Ethics and Climate

Donald Brown

The Enormous Significance For Climate Law and Ethics Of a Dutch Court’s Order Requiring the Netherlands To Reduce Its GHG Emissions by 25% by 2020

Posted on August 31, 2015 by dabrown57

I-Introduction

In June, a Dutch court in the landmark Urgenda decision concluded that the Netherlands must reduce its ghg emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. This is the first case in the world where a national government has been ordered by a court to reduce its greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions commitments by a specific amount on the basis that its current commitments and polices are not legally sufficient. This case had enormous potential significance not only for climate change law but also for ethical arguments made about what a nation should do to reduce its ghg emissions if the case for one reason or another is not directly applicable to legal responsibilities of nations other than the Netherlands.

Although the court’s decision on the Netherlands’ emissions reductions has been widely publicized around the world, the logic that the court used to conclude that the Dutch government had a duty to reduce its ghg emissions by 25% below 1990 by 2025 has received little media attention despite the fact that much of the court’s reasoning is potentially legally applicable to the responsibility of all other developed nations. And so, the reasoning in the Urgenda case could be used by proponents of stronger responses to climate change in other countries. Yet, as we will explain in this post, despite the fact if other courts apply the reasoning in the Urgenda to other developed nations, many developed nations including the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand would be required to increase their national ghg emissions commitments or INDCs, recent science on how much ghg concentrations in the atmosphere can rise without causing dangerous climate change supports the conclusion that the Dutch court mandated ghg emissions reductions target of -25% below 1990 levels by 2020 is still not stringent enough.

Much of the Court’s logic in its decision is relevant to the ethical issues that nations must face in developing climate change policy, even if the court’s reasoning in the Urgenda case is not directly legally applicable in other countries, After identifying the court’s legal reasoning in the bulleted paragraphs below, the significance of the legal reasoning for climate change ethics is identified in italics.

This post first reviews the Dutch Court’s logic that is relevant to how other nations should determine their ghg emissions reduction commitments under the UNFCCC, or INDCs. This is followed by a brief comment on the significance of the legal reasoning for climate change ethics.

II. The Urgenda court’s logic and its ethical significance.

Although the Dutch court relied in part on Dutch law to reach its decision which is not likely relevant to other developed nations, In reaching its decision that the Netherlands must reduce its ghg emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, the court relied upon the following legal reasoning which could be followed by other developed nations:

ALL developed parties agreed at the Cancun COP in 2010 to act with a view to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions so as to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and that Parties should take urgent action to meet this long-term goal on the basis of equity.

This is grounds for the conclusion that nations have an ethical duty, even if the legal promise cannot be enforced, to adopt policies that will reduce their ghg emissions to the nation’s fair share of global emissions that at a minimum are sufficient to limit warming to 2°C. Yet, because temperature increases below 2°C will impose harsh impacts on vulnerable people and nations, an ethical argument can be made that nations have an ethical duty to do whatever they can to limit any further warming. Particularly because there is scientific concern that warming of less than 2°C may trigger the catastrophic warming that the 2°C warming limit was designed to protect against, there is a strong ethical argument that nations need to do more than adopt policies that would allow warming to 2°C.

The court relied upon the 2007 IPCC’s 4th Assessment report including conclusions to achieve a goal of limiting warming limit of 2 °C, ghg atmospheric concentrations stabilized at 450 ppm CO2 would create a 50% chance of preventing warming greater than the 2 °C warming limit.

As above, nations have a clear ethical duty, at the very minimum, to adopt policies that, working with other nations, will limit atmospheric concentrations of 450 ppm. Yet, as we will see below, stabilizing atmospheric ghg concentration at 450 ppm is likely not stringent enough to keep warming within 2°C not to mention that a more protective warming limit of perhaps 1.5 °C may be s needed to prevent catastrophic warming. Every national INDC is implicitly a position on what level of atmospheric ghg concentrations the nation is seeking to achieve in establishing an INDC and its fair share of global emissions the nation has committed to in selecting the INDC.

The IPCC concluded to stabilize ghg emissions at 450 ppm, Annex 1 countries must reduce ghg emissions by -25% to -40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and -80% to 95% below 1990 levels by 2050.

All developed nations have both a legal and ethical duty to reduce their ghg emissions by a minimum of 25% by 2020 below 1990 levels but because the 450 ppm atmospheric concentration goal is not likely protective enough, the national commitments of developed countries must be greater than -25% below 1990 by 2020. .

