Yang Tongjin and Gu Yueming: From Climate Ethics to Climate Justice: Themes and Trends in Western Climate Ethical Research
I. Three Stages of Western Climate Ethics Research
Western scholarly research on climate ethics is inextricably linked to the practice of global climate governance. This field has progressed through roughly three stages: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (hereafter "the Convention") stage, the post-Kyoto Protocol (hereafter "the Protocol") stage, and the Paris Agreement stage.
(1) The Convention Stage (1992–2003) This was the preliminary exploration stage of Western climate ethics. During this period, research centered on the ethical principles involved in the Convention, such as the principle of equality, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, and the principle of historical responsibility. Dale Jamieson and Henry Shue were two influential pioneers who began focusing on and publishing research in this area in the 1990s. Jamieson’s Introduction to Environmental Philosophy and A Companion to Applied Ethics (edited by R. G. Frey et al.) were among the first professional ethical reference works to address climate themes.
Research topics in this period primarily included: (1) revealing and interpreting the political, economic, cultural, and especially ethical consequences of global warming; (2) explaining how global warming challenges existing political systems, economic models, and mainstream Western values; (3) intergenerational climate ethics, international climate ethics, and ethical issues related to mitigation (as opposed to adaptation); (4) in terms of value orientation, most scholars endorsed the principles of equality, common but differentiated responsibilities, and historical responsibility promoted by the Convention, while upholding the right to development for developing countries—arguing that "subsistence emissions" in the developing world should take precedence over "luxury emissions" in developed nations.
(2) The Post-Protocol Stage (2004–2014) This stage marked the flourishing of Western climate ethics. In 2004, the journals Ethics and Ethics & International Affairs published two influential papers by American scholar Stephen Gardiner, signaling that mainstream Western academic journals were beginning to prioritize climate ethics. From that year onward, the number of papers discussing climate ethics in international journals showed a significant and sustained upward trend. Therefore, while negotiations on international emission reduction responsibilities for the post-Protocol era did not formally begin until the 11th Conference of the Parties (COP11) in 2005, it is more reasonable to view 2004 as the starting point of this developmental boom.
A group of distinguished scholars emerged during this period, including Stephen Gardiner (USA), Simon Caney (UK), and Darrel Moellendorf (Germany). Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, edited by Gardiner et al., was the first major work in Western academia to include "Climate Ethics" in its title, consolidating the significant achievements of the field up to that point. Monographs with high innovative value from this period include Gardiner’s A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change and Jamieson’s Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed—and What It Means for Our Future.
The distinctive features of this stage were: (1) a closer focus on the ethical principles of international governance in the post-Protocol era; (2) more in-depth and comprehensive research into the content and main principles of climate ethics (particularly equality and historical responsibility); (3) the rise of climate justice as the most significant research theme, alongside growing attention to the ethics of climate engineering; (4) a broader scope of inquiry, with in-depth explorations of climate ethics in relation to global distributive justice and individual responsibility.
(3) The Paris Agreement Stage (2015–Present) With the signing of the Paris Agreement, research entered a stage of systematic categorization, comprehensive summary, deep reflection, and further development. Key characteristics include: First, the ranks of researchers have continued to expand, with scholars possessing international perspectives—such as Catriona McKinnon (UK), Megan Blomfield (UK), and Lukas Meyer (Austria)—taking the stage. More journals have established columns or special issues on climate ethics, and works synthesizing research findings have increased, such as The Routledge Handbook of Climate Justice (ed. Tahseen Jafry) and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Climate Change [1] (ed. Gianfranco Pellegrino et al.). Second, climate justice remains the core theme, while geoengineering ethics has risen to become the second most prominent topic. Third, the field continues to expand into emerging issues like climate migration and refugees, non-anthropocentric climate ethics, and methodological questions. Fourth, there is a greater emphasis on the link between theory and practice, particularly ethical issues regarding the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
II. Key Themes in Western Climate Ethics Research
As the brief history above illustrates, Western climate ethics involves a wide array of themes. Due to space constraints, this article focuses on four overarching and highly debated themes: general theory, climate justice, geoengineering ethics, and the ethics of climate responsibility.
