climate ethics

These are the articles that appeared in The Monist 94 (2011), special issue "Morality and Climate Change," edited by Simon Caney (Oxford) and Derek Bell (Newcastle), pp. 305-452.  The links are to pdfs at the USF library; apologies if they may be iffy off-campus. The intro is excerpted below.

morality and climate change
Simon Caney, Derek Bell
94 (2011): 305-309

climate change refugees, compensation, and rectification
Avner de Shalit
94 (2011): 310-328

can the maximin principle serve as a basis for climate change policy?
Greg Bognar
94 (2011): 329-348

climate change and individual responsibility
Avram Hiller
94 (2011): 349-368

nonrenewable resources and the inevitability of outcomes
Benjamin Hale
94 (2011): 369-390

global climate justice, historic emissions, and excusable ignorance
Derek Bell
94 (2011): 391-411

climatic justice and the fair distribution of atmospheric burdens: a conjunctive account
Edward Page
94 (2011): 412-432

a right to sustainable development
Darrel Moellendorf
94 (2011): 433-452

Excerpt from Caney's introduction (p 305-309):

"Climate change poses many ethical issues.  One important normative question concerns how we evaluate the impacts of climate change. Should we be concerned only with its impact on human beings? What about its effects on nonhuman animals and on the world itself? Do these have independent moral value? Furthermore, when we are considering its impacts on human beings there are a number of different ethical criteria one might appeal to. One might, for example, focus on its effects on utility or well-being considered more broadly, or its effects on the realization of human rights (Caney 2009), or on some other criterion. ... Any normative appraisal of how to respond to the prospect of climate change requires more than an account of what criteria should be employed to evaluate climatic impacts. Another highly important question arises from the fact that there is considerable uncertainty about the magnitude of the likely changes to the earth’s climate and their corresponding effects on people’s lives. ... This raises the question: how should humanity respond to the risks and uncertainties involved?...  (p.306) In addition to the two questions considered so far, a third important question (or rather set of questions) concerns the resulting moral responsibilities to act. One can distinguish between (at least) two questions here. First, what kinds of entities have moral responsibilities to act? It is commonly assumed that states have a responsibility to act but what about individuals? Or corporations? What role, if any, should international institutions (such as theWTO or IMF orWorld Bank or EU) play? A second question is: how should the burden of combating climate change be distributed? What distributive principle should be adopted? ... (p. 307) As noted above, any adequate account of the responsibilities to address climate change must address not simply what kinds of entities are the relevant duty bearers but also how duties should be distributed among duty bearers. ... As noted above, one principle invoked by Page and others is that those responsible for bringing about climate change should pay. One issue that arises here concerns what responsibilities we should ascribe in cases where people emitted greenhouse gases but were excusably ignorant of their role in bringing about dangerous climate change. ... (p. 308) The issue of how to distribute burdens connects to another fundamental issue—namely, what is the relationship between burden sharing and enabling the least developed countries to develop? ... (p. 309) These, then, are the questions explored by the papers in this issue. There are, of course, many other questions—including, for example, What principle of intergenerational equity should be applied? Is it appropriate, as many economists have argued, to adopt a positive social discount rate? How should the right to emit greenhouse gases be distributed? What moral issues, if any, are raised by the measures suggested to deal with climate change—measures such as emissions trading, geo-engineering, population control, and nuclear energy? There is increasing interest in climate ethics (Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson, and Shue 2010). Our hope is that the essays included here help stimulate further reflection on the moral challenges raised by climate change."