In identifying the -25% to -40% reduction range by 2020, the IPCC relied upon a study which examined different approaches to apportioning emissions between regions.

One way of resolving conflicts between equity frameworks is to deduce emissions reduction target levels by considering multiple equity frameworks that pass ethical scrutiny and averaging them.

Several provisions of the UNFCCC have been agreed to by all nations including provisions in which nations agreed to: (a) under art. 2 of the UNFCCC to adopt policies and measures that will lead to “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system,” (b) under art. 3 of the UNFCCC to protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and accordingly, the developed country parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof, (c ) to take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects and where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures.

Although it is not news to either lawyers or ethicists that nations have duties to adopt policies that will prevent dangerous climate change, to protect the climate for the benefit of future generations, to apply precautionary measures in developing climate policies, and that developed countries should take the lead in reducing the threat of climate change, this decision is the first legal decision to apply these principles to a national ghg emissions target. A strong argument can be made that nations have ethical duties to abide by these provisions in the UNFCCC on the basis of many ethical arguments including that nations have agreed to be bound by these provisions and nations should not break their promises..

Climate science leads to the conclusion that national climate strategies that achieve ghg reductions sooner rather than later are preferable because later-action scenarios pose greater risks of harsh climate impacts for four reasons:
- First delaying action allows more greenhouse gases to build-up in the atmosphere in the near term, thereby increasing the risk that later emission reductions will be unable to compensate for this build up.
- Second, the risk of overshooting climate targets for both atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and global temperature increase is higher with later-action scenarios.
- Third, the near-term rate of temperature is higher, which implies greater near-term climate impacts.
- Lastly, when action is delayed, options to achieve stringent levels of climate protection are increasingly lost.”

This part of the decision is of great ethical importance because it interpreted various provisions of the UNFCCC to require nations to adopt climate policies that achieve ghg emissions sooner rather than later. In doing this the court relied in part on an interpretation of the precautionary principle which has been rarely used for requiring nations to act quickly. Most commentators on the precautionary principle have used it to support arguments that nations may not use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for insufficient action. Yet the Urgenda court used the precautionary principle to conclude that this principle required action sooner rather than later because delay increased the risk of catastrophic climate impacts.

The Dutch government’s argument that it should not be required to make major reductions because the Netherlands is only 0.5 % of global reductions and therefore its reductions will not affect global emissions because all nations have a global responsibility and a responsibility to take precautionary measures, nations have both an individual and joint responsibility.

This part of the decision is consistent with the ethical conclusion that all nations have ethical and moral duties to reduce their emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions without regard to the size of the nation.

Article 21 of the Dutch Constitution requires Dutch authorities to keep the country habitable and to protect and improve the environment and imposes a duty of care on the State relating to the livability of the country and the protection and improvement of the living environment.

Although this conclusion is based on a provision of Dutch law, the legal reasoning supports the ethical conclusion that nations have a moral duty to protect the environment for the benefit of the nation’s citizens.

The Parties agree that due to the current climate change and the threat of further change with irreversible and serious consequences for man and the environment, the State should take precautionary measures for its citizens.

Although the precautionary principle is derivable from ethical reasoning, the decision supports the conclusion that the precautionary principle is binding on nations because they have promised to apply it.

Since it is an established fact that the current global emissions and reduction targets of the signatories to the UN Climate Change Convention are insufficient to achieve the 2° warming limit and thus the chances of dangerous climate change should be considered as very high – and this with serious consequences for man and the environment, both in the Netherlands and abroad – the State is obliged to take measures in its own territory to prevent dangerous climate change (mitigation measures). Since it is also an established fact that without far reaching reduction measures, the global greenhouse gas emissions will have reached a level in several years, around 2030, that achieving the 2°C warming limit will have become impossible, these mitigation measures should be taken expeditiously.

This legal reasoning also supports the ethical conclusion that nations must not only act ambitiously to reduce the threat of climate change but must also act quickly and rapidly.