(I) General Theory of Climate Ethics This involves basic questions such as the object of study, the theoretical and practical foundations, the essence of climate issues, research methodologies, fundamental principles, value orientations, and the functions/utility of climate ethics.
1. The Objects of Study According to summaries by Jamieson and Damian Bridge, the primary objects of study include: (1) revealing ethical issues brought by climate change; (2) responsibility (individual, international, and intergenerational); (3) ethical principles for burden-sharing in climate action; (4) geoengineering; (5) political ethics; (6) economic ethics; (7) social ethics (e.g., climate refugees, migration, and population ethics); and (8) environmental ethics related to climate governance.
2. Ethical Implications of Climate Change In the 1990s, most scientists and economists viewed climate governance as a technical or economic problem. A major task of climate ethics—especially during that decade—was to clarify that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue. For Jamieson and Gardiner, the impacts of climate change are so broad, profound, diverse, and uncertain that traditional economic models (especially cost-benefit analysis) cannot grasp the essence of the problem. As some scholars noted: "The climate problem is a question of values, not a question of efficiency."
Gardiner calls the challenge a "perfect moral storm." In his view, dominant Western theories (particularly in politics and economics) lack the wisdom and resources to help contemporary society solve fundamental problems like scientific uncertainty, global justice, intergenerational equality, and duties toward nature. Jamieson similarly points out that our failure to address warming reflects the poverty of our worldviews and values, the rigidity of our political institutions, and the limits of our cognitive and emotional capacities.
While both agree that the failure is a "fundamental ethical failure," Gardiner argues it stems not from a lack of correct values but from "moral corruption"—failing to act on moral requirements due to selfishness, apathy, or ignorance. Jamieson, conversely, believes the failure stems from a lack of a correct value system. To truly succeed, we must undergo a profound revolution in values. This is the ultimate reason why climate change is an ethical issue.
3. Research Methodologies Beyond conventional ethical methods, this field emphasizes "interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches" and the combination of "ideal theory" and "non-ideal theory." Furthermore, there are debates between "isolationist" approaches (treating climate justice separately from other justice issues) and "integrationist" or "holistic" approaches (allocating burdens according to unified principles of justice).
(II) Climate Justice Climate justice is the most critical theme in Western climate ethics, spanning all three stages and generating the most scholarly output.
1. Basic Meaning and Theoretical Foundations Most scholars acknowledge that climate change involves justice—particularly global and intergenerational justice—primarily because: (1) the actions of GHG [2] emitters harm others (especially those across borders); (2) the catastrophic impacts are most obvious for the poorest and most vulnerable groups (ethnic minorities, women, children, and future generations) or nations (developing and least developed countries), yet these groups "contributed" the least to warming, have the weakest capacity to respond, benefit the least from current policies, and have the weakest voices in negotiations; (3) no single person, nation, or generation can solve the problem alone. Global governance requires cooperation, necessitating a fair distribution of burdens and benefits.
While definitions vary, most agree that climate justice centers on the fair distribution of burdens and benefits. Shue notes it involves four questions: (1) How to distribute the costs of prevention; (2) how to distribute responsibility for social consequences; (3) who the subjects of these responsibilities are; and (4) how to fairly distribute emission allowances. Generally, it is divided into "procedural justice" and "substantive justice," though some scholars expand this to "distributive," "recognition," and "participatory" justice.
Regarding the foundations of climate justice, Western academia primarily holds three perspectives. The relational view of climate justice posits that climate change links the fates and interests of people across different nations, forming a genuine relationship of interdependence. Consequently, certain Rawlsian concepts of justice can be applied to the design of international cooperation for global climate governance. The non-relational view holds that we owe obligations of justice to others simply because they are human beings who possess the same humanity as ourselves. This non-relational view manifests in two distinct forms: egalitarianism and prioritarianism. Simon Caney [3] is a major advocate of the egalitarian view. He argues that every individual affected by climate change is entitled to equal moral concern, and that the burdens and benefits associated with global climate governance should be distributed equally among all people. The prioritarian view, conversely, maintains that when allocating the burdens and costs of global climate governance, priority should be given to ensuring the right to sustainable development for every nation, or ensuring that all people have the capacity to lead a minimally decent life.
