In this paper I present the moral case for climate change mitigation, and relatedly the moral urgency of an early international agreement on this subject. The Precautionary Principle supplies significant support to the former. So, differently, does the situation of countries such as Bangladesh. Adaptation is needed as well as mitigation, but without mitigation the massive underlying problem of excessive emissions of greenhouse gases remains unaddressed. While the moral case for mitigation is relevant to all individuals, households and corporations capable of making a difference (as well as to governments), the greatest difference stands to be made if governments can reach a global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions. Probably the best basis for such an agreement would be one embodying Contraction and Convergence (as proposed by Aubrey Meyer), although a more comprehensive agreement that would also make provision for global development is also discussed. However, so great is the need for a global agreement that the adoption of any workable treaty, whether on the basis of Contraction and Convergence or not, should be seen as an urgent priority; humanity cannot wait for one that is morally ideal.

THE MORAL CASE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION

I will first present the moral case for climate change mitigation, and then, relatedly, the moral urgency of an early international agreement on this subject. I will not be arguing the case for the reality of global warming, or for its anthropogenic nature. These are scientific rather than ethical issues, and have been addressed in successive IPCC reports, as well as in John Houghton’s book, Global Warming (Houghton 2004). Even if there is room for some slight uncertainty, they establish their conclusions to a high degree of probability.

But probability such as this triggers the Precautionary Principle. In its weak forms, this Principle maintains that when there is reason to believe that serious and irreversible harm is at stake, the absence of scientific consensus should not be treated as a reason against intervention to prevent such harm. But the harms attested in IPCC reports are precisely ones that are serious and (in many cases) irreversible, such as the growth of deserts, the predicted loss of life through freak weather events, and the ongoing (but avoidable) extinction of numerous species. The weak form of the Precautionary Principle, unanimously endorsed at the Rio Summit of 1992, tells us that in these circumstances the lack of scientific consensus (and thus the absence of scientific certainty) supplies no reason against taking action. Meanwhile strong forms of the Principle tell us that in these circumstances action is mandatory. These versions do not have the same unanimous international support, but it is clear that even if we accept weak versions only, some very significant considerations would have to be available to justify inaction in the same circumstances. So, unless there are such significant considerations, such as the need to avert wars, international disasters, pandemics or a global slump, the argument for appropriate action is effectively supported by the weak versions of the Precautionary Principle, without resort to strong versions.

In order to get a better grip on the case for climate change mitigation, let us reflect on what is liable to be suffered or lost if nothing, or not enough, is done. The clearest impact is a rise of sea levels, likely to inundate some coastal areas including coastal cities, to submerge whole countries such as Tuvalu and most of the Maldives, and to cause severe flooding in deltas such as that of the Ganges in West and East Bengal, and that of the Yangtze in China. Unless all the affected people move in time, there will be thousands of casualties, if not millions.

Nor is it difficult to envisage the freak weather events that climate change threatens, because they are happening already. Droughts, as well as undermining tropical agriculture, are likely to cause cultivable land to be abandoned to deserts in several continents, including southern Europe. Hurricanes and tornadoes are likely to affect vulnerable islands and coastlines in the Caribbean and South-east Asia. Wildfires in Africa and Australia are likely to destroy some of our remaining forests and threaten to incinerate human habitations. Erratic monsoons are likely to repeat the pattern of flooding seen recently in Pakistan, to inundate inland areas, and to cause rivers to change their course, as happens each year already in Bangladesh. The melting of glaciers is already causing rivers in places like Peru and Bolivia to dry up, instead of supplying the customary seasonal waters, requiring farming communities to move to better watered places.

For present purposes, this dismal litany of disasters may suffice without adding a catalogue of species whose extinction is threatened, in many cases even before they have been discovered. Instead, it is time to ask what the ethical case for mitigation amounts to. Clearly it is based in part on the interests of future generations, liable to be denied a habitable planet, and on those of other species, liable to be denied habitats needed for survival. But importantly it is also based on the interests of current vulnerable human beings, and particularly those who have contributed little or nothing to causing the problem.

Thus the people of Bangladesh have to stand by as their land is flooded, sometimes from sea-level rise and sometimes from monsoon flood-waters. These problems are in total contrast with those of the people of Bolivia, where river-water is becoming too scarce, although this problem disrupts life in Bangladesh too when other countries, to counteract their own scarcities, divert some of the river waters that used to reach Bangladesh. Meanwhile diseases like malaria are spreading to higher altitudes and latitudes, and thus to millions of new victims, with all the suffering that malaria brings. And millions of people worldwide are being forced to become environmental refugees, because their livelihoods have been undermined by one or other of the impacts of climate change. So the continuing carbon emissions of richer countries are threatening severe harms to contemporary humans. In most legal systems, generating hazards for others who have no say in the matter is regarded as negligent and reckless behaviour, and it is hard to deny that the same principle applies to ethics, including international ethics.