The State has argued that allowing Urgenda’s claim, which is aimed at a higher reduction of greenhouse gas emission in the Netherlands, would not be effective on a global scale, as such a target would result in a very minor, if not negligible, reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. After all, whether or not the 2°C target is achieved will mainly depend on the reduction targets of other countries with high emissions. More specifically, the States relies on the fact that the Dutch contribution to worldwide emissions is currently only 0.5%. If the reduction target of -25% to -40% from Urgenda’s claim were met the State argues that this would result in an additional reduction of 23.75 to 49.32 Mt CO2-eq (up to 2020), representing only 0.04-0.09% of global emissions. Starting from theidea that this additional reduction would hardly affect global emissions, the State argues that Urgenda has no interest in an allowance of its claim for additional reduction. This argument does not succeed. It is an established fact that climate change is a global problem and therefore requires global accountability. The fact that the amount of the Dutch emissions is small compared to other countries does not affect the obligation to take precautionary measures in view of the State’s obligation to exercise care. After all, it has been established that any anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission, no matter how minor, contributes to an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and therefore to hazardous climate change. Emission reduction therefore concerns both a joint and individual responsibility of the signatories to the UN Climate Change Convention. In view of the fact that the Dutch emission reduction is determined by the State, it may not reject possible liability by stating that its contribution is minor. The court arrives at the opinion that the single circumstance that the Dutch emissions only constitute a minor contribution to global emissions does not alter the State’s obligation to exercise care towards third parties. Here too, the court takes into account that in view of a fair distribution the Netherlands, like the other Annex I countries, has taken the lead in taking mitigation measures and has therefore committed to a more than proportionte contribution to reduction. Moreover, it is beyond dispute that the Dutch per capita emissions are one of the highest in the world.

This is a very significant conclusion for climate ethics because many opponents of climate change polices have successfully argued that nations have no duty to act until large emitters like China and India act. The decision is very clear in explaining why such an argument is legally indefensible and also ethically unsupportable in light of the fact that climate change is a global problem and requires global responsibility, any anthropogenic ghg emission, no matter how minor, contributes to an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and therefore to hazardous climate change, and emission reductions entail both a joint and individual responsibility of nations to act.

Urgenda is correct in arguing that the postponement of mitigation efforts, as currently supported by the State (less strict reduction between the present day and 2030 and a significant reduction as of 2030), will cause a cumulation effect, which will result in higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere in comparison to a more even procentual or linear decrease of emissions starting today. A higher reduction target for 2020 (40%, 30% or 25%) will cause lower total, cumulated greenhouse gas emissions across a longer period of time in comparison with the target of less than 20% chosen by theState. The court agrees with Urgenda that by choosing this reduction path, even though it is also aimed at realising the 2°C target, will in fact make significant contributions to the risk of hazardous climate change and can therefore not be deemed as a sufficient and acceptable alternative to the scientifically proven and acknowledged higher reduction path of -25% to -40% in 2020.

This part of the opinion also confirms the ethical conclusion that higher and quicker ghg emissions reduction targets are ethically required because slower, less ambitious targets will make the problem worse.

In the opinion of the court, the possibility of damages for those whose interests Urgenda represents, including current and future generations of Dutch nationals, is so great and concrete that given its duty of care, the State must make an adequate contribution, greater than its current contribution, to prevent hazardous climate change.

This part of the decision reiterates the conclusion that nations have an ethical duty to its citizens to prevent dangerous climate change. The court in another part of the decision also concluded that nations have a clear legal duty to not harm people outside of its jurisdiction under the “no harm” rule which is both expressly referenced in the UNFCCC and is customary international law but decided this clear duty was not relevant to the Urgenda case because the Urgenda plaintiffs were Danish nationals.

III. Recent Scientific Conclusions in Regard to the Adequacy of the 450 ppm atmospheric Goal

As we have seen, the Urgenda decision relied on the 2007 IPCC report on what emissions reductions would be required to limit warming to tolerable limits which assumed that 2°C2 was a reasonable warming limit for the world and that a 450 ppm CO2 atmospheric concentration was a reasonable atmospheric concentration target to give reasonable chance of keeping warming from exceeding the 2 degree C warming limit that has been agreed to by the international community. Since then several scientific reports have been published that claim : (1) the -25% to -45% reduction levels identified in the 2007 IPCC report are not stringent enough to live within a carbon budget that will protect the world from warming greater than 2°C, and (2) that the 2°C warming limit and the 450 ppm CO2 concentration goal are not stringent enough to prevent dangerous warming .

Climate Tracker Global Emissions Reduction Pathway Needed to Limit Warming to 2°C

A recent report by Climate Tracker summarized the most recent science on needed ghg reduction pathways to stay within the 2 degree C warming budget as follows:

Limiting warming below 2 degrees with a high chance means that total GHG emissions would need to be zero between 2060 and 2080 and likely negative thereafter CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industry would need to be zero by as early as 2045 and no later than 2065 and be negative thereafter.