2. Principles of Climate Justice In Western academia, extensive discussion has been devoted to the specific requirements, theoretical foundations, and the theoretical and practical advantages and limitations of various principles. These include the principle of intergenerational justice, the historical baseline principle, the polluter-pays principle, the beneficiary-pays principle, the ability-to-pay principle, as well as egalitarian, utilitarian, sufficientarian, and prioritarian principles. Among these, most Western scholars advocate for a hybrid conception of climate justice, grounded in egalitarian principles (especially Rawlsian egalitarianism) and composed of multiple ethical principles. The historical baseline principle is one of the more frequently criticized, while the principle of historical responsibility remains a subject of significant debate.
The core contention of the historical responsibility principle is that the vast majority of greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere were emitted by Western industrialized nations; therefore, developed countries and their people must bear the primary responsibility for global warming. Within global cooperation plans for climate governance, developed countries and their populations should undertake a larger share of greenhouse gas emission reductions and climate governance responsibilities. The primary justifications supporting this principle include the theory of fault-based liability, the ability-to-pay theory, the theory of fair responsibility, and the theory of equality of opportunity. Some scholars, however, maintain a skeptical attitude toward historical responsibility. Their reasons mainly include the "exculpation through ignorance" argument, the "first-come, first-served" argument, the principle of non-retroactivity, and the lack of international consensus.
(III) Geoengineering Ethics "Geoengineering," also known as "climate engineering" or "climate geoengineering," refers to large-scale, deliberate interventions in the Earth's climate system to address climate change. Geoengineering is primarily divided into two categories: Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR). Geoengineering ethics primarily explores the ethical issues of the former. Western academic research on geoengineering ethics revolves around the following two themes.
1. The Theoretical Logic for Choosing Geoengineering The theoretical logic by which most scholars support geoengineering is as follows: if emission reduction measures fail to make substantive progress, humanity will have no choice but to select a method with relatively minor negative impacts—namely, geoengineering—to address climate change. Stephen Gardiner [4] has challenged this logic from five perspectives: (1) whether the impacts of climate change have truly reached an uncontrollable stage; (2) whether there are alternative methods to address climate change besides geoengineering; (3) whether geoengineering will affect the living space of future generations; (4) whether people can bear the political costs of geoengineering; and (5) whether geoengineering signals a moral corruption of humanity. Gardiner also refutes the "insurance argument" and the "self-defense argument" posed by supporters. In his view, the logical path for making geoengineering tenable involves first identifying the subjects implementing it, then determining its goals, and finally formulating an ethical framework so that geoengineering does not become "another extreme form of domination." Dale Jamieson [5] argues that implementing geoengineering must satisfy four conditions: (1) it must be technically feasible; (2) its consequences and impacts must be predictable; (3) its economic impact must be better than the alternatives; and (4) it must not violate generally accepted ethical principles. However, in Jamieson’s view, these conditions are not currently met.
2. Ethical Issues Raised by Geoengineering Whether in the research and development (R&D) stage or the implementation stage, geoengineering triggers a series of ethical issues. Ethical issues in the R&D stage primarily include: (1) Moral hazard: Once geoengineering is viewed as an insurance measure against climate change, it may divert attention and make people reluctant to take necessary but difficult measures to reduce emissions; over-reliance on the benefits of geoengineering could also entice people to abandon mitigation efforts. (2) Slippery slope: Once R&D begins, we may eventually use it; however, there are significant moral reasons (such as the uncertainties and potential harms brought by geoengineering, and the irreversible path toward "technological lock-in") to prove that geoengineering should not be implemented, and by extension, should not be developed.
