Values In Climate Policy

279 Pages·2020·4.623 MB·English

by  David Morrow

Values in Climate Policy
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Values in Climate Policy
David Morrow
London • New York
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Published by Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
www.rowmaninternational.com
Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd., is an affiliate of Rowman & Littlefield
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA
With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and Plymouth (UK)
www.rowman.com
Copyright © 2020 David R. Morrow
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB 978-1-78660-947-2
ISBN: PB 978-1-78660-948-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019950586
ISBN 9781786609472 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781786609489 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
9781786609496 (ebook)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Maldives and the Moral Challenge of Climate Change 1
Why Are the Maldives Disappearing? 2
What Should Be Done about Climate Change? 3
1 The Physical Science of Climate Change 7
A Brief History of Climate Science 7
Modern Climate Science 15
Box: Values in Climate Science and the Science-Policy Interface 18
2 The Economics of Climate Change 31
The Incentive Structures Driving Climate Change 31
The Social Cost of Carbon 46
The Economic Costs of Climate Change and Climate Action 48
3 Values in Climate Politics 57
International Climate Politics 57
Domestic Climate Politics 66
Climate Change and Non-Ideal Justice 74
4 The Moral Foundations of Climate Action 83
Ways of Responding to Climate Change 84
Box: Solar Geoengineering 89
Moral Reasons to Respond to Climate Change 92
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vi Contents
5 Crosscutting Issues in Climate Policy 105
Distributing the Burdens of Climate Policy 106
Gender and Climate Change 116
Uncertainty, Risk, and Precaution 118
6 Values in Mitigation Policy 131
Discharging the Collective Obligation to Mitigate Climate Change 132
How Should We Mitigate? 137
Carbon Removal 144
7 Values in Adaptation Policy 153
The Goals of Adaptation 154
Procedural Justice in Adaptation 157
Sharing the Burdens and Benefits of Adaptation 158
Adaptation, Mitigation, and Human Development 163
Migration, Climate Exiles, and Adaptation 165
Responding to Loss and Damage 169
8 Intergenerational Justice and Climate Policy 179
Theoretical Challenges for Intergenerational Justice 180
Box: Some Proposed Solutions to the Nonidentity Problem 185
Theories of Intergenerational Justice 187
Sharing Burdens across Generations 194
Precaution and Intergenerational Climate Justice 199
9 Nature, Values, and Climate Policy 207
The Value of Nature 209
Box: Understanding Nonanthropocentric Value 210
Climate Policy and the Anthropocentric Value of Nature 212
Nonanthropocentric Value and Climate Policy 213
Assisted Migration 218
Climate Ethics in the Anthropocene 221
Bibliography 231
Index 257
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Preface
Climate change represents one of the greatest moral challenges of the
twenty-first century. How the world chooses to respond to climate change
reflects a constellation of value judgments. This book explores those value
judgments and the arguments surrounding them across a wide array of is-
sues in climate policy.
This book is, in a sense, a survey of climate ethics; but it is a survey guided
by two specific principles. The first is that climate ethics is most valuable
when it engages with the details of climate policy. The book does explore
high-level moral questions about, say, how to allocate the burdens of cli-
mate action across individuals, countries, and generations. At the same time,
though, the book tries to shrink the gap between academic ethics and climate
policy by delving into more detailed policy questions—questions where a
complex array of competing values presents a serious challenge to designing
morally sound climate policies. The second guiding principle is that thinking
clearly about climate ethics and climate policy requires a firm grasp of the
science, economics, and politics of climate change and at least some familiar-
ity with the kinds of policies that people might adopt to respond to it. This
is why the book begins with a survey of largely nonphilosophical topics,
although even there questions of value inevitably arise.
I have tried to write a book that would be useful in a range of contexts. Be-
cause it assumes no prior knowledge of climate change or climate ethics, the
book can serve as a stand-alone introduction for readers approaching these
issues for the first time. For more advanced readers, the book serves as a map
of the climate ethics landscape and the corresponding academic literature,
with endnotes and recommendations for further reading pointing the way
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viii Preface
into the rapidly growing scholarly conversation about the ethics of climate
change and climate policy. Scholars or students in advanced courses should
treat the book as a starting point, to be supplemented by outside readings that
suit their needs and interests—or, on topics where outside readings are scarce
or inadequate, by new research of their own.
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Acknowledgments
I blame Bob Kopp for this book’s existence. He’s the one who lured me into
thinking seriously about climate ethics. Since then, I have benefited tremen-
dously from talking with him about climate change and climate policy in
general and about various aspects of this book in particular. For that, and a
quarter century of friendship, I am grateful.
The fine folks at Rowman & Littlefield International deserve my thanks,
too. Sarah Campbell got the project off the ground, and my editor, Isobel
Cowper-Coles, brought it to completion. Their valuable feedback, along with
suggestions and criticisms from two reviewers who read the proposal, im-
proved the book in important ways. Thanks also to production editor Janice
Braunstein, who shepherded the book from digital manuscript to physical
form, and copyeditor Naomi Mindlin.
I owe a deep intellectual debt to so many ethicists, economists, and policy
experts that I cannot hope to name them all here. I hope I haven’t done them
too great a disservice in trying to convey some of their ideas in this book. I
owe a particularly deep intellectual debt on these matters to my father, Daniel
Morrow, who has influenced so much of my thinking about climate policy in
particular and about ethics and economics in general.
Finally, I am grateful for the support that I have received from my wife,
Melissa; from my parents, Daniel and Felicia; and from Simon Nicholson at
the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University,
who probably regrets telling me I could spend time finishing this book.
Though all these people helped bring this book into existence, blame for
the book’s faults, defects, and shortcomings belongs entirely to me, not to any
of them—especially not Bob.
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