Because total global emissions must be zero between 2060 and 2080, developed nations need to be zero before 2060. Since the 2007 IPCC on which the Urgenda decision was based called for developed nations to reduce their ghg emissions by -80% to -95% below 1990 by 2080, it is clear that emissions reductions called for in the Urgenda decision are now not sufficient to achieve the 2°C warming limit.

James Hansen recently issued an affidavit in support of litigation that has been intiated against the US state of Oregon which summarizes recent scientific views of many scientists in which he concluded that to protect against dangerous climate change, atmospheric CO2 must be brought down to 350 ppm and to achieve this the world needs to reduce ghg emissions by 6% per annum coupled with reforestation and improved forest and agricultural practices.

In this report, Dr. Hansen also claims that the required rate of emissions reduction would have been about 3.5% per year if reductions had started in 2005 and continued annually thereafter, while the required rate of reduction, if commenced in 2020, will be approximately 15% per year.

Applying these conclusions to the Urgenda decision leads to the conclusion that the Dutch court’s order requiring the Netherlands to reduce its emissions by -25% below 1990 levels is not stringent enough to meet the Netherlands legal and ethical responsibilities to act to prevent dangerous climate change.

Donald A. Brown

Scholar In Residence and Professor

Sustainability Ethics and Law

Widener University Commonwealth Law School

dabrown@gmail.com

Questions That Should Be Asked of Opponents of Climate Change Policies, Including Politicians, To Help Expose the Ethical, Moral, and Justice Problems with Their Positions

Posted on August 18, 2015 by dabrown57

I. Introduction

If climate change, as the Pope’s recent encyclical claims, is a profound global justice, ethical, and moral problem, this paper identifies questions that should be asked of opponents of climate change policies to expose the ethical problems with their positions.

Although the Pope bases his claim that climate change is a moral problem on theological arguments derived mostly from Catholic teachings, this paper begins with a brief description of unique features of climate change that lead to an understanding that this enormous global threat must be understood fundamentally and essentially as a moral, ethical, and justice problem as a matter of secular ethics also. This is followed by questions designed to assure that opponents of climate change policies are required to expressly respond to ethical problems with their most frequent arguments made against climate change policies. These questions are organized according to the most frequent arguments made against climate change policies which are claims that climate change policies: (a) will impose unacceptable costs on a national economy or specific industries or prevent nations from pursuing other national priorities, (b) should not be adopted because of scientific uncertainty about climate change impacts, or (c) are both unfair and ineffective as long as high emitting nations such as China or India do not adopt meaningful ghg emissions reduction policies. Following each question is a short explanation of the strong ethical arguments for rejecting the arguments of the climate change policy opponents that have triggered the specific questions.

II. Why Climate Change Must be Understood as an Ethical, Moral, and Justice Problem.

Climate change must be understood and responded to as a profound problem of global justice, ethics, and morality. This is so because in addition to the theological reasons given by Pope Francis recently: (a) it is a problem mostly caused by some nations and people emitting high-levels of greenhouse gases (ghg) in one part of the world who are harming or threatening tens of millions of living people and countless numbers of future generations throughout the world who include some of the world’s poorest people who have done little to cause the problem, (b) the harms to many of the world’s most vulnerable victims of climate change are potentially catastrophic, (c) many people most at risk from climate change often can’t protect themselves by petitioning their governments; their best hope is that those causing the problem will see that justice requires them to greatly lower their ghg emissions, (d) to protect the world’s most vulnerable people nations must limit their ghg emissions to levels that constitute their fair share of safe global emissions, and, (e) climate change is preventing some people from enjoying the most basic human rights including rights to life and security among others. Because climate change is a profound problem of ethics, morality and justice those causing the problem may not use self-interest alone as justification for their policy responses to human-induced warming, they must respond in ways consistent with their responsibilities and duties to others. In light of this the following questions should be asked of those who oppose national action on climate change on the basis of excessive cost to national economies, scientific uncertainty, or unfairness if other high emitting nations refuse to reduce their ghg emissions. .

III. Questions That Should Be Asked of Those Opposing Climate Change to Expose the Ethical and Moral Problems with Their Opposition.

A. Questions to be asked of those opposing government action on climate change on the basis of cost to the economy, cost to specific industries, job destruction, or other economic arguments that oppose adoption of climate change policies.

When you argue that governments should not adopt policies to reduce ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions on the basis that climate policies will impose unacceptable costs on national economies, destroy specific industries, kill jobs, or prevent the nation from investing in other national priorities:

1. Do you deny high-emitting nations not only have economic interests but also duties and obligations to nations and people most vulnerable to climate impacts to limit their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions?