Ethical issues in the implementation stage primarily include: (1) Procedural justice, i.e., who decides and how it is decided whether, when, and in which countries or regions to implement geoengineering; (2) Substantive justice, i.e., how to fairly distribute the costs and benefits. Daniel Callies argues that according to the principles of causal responsibility, beneficiary responsibility, and capacity, the costs of geoengineering should be borne primarily by those groups and nations most responsible for global warming, those who benefit most from climate change, and those most able to afford it, while the benefits should be shared by current and future generations; (3) Geoengineering may damage intra-generational and inter-generational solidarity.
Implementing geoengineering also triggers other external ethical issues, including: (1) Various negative consequences, potential harms, uncertainties, and risks, especially "known-unknowns" and "unknown-unknowns"; (2) Global security and legal issues, such as organizations or nations unilaterally implementing geoengineering for strategic advantage or military, economic, and commercial purposes, thereby endangering the stability of the international order.
(IV) Ethics of Climate Responsibility The causes of global temperature rise are highly complex. Viewed in isolation, the greenhouse gas emissions of any single individual do not cause global temperatures to rise. This asymmetry between an individual’s harmless emissions and the aggregate harmful result of everyone’s emissions is known as the "problem of inconsequentialism." This problem has led to a debate in Western academia between collectivist approaches and individualist approaches regarding how to understand responsibility for climate change (including responsibilities for mitigation and adaptation).
1. Collectivist Approaches Garrett Hardin’s "Tragedy of the Commons" is a very important theory used to explain the causes of global warming. According to this theory, individual emission behaviors that appear harmless lead, in the aggregate, to the greenhouse effect. Meanwhile, if one individual unilaterally reduces emissions while others continue, that unilateral act will not change the overall result of rising temperatures. Some scholars argue that the three elements of the tragedy of the commons (subtractable resources, independent actors, and collective harm) are likewise present in the case of climate change. Under these circumstances, we cannot reasonably expect individual unilateral emissions reductions to achieve the overall goal of preventing global warming. Therefore, responsibility should not be understood from an individualist perspective, but rather described from a collectivist one. If individual emissions only bring harm in the sense of an aggregate result, and do not cause direct, identifiable harm to any specific individual, then people do not have a personal moral obligation to unilaterally reduce emissions, because the aggregate harm of global warming is beyond individual control. Whether a specific individual emits or not, the aggregate harm will occur.
Scholars favoring the collectivist approach argue that it is the collective behavior of humanity that causes global warming; to mitigate it, people must take collective action. Although individuals do not bear a personal obligation to unilaterally reduce emissions in their daily lives, they still bear a collective obligation to take joint action with others to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Regarding climate change, the primary obligation of the individual is not to reduce emissions in daily life, but to create and maintain just institutions, and to achieve climate governance goals through these institutions. Elizabeth Cripps refers to this as a "promotional duty" and justifies it based on the principles of collective benefit and collective harm. In Cripps’ view, if an individual fulfills this promotional duty, they should not be subject to moral condemnation or carry moral guilt because their emissions contribute to an aggregate climate injustice. Maintaining climate justice is the primary duty of governments and other relevant institutions. Some climate collectivists even argue that requiring individuals to reduce emissions in their daily lives is too high a moral demand. We should not apply the "no-harm" principle to carbon emissions; otherwise, our life prospects would become very bleak, as it would mean we could not fly, drive, or use air conditioning and other appliances.
2. Individualist Approaches Unlike climate collectivists, climate individualists believe that people not only have an obligation to mitigate and adapt to climate change through collective action but also bear a personal obligation in their daily lives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and choose green, low-carbon lifestyles.
