Advisory Editors: Simon Caney, Oxford University and Derek Bell, University of Newcastle
The prospect of human induced climate change raises many ethical issues. What criteria should we use to assess the impacts of climate change? Can cost benefit analysis capture all the ethically significant impacts? Do current generations have an obligation to future generations not to bring about long-term dangerous climate change? Is discounting the well-being of future generations obligatory or permissible or indefensible? Some potential impacts of climate change are not known with certainty and this raises the question of how we should respond to risky or uncertain impacts on the earth's climate. For example, should current generations adopt a version of the 'precautionary principle' when considering whether to engage in activities which produce high levels of greenhouse gases? Who should bear the burdens of dealing with global climate change? How should the right to engage in activities which emit carbon dioxide be distributed? Is carbon trading just and, if so, under what conditions? Are some entitled to compensation or reparations for the harmful effects of anthropogenic climate change? In addition to the above, we face ethical question pertaining to how decisions about climate policy should be taken. Papers are invited on any of the above themes.
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