This question is designed to expose a strong ethical and moral problem with those who refuse to reduce their ghg emissions on the basis of costs to them, a position that ignores that those harming others have strong ethical, moral, and legal responsibilities to not harm others. This strong ethical and moral responsibility is derivable both from the universally accepted moral principles including the widely accepted golden rule which requires people to treat others as they wish to be treated, and international law including, but not limited to the “no harm” rule which is a widely recognized principle of customary international law whereby a State is duty-bound to prevent, reduce and control the risk of environmental harm to other states and a rule agreed to by all nations in the preamble to the UNFCCC, the “polluter-pays principle” agreed to by almost all nations in the 1992 Rio Declaration, human rights law which requires nations to assure that their citizens enjoy human rights, and many other legal theories including tort law.

2. Do you agree that no nation has a right to kill other people or destroy the ecological systems on which life depends simply because reducing ghg emissions will impose costs on the high-emitting nation?

Like question one, this question is designed to expose more explicitly than previous questions that those nations who refuse to limit ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions are implicitly ignoring their very strong ethical duty to not kill or greatly harm others.

3. Do you deny that all high ghg emitting developed nations under the UNFCCC has a duty to adopt policies that prevent harms from climate change to human health and ecological systems on which life depends which the nation is causing in other nations?

In addition to the ethical problems with cost arguments identified above in response to questions one and two, this question is also designed to expose that a nation that refuses to reduce its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions is violating promises it made under the UNFCCC to adopt ” policies and measures to prevent dangerous anthropocentric interference with the climate system.” and that the developed nations have promised to take the lead in reducing ghg emissions.

4. Do you deny the applicability of the well-established international norm that polluters should pay for the harms caused by their pollution and that if a nation or entity refuses to reduce its ghg emissions it is responsible for any damages or harms caused by their ghg emissions?

This question is designed to more expressly expose the ethical issue identified in response to question one, namely that high-emitting nations are responsible for the harms they are causing to others under the “polluter pays” principle of international law. This rule is also a basis for concluding that high-emitting nations have a duty to pay for the damages caused by ghg emissions from their country that exceed their fair share of global emissions.

5. Do you agree that a nation that refuses to reduce its ghg emission to its fair share of safe global ghg emissions on the basis of cost to it is implicitly taking a position on how high atmospheric concentrations of ghgs should be allowed to rise and that the higher atmosphere ghg concentrations rise the more people and the ecological systems on which life depends will be harmed?.

This question is designed to expose that refusals of nations to reduce their emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions is implicitly a position on acceptable levels of atmospheric ghg concentrations which is essentially a moral issue because a position on acceptable atmospheric ghg concentrations is a position of a nation on who it is willing to kill or greatly harm by their ghg emissions.

6. Do you agree that a national ghg emissions target that is based on cost to it must be understood as implicitly a position on a global emissions reduction pathway necessary to stabilize atmospheric ghg concentrations at safe levels and that the longer a nation waits to reduce its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions the smaller is the remaining carbon budget for the entire world that may not be exceeded to prevent dangerous climate change?

This question is designed to expose the fact that because delays in ghg emissions based on costs to the polluter makes the enormous threat of climate change much more difficult to solve and more likely that serious harms and damages will be experienced, therefore arguments for delays in reducing ghg emissions based upon cost raise moral and ethical issues because the delays are making the problem worse.

7. Do you agree that nations which emit ghgs at levels beyond their fair share of safe global emissions have a duty to help pay for reasonable adaptation needs and unavoidable damages of low-emitting vulnerable countries and individuals who have done little to cause climate change?

This question is designed to expose the fact that a nation’s refusal to lower its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis of costs creates financial obligations to pay for resulting harms and damages.

8. Do you agree that all the costs of inaction on climate change must be considered by nations who refuse to reduce their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions on the basis of cost to them?

This question is designed to expose that fact that a nation which refuses to reduce its ghg emissions on the basis of costs to it have a strong duty to expressly consider all the costs of damages created by inaction.

9. Given that the United States and most other developed anions have for over twenty-five years failed to adequately respond to climate change because of alleged unacceptable costs to each nation and that due to the delay ghg emissions reductions now needed to avoid potentially catastrophic climate change are much steeper and costly than what would be required if these nations acted twenty five years ago, is it just for the United States and other developed nations to now defend further inaction on climate change on the basis of cost to it?