Climate individualists point out that the explanatory model of the Tragedy of the Commons does not apply to the situation of climate change. The Tragedy of the Commons theory presupposes that individuals are independent of each other, that there are no social forces or laws to constrain individual consumption, and that people’s behaviors do not influence one another nor do people resort to joint action for cooperation. But people living in the real world are not like this. Furthermore, the collectivist understanding of the "problem of inconsequentialism" is one-sided and the result of flawed "moral mathematics." In a globalized world, although the harm brought by individual behavior has become increasingly difficult to calculate, we cannot lapse into hasty ethical arithmetic and ignore subtle or imperceptible harms. The impact of an individual’s actions may be diffused among many people or places to the point of becoming unnoticeable. However, this does not mean these tiny and dispersed benefits or harms are morally insignificant. Some scholars also rely on empirical data to prove that the harm caused by individual emissions can indeed be identified and calculated.
In the view of climate individualists, people bear an individual moral obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and unilateral reductions by individuals can change the aggregate harmful outcome. They further defend this individual climate responsibility from the perspectives of virtue ethics, fair shares, the categorical imperative, and indirect reciprocity.
III. Trends and Directions in Western Climate Ethics Research
Since the Paris Climate Conference, Western scholarship on climate ethics has exhibited trends emphasizing philosophical foundations, intellectual resources, interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives, ethical challenges facing global climate governance under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) model, and the relationship between climate governance and territorial sovereignty. Among these, non-anthropocentric climate ethics, the ethics of climate migration, and climate population ethics are three new research trends worthy of attention.
(1) Non-anthropocentric Climate Ethics
As early as the first stage of Western climate ethics research—the preliminary exploration stage—Jamieson advocated values based on respect for nature. Robin Attfield also argued that the atmosphere’s absorptive capacity should be viewed as the common property of all species; humans should act as trustees for other species when determining total greenhouse gas emissions; and the formulation of emissions policies should avoid endangering relevant species, regardless of whether those species enhance human well-being.
In the second stage—the period of flourishing development—non-anthropocentric climate ethics received attention from an increasing number of scholars. In the view of these scholars, non-anthropocentric climate ethics is built upon three assumptions: that global climate change is indeed occurring; that humans bear moral responsibility for climate change; and that the non-human world deserves moral concern regardless of whether it brings benefits to humans. Species, ecosystems, non-conscious life forms, and animals are the four types of objects for moral concern within non-anthropocentric climate ethics. The policy implications of non-anthropocentric climate ethics differ from those of anthropocentric ethics; it leans more toward "mitigation" rather than "adaptation" and rejects the practice, prevalent in public policy-making, of converting harms or benefits into economic value.
In fact, the Second Assessment Report (SAR) released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1995 already pointed out that species, biodiversity, and ecosystems possess intrinsic value. Therefore, in the view of scholars advocating non-anthropocentric climate ethics, assessing the impact of climate change solely from an economic perspective fails to grasp the intrinsic value of species, biodiversity, and ecosystems. Some scholars have attempted to construct a concept of "multi-species climate justice" that transcends anthropocentrism. In their view, mainstream concepts of climate justice fail to pay sufficient attention to the interests of other species and fail to question (or even potentially condone) human exceptionalism and human violence against other species. The concept of multi-species climate justice transcends the mainstream concept in two ways: first, by expanding the scope of obligatory concern to treat all life affected by climate change as objects of climate justice; and second, by expanding the focus of climate justice from individual humans to the interaction between humans and nature, as well as ecosystems as a whole. Multi-species climate justice is multidimensional, inclusive, and sensitive to other species, emphasizing the reconstruction of a new cosmopolitan politics focused on all species and based on a community of life on Earth [6]. Climate Change and the Non-Human World, edited by Brian Henning and Zack Walsh, preserves fourteen papers that explore many important themes of non-anthropocentric climate ethics from the perspectives of philosophical foundations, intellectual resources, methodology, value orientations, practical norms, and policy implications. This volume serves as a concentrated display of non-anthropocentric climate ethics research, providing a brand-new horizon for the academic community to further expand and deepen research in this field.
(2) The Ethics of Climate Migration (Refugees)
Climate warming has caused the homes of millions of people to be destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. According to World Bank projections, if the rate of global warming is not controlled, by 2050, 143 million people will be displaced in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America alone. A 2017 study by Columbia University also pointed out that by 2100, 450,000 climate refugees will flow into Europe annually. Consequently, over the past decade, the ethical issues of climate migrants and climate refugees have gradually become an important research theme in Western climate ethics.
