83% of the global GDP.</p> <p>The A-G rating groups are according to the rating limits. The best rating (A) is for the lowest CCR.</p> <p>The world average CCR value in 2020 is 100, equivalent to group E.</p>
  • Locating “Climate Justice” within a National Context

    Rebeca Leonard; Jacques-Chai Chomthongdi (Environmental Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University, 2014-03-01)
    Many explorations of climate justice have focused on the international sphere, centring attention on the historical responsibilities of industrialised nations for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the financing of climate change policies, the imbalance in geopolitical power that has influenced and stalled decisions at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the structural changes needed as the world re-thinks development. This article presents a discussion of articulations of climate justice in a national context, exploring the case of Thailand, a middle-income country with a fast growing economy and a high trajectory of increasing emissions, but not listed in Annex 1 of the UNFCCC. These articulations are grouped and discussed within a framework of justice amongst people, justice to a place, and justice through time. A more comprehensive consideration of climate justice at the national level could point Thailand towards substantially different approaches in the short, medium and long term, than those currently being implemented to address the climate crisis.
  • Beyond climate stabilization: Exploring the perceived sociotechnical co-impacts of carbon removal and solar geoengineering

    Global Sustainability Governance; Environmental Governance; Sovacool, Benjamin K; Baum, Chad M.; Low, Sean (2023-02)
    The scientific literature on the co-impacts of low-carbon energy systems—positive and negative side effects—has focused intently on climate mitigation, or climate adaptation. It has not systematically examined the prospective co-impacts of carbon removal (or negative emissions) and solar geoengineering. Based on a large sample of diverse expert interviews (N = 125), and using a sociotechnical approach, in this study we identify 107 perceived co-impacts related to the deployment of carbon removal and solar geoengineering technologies. Slightly less than half (52) were identified as positive co-impacts (38 for carbon removal, 14 for solar geoengineering), whereas slightly more than half (55) were identified as negative co-impacts (31 for carbon removal, 24 for solar geoengineering). We then discuss 20 of these co-impacts in more depth, including positive co-impacts for nature-based protection, the expansion of industry, and reduction of poverty or heat stress as well as negative co-impacts for water insecurity, moral hazard, limited social acceptance and path dependence. After presenting this body of evidence, the paper then discusses and theorizes these co-impacts more deeply in terms of four areas: relationality and risk-risk trade-offs, co-deployment and coupling, intentional or unintentional implications, and expert consensus and dissensus. It concludes with more general insights for energy and climate research, and policy.

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