This question is designed to expose the fact that previous unwillingness to reduce ghg emissions by a nation has caused dangerous delays which should be understood to create moral obligations to delay no longer in reducing ghg emissions to the nation’s fair share of safe global emissions.

10. Do you believe that a nation who desires to delay to reduce its ghg emissions on the basis of costs to it, should have a responsibility to consult with those who will be harmed by the delay before delay is initiated?

This question is designed to expose the fact that procedural justice requires that that those who seek to put others at greater risk on the basis of cost has a duty as a matter of procedural justice to seek consensus from those who may be harmed by non-action.

B. Questions to be Asked of Those Opposing Action on Climate Change on the Basis of Scientific Uncertainty.

When you argue that nations such as the United States or states, regional, or local governments, businesses, organizations, or individuals that emit high levels of greenhouse gases (ghg) need not reduce their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions because of scientific uncertainty about adverse climate change impacts:

1. On what specific basis do you disregard the conclusions of the United States Academy of Sciences, and numerous other Academies of Sciences Around the World including the Royal Academy of the UK, over a hundred of the most prestigious scientific organizations whose membership includes those with expertise relevant to the science of climate change, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics, the American Meteorological Society, the Royal Meteorological Society, and according to the American Academy of Sciences 97 percent of scientists who actually do peer-reviewed research on climate change which conclusions hold that the Earth is warming, that the warming is mostly human caused, and that harsh impacts from warming are already being experienced in parts of the world, and that the international community is running out of time to prevent catastrophic warming.

This question is designed to expose the ethical conclusion that nations who are put on notice by the most prestigious and responsible scientific organizations in the world that ghg emissions from their jurisdictions are causing great harm to vulnerable people around the world have an ethical duty to accept the burden of proof to prove that their ghg emissions are not causing harm. That is once there is a reasonable scientific basis for concluding that some nations or entities are causing great harm, the question of who should have the burden of proof is an ethical and not simply a scientific question. Thus the question is designed to bring attention to the ethical duty of those who are engaged in risky behavior to produce credible scientific evidence that demonstrates that their behavior is not causing harm if they choose to use uncertainty as justification for continuing the risky behavior. That risky behavior is not acceptable because there is some uncertainty about the harm that will be caused by the behavior is clear from law around the world that makes dangerous behavior unacceptable and often criminal. For instance, it is not a defense to reckless driving that the police could not prove the driving would cause harm. Nations and people have a moral duty to stop engaging in behaviors that might be causing harm once they are put on notice that their behavior is dangerous.

2. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there are some remaining scientific uncertainties about climate change impacts, are you arguing that no action of climate change should be taken until all scientific uncertainties are resolved given that waiting to resolve uncertainties before action is taken will virtually guarantee that it will too late to prevent catastrophic human-induced climate change harms to people and ecological systems around the world?

This question is designed to bring attention to the ethical duty to take action in the face of uncertainty if waiting until the uncertainties are resolved will produce greater harm if the harms are caused particularly for problems like climate change that the predicted harms are likely catastrophic to some people and regions..

3. Given that waiting until uncertainties are resolved will make climate change harms worse and the scale of reductions needed to prevent dangerous climate change much more daunting, do you deny that those who are most vulnerable to climate change’s harshest potential impacts have a right to participate in any decision about whether a nation should wait to act to reduce the threat of climate change because of scientific uncertainty?

This question is designed to expose the ethical duty entailed by procedural justice to obtain consensus from those who will be harmed by any delay in taking action on the basis of uncertainty when delay will likely increase the harms to those most vulnerable to the dangerous behavior.

4. Should a developed nation such as the United States which has much higher historical and per capita emissions than other nations be able to justify its refusal to reduce its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis of scientific uncertainty, given that if the mainstream science is correct, the world is rapidly running out of time to prevent warming above 2 degrees C, a temperature limit which if exceeded may cause rapid, non-linear climate change.

This question, following up on question one is designed to expose the ethical duty of high-emitting developed countries like the United States to refrain from further delay on climate change on the basis of scientific uncertainty given that the nation’s non-action on climate change is already responsible for putting the international community in great danger from climate change.

5. If you claim that there is no evidence of human causation of climate change are you aware that there are multiple “fingerprint” studies and “attribution” studies which point to human causation of observed warming?