In a broad sense, "climate refugees" usually refers to individuals or groups forced to migrate due to climate change (drought, desertification, sea-level rise, etc.) and other environmental factors, whether this migration occurs within or across national borders, and whether it is temporary or permanent. Climate ethics primarily focuses on individuals or groups forced to migrate permanently to other countries because their basic needs cannot be met domestically due to climate change. This group is referred to as "climate migrants" in the broad sense. Most scholars advocate treating climate refugees as a special subcategory of climate migrants. The ethical issues triggered by the migration of such groups are complex, and the international community has yet to reach a legal consensus on how to resettle them.
The harms climate change causes to climate migrants primarily include: loss of economic interests; threats to the rights to health, security, life, and production; and the disappearance of the right to national self-determination, the dissolution of political communities, the loss of cultural identity, and the extinction of national cultures that accompany the loss of one's homeland. All these harms suffered by climate migrants are caused by the greenhouse gas emissions of others, which leads to the ethical question of how to compensate these climate migrants.
The core ethical issues involved in climate migration ethics include what rights climate migrants possess, who should bear responsibility for their plight, and according to what principles compensation and reparations should be provided. Most scholars believe that developed countries should bear the primary responsibility for the current predicament of climate migrants and have the responsibility and obligation to provide reparations and compensation. In the view of these scholars, developed countries owe climate migrants not only an obligation of reparations but also an obligation of compensation. The obligation of compensation is an obligation of justice. Western scholars still differ on whether to require developed countries to undertake the obligation of compensation based on the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP), the Beneficiary Pays Principle (BPP), or the Ability to Pay Principle (APP). Regarding the methods for providing compensation, some scholars advocate for economic aid, others for providing migration opportunities, and still others for providing land and territory.
(3) Climate Population Ethics
According to the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), economic development and population growth remain the two most important factors leading to increased carbon emissions. Population growth brings an overall rise in global demand for natural resources. Therefore, climate governance cannot be separated from the management of population size; climate ethics and population ethics are inextricably linked.
Related research shows a positive correlation between low fertility rates and the mitigation of climate change. Maintaining a low fertility rate (an average of 0.5 children per woman) could reduce global carbon emissions by 5.1 billion tons by 2100. Consequently, Sarah Conly argues that a couple should have at most one child. Carney has criticized Conly's "restrictionist" population policy, arguing that it suffers from ethical flaws such as arbitrariness, reductionism, and pseudo-egalitarianism. Carney advocates for an "ecological liberal" population policy that buffers the demand for birth restrictions by allowing for a balance among a broader range of rights. Some scholars argue that limited reproductive rights should be protected; when a balance is struck between reducing per capita emissions and restricting births, priority should be given to restricting emissions (rather than births), as these emissions do not contribute to the important goal of child-rearing.
Population policy primarily involves ethical issues such as reproductive ethics, reproductive justice, regional (national) equality, and women's rights. Some scholars argue that the problem of "overpopulation" must be viewed in light of actual regional conditions. For Africa, population signifies productive forces, wealth, and honor. Therefore, one cannot use the "lifeboat metaphor" [7] prevalent in Western developed countries to consider the population problems of underdeveloped nations. The harms of overpopulation prompt a global responsibility to restrict birth rates, yet currently, this responsibility is primarily borne by underdeveloped nations. This situation should be changed, and the responsibility for reducing birth rates should be borne more by developed countries. Under the conditions of global warming and increasing natural resource scarcity, the impact of population growth on contemporary and future worlds cannot be ignored. The formulation of population policy must consider both the basic rights of contemporary people and the well-being of future generations. How to scientifically formulate population policies and make them acceptable to more stakeholder groups is an important issue requiring further research in climate ethics.
(About the Authors: Yang Tongjin and Gu Yueming are at the School of Marxism, Guangxi University) Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Foreign Theoretical Trends (Guowai Lilun Dongtai), No. 5, 2024