This question. following up on question one, is designed to expose the fact that there is a strong ethical duty to assume human causation of climate change if there is reliable evidence of human causation and that those who seek to justify non-action on climate change because they claim that human causation has not been proven have a very strong ethical duty to demonstrate that humans are not causing climate change with high levels of proof. More specifically in regard to the question of human causation, opponents of climate change policies that deny human causation should be expected to specifically respond to the numerous “foot-print” and “attribution” studies that the international community has relied on to make conclusions about human causation.

6. When you claim that the United States or other nations emitting high levels of ghgs need not adopt climate change policies because adverse climate change impacts have not yet been proven, are you claiming that climate change skeptics have proven in peer reviewed scientific literature that human-induced climate change will not create harsh adverse impacts to the human health and the ecological systems of others on which their life often depends and if so what is that proof?

This question is designed to expose that those who seek to rely on scientific uncertainty as justification for non-action on climate change have a strong ethical duty to produce very credible scientific evidence that supports the conclusion that human activities releasing ghgs are not causing climate change and its impacts.

7. If you concede that climate skeptics have not proven in peer-reviewed journals that human-induced warming is not a very serious threat to human health and ecological systems, given that human-induced warming could create catastrophic warming the longer the human community waits to respond to reduce the threat of climate change and the more difficult it will be to prevent dangerous warming, do you agree that those responsible for rising atmospheric ghg concentrations have a duty to demonstrate that their ghg emissions are safe?

This question is designed to provoke express ethical reflection on the fact that those most responsible for dangerous atmospheric concentrations of ghg have a strong ethical duty to demonstrate that additional levels of ghg in the atmosphere are safe.

8. Given that in ratifying the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the United States in 1992 agreed under Article 3 of that treaty to not use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for postponing climate change policies, do you believe the United States is now free to ignore this promise by refusing to take action on climate change on the basis of scientific uncertainty? Article 3 states:

The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost. (UNFCCC, Art 3)

This question is designed to bring attention to the fact that because all nations that ratified the UNFCCC agreed to not use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for not reducing their ghg emissions, they have an ethical duty to keep their promises.

9. If a nation such as the United States which emits high-levels of ghgs refuses to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis that there is too much scientific uncertainty to warrant action, if it turns out that human-induced climate change actually seriously harms the health of tens of millions of vulnerable people around the world and ecological systems on which their life depends, should the nation be financially responsible for the harms that could have been avoided if preventative action had been taken earlier?

This question is designed to bring attention to the ethical duty of nations to pay for damages that result from their delays in taking action on the basis of scientific uncertainty.

10. Do you agree that if a government is warned by some of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the world that activities within its jurisdiction are causing great harm to and gravely threatening hundreds of millions of people outside their government’s jurisdiction, government officials who could take steps to assure that activities of their citizens do not harm or threaten others should not be able escape responsibility for preventing harm caused by simply declaring that they are not scientists?

This question is designed to expose that those politicians who refuse to reduce their government’s ghg on the basis that they are not scientists cannot ethically justify non-action on climate change on this basis because once they are put on notice by respected scientific organizations that ghg from their government jurisdiction are harming others, they have a duty to prevent dangerous behavior or establish credible scientific evidence that the alleged dangerous behavior is safe.

C. Questions to be asked of those opposing government action climate change on the basis that other nations such as China and India have not reduced their ghg emissions.

When you argue that nations such as the United States need not reduce its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emission because other nations such as China have not taken action,

1. Are you claiming that no nation has a duty to reduce its ghgs emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions until all other nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions accordingly?

This question is designed to expose the ethical duty of all nations to reduce their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions regardless of what other nations do because any nation emitting ghg emissions above its fair share of safe global emissions is contributing to elevated atmospheric ghg concentrations which are harming and threatening others.

2. If you claim that the US or other developed nation has no duty to act on climate change until China acts, do you agree that economic competitors such has China have no duty to reduce their emissions until the United States does so?

This question is designed to bring attention to the fact if the United States or other high-emitting nation has no duty to reduce its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions until other nations do the same, no nation has a duty to act until the US responds to its obligations, a patently absurd conclusion.

3. Are you aware that the claim frequently made by opponents of US and other national action on climate change that if the country acts to reduce its ghg emissions and China or other developing country dose not act it will make no difference because climate change will still happen is not true because ghg emissions from nations exceeding their fair share of safe global emissions are responsible for rising atmospheric concentrations of ghgs?

This question is designed to correct the false claim that as long as a country such as China does not act, any action by a high-emitting nation such as the United States to reduce its ghg emissions makes no difference. This is factually not true because as long as a developed nation’s ghg emissions are above its fair share of safe global emissions they are contributing to rising atmospheric concentrations of ghgs.

4. Are you aware that the United States agreed when it ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 to adopt policies and measures to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system on the basis of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and that developed nations agreed to take the lead in reducing the threat of climate change?

This question is designed to bring attention to the fact that the United States and other developed nations have promised to take action to reduce their ghg emissions to their fair share of safe global emissions regardless of what other nations do under the UNFCCC.

6. Are you aware that all nations have a duty under customary international law to prevent harm by ensuring that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction?

This question is designed to expose the ethical duty of the United States and other high-emitting nations under international law to prevent its citizens from engaging in activities which cause climate change damages as a matter international law without regard to what other nations do.

7. Are you aware that the United States is much more responsible for elevated atmospheric ghg concentrations than any other country including China because of US historical and per capita emissions?

This question is designed to expose the strong ethical obligation of the United States and many other high-emitting nations to reduce their ghg emissions without regard to what other nations do because they are more responsible for dangerous elevated atmospheric levels of ghgs than any countries.

By:

Donald A. Brown

Scholar In Residence and Professor

Sustainability Ethics and Law

Widener Commonwealth University Law School

dabrown57@gmail.com

Obama’s Laudable Speech Fails to Communicate Policy Implications of The Moral Dimensions of Climate Change.

Posted on August 4, 2015 by dabrown57

When US President Obama announced revised regulations on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from US power plants on August 3, 2015 in a laudable speech supporting the new rules, as he predicted opponents of US climate change policy strongly attacked the new rules on grounds that they would wreck the US economy, destroy jobs, and raise electricity prices. Although President Obama defended the new rules on the basis that they were necessary to prevent dangerous climate change, that time was running out to do so, and that the rules would protect human health of US citizens, the speech failed to develop some of the obvious profound implications for climate policy of the conclusion that climate change is a moral problem, although President Obama did assert twice in the speech that climate change is a moral problem.

Although the Obama speech has rightly been praised by those who believe the US must take strong action on climate change, his speech did not acknowledge that:

US ghg emissions are harming and seriously threatening hundreds of millions of people outside the United States. There was no mention in the speech how US ghg emissions were harming others around the world.
Those who are most vulnerable to climate change have done almost nothing to cause the existing threats to them.
Those who are most vulnerable to climate change can do little to protect themselves, their best hope is that high emitting nations, sub-national governments, organizations, entities, and individuals will respond to their moral responsibilities to reduce the threat of climate change.
If climate change is a moral problem, the US may not base its climate change policies on US interests alone, it must respond to its obligations to not harm others outside the United States. Therefore costs to the US economy alone may not be used to justify failure to reduce US ghg emissions.
The United States must reduce its ghg emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions, a fact which leads to the conclusion that the new rules for power plants are still not stringent enough in light of the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that developed countries must reduce their ghg emissions by a minimum of 25% to 40% by 2020 to prevent dangerous climate change and the new rule will only achieve 32% reduction by 2030 coupled with the added fact that any reasonable interpretation of what equity requires of the United States would require the US to be closer to the 40% reduction by 2020 and surely reduce US ghg emissions well in excess of 40% by 2030.
One of the reasons the world is now running out of time to prevent dangerous climate change is because fossil fuel companies and their allies in the US Congress has prevented the United States from taking serious action on climate change since 1992 when the George H. W Bush administration agreed in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that the United States should adopt policies and measures to prevent dangerous anthropocentric interference on climate change on the basis of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. Thus the United States, more than any other developed country, has been responsible for the disastrous 30 year delay in formulating a serious global response to climate change, while delays make the problem harder and more expensive to solve and increase the likelihood of triggering dangerous climate change.
The United States is more responsible for raising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas concentrations to 400 ppm CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere than any country and has among the highest per capita ghg emissions as any country in the world.
The climate change opposition in the United States has successfully prevented the United States from adopting policies that would have significantly reduced US emissions on the basis of scientific uncertainty despite the fact that the United States agreed in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to not use scientific uncertainty as an excuse for not reducing its ghg emissions to safe levels.
Those nations who have consistently emitted ghgs above their fair share of safe global ghg emissions are responsible for the reasonable adaptation costs and damages of poor nations and people who have not caused climate change.These responsibilities are required both by basic ethics and justice and international law. These financial obligations will far exceed hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

Donald A Brown

Scholar In Residence and Professor

Widener Commonwealth University Law School

dabrown57@gmail.com