Continuing with unabated greenhouse gas emissions is also short-sighted because of the impacts on our own descendants, who will also be deprived of experiencing the many species of flora and fauna which are being extinguished. As well as being short-sighted, it is immoral because it undermines the life-prospects of everyone else’s descendants as well. It is misguided to discount these and other impacts on our own and others’ descendants, as if their futurity made them unimportant; injuries and deaths in 2050 will be just as serious as those of the present. It is true that developed countries are better placed to adapt to climate change than less developed ones, but reliance on adaptation alone still amounts to ignoring a continually rising tide of problems which, through collective action, it would be possible to staunch.

Adaptation remains crucial; please do not imagine that I am decrying it. Thus the problems of Bangladesh would be insuperable without it, and without the international aid that will be needed to facilitate it; and the same applies to many other developing countries. River banks need to be reinforced, flood defences constructed, treatments for spreading diseases developed, infrastructure consolidated, and much more. But adaptation alone involves a posture of hopelessness. We can adapt to the climate change that has happened already, and we must adapt to what is unavoidably going to happen in coming decades. But if an enlarged human population is to be fed and watered, infectious diseases are to be limited, and the Millennium Development Goals, even if they are belatedly achieved, are to be honoured and kept in place across this century, we need to confront the rising tides, and not to be in continual retreat before them.

The economist Björn Lomborg used to argue that the resources that would be required for mitigation would be better spent on other projects such as development (Lomborg 2001), although he has apparently changed his mind about this, and now thinks that the money required for mitigation would be well spent. Since there may be others who adhere to his earlier view, we need to reflect on the strengths of that case. Its strength lies in its recognition of the need for development, and thus for investment in development, including but exceeding the Millennium Development Goals. Many areas and forms of development could be listed, but this is not the moment to do so.

However, the question becomes how development could be sustained, and made sustainable, in the absence of both adaptation to climate change and climate change mitigation as well. Imagine that Bangladesh were to undertake massive programmes of land reform, investment in good government and anti-corruption measures, and reforms to agriculture and industry. Even so, without investment in its adaptation to climate change, most of the benefits would shortly be swept away in flooding from both the rivers and the sea. And without climate change mitigation, the levels of both the sea and the rivers would gradually encroach upon the land until the whole population that had not crossed international frontiers would before long be standing on the few tracts of hills, gazing across former countryside now lost irretrievably to the waves. Nor is this story without parallels elsewhere, from Bolivia to the islands of the Pacific. In other words, development without adaptation and without mitigation is in large measure likely to be ineffective and significantly squandered.

THE MORAL URGENCY OF AN INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT

The moral case for mitigation is a case for action to be taken by all eligible agents capable of lifestyle choices and of influencing others, but particularly for governments, the agents with the power and authority necessary to change practice in matters of greenhouse gas emissions. In theory, the world’s two hundred governments could all act separately on a voluntary basis, but their voluntary policies would be both uncoordinated and retractable at will.

Much more effective, to a degree capable of making the difference between success and failure of the entire project, would be an early international agreement. Thus the obligations to bring about mitigation largely take the form of obligations on governments and those capable of influencing them to press for and engage in such an agreement.

It is probably more important to achieve an agreement of almost any sort, as long as it involves provision for significant mitigation and adaptation, than that any specific principles be embodied. Yet it would be highly desirable if an agreement encapsulated the principles of Contraction and Convergence, as put forward by Aubrey Meyer (Meyer 2005).

This approach involves a global total for permissible greenhouse gas emissions being calculated and distributed, but decreasing  year by year until sustainability is attained (hence Contraction). Permissible emissions would have to be consistent with average temperatures rising by no more than two degrees (Celsius) above pre-industrial levels. The distribution proposed would involve recognition that every person has an equal entitlement to the absorptive capacities of the atmosphere and thus to emit greenhouse gases. So the division of emission entitlements between countries would be based on their populations at an agreed date; the emission total of each country would be the allowable global total, divided by over six billion (the current world population) and multiplied by their population. It is further proposed that some trading of carbon emissions would be allowed, with countries not using their full quota being able to sell them to countries requiring more than their own entitlement. The employment of the same quotas for people of every country involves what is known as Convergence.

There would probably have to be limits to trading, to avoid indebted countries trading away their entire quota. Thus it could be agreed that the part of a country’s quota required for meeting its population’s basic needs would be untradeable, and that trading would be confined to the balance over and above this part.

Contraction and Convergence is not the only proposed international regimen, but it has the advantages of supplying incentives to all parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and through its provision for trading being redistributive, at least in the early stages. However, this regimen does not make provision for funding development, and some of the alternative approaches seek to do this at the same time as promoting mitigation and adaptation. This is the rationale of the system of Greenhouse Development Rights, proposed by Paul Baer, Tom Athanasiou  and Sivan Kartha (Baer et al. 2008). In this system, everyone with an income above a certain level would be expected to contribute to a fund to pay for development, mitigation and adaptation, and international arrangements would be made to deploy it. An advantage is that rich people in developing countries would be required to contribute, something not included in Contraction and Convergence. But a major disadvantage is that enough of the world’s governments would have to agree to this substantial form of international taxation, and to the creation of an international agency with considerable powers over those same governments.

If this could all be agreed, then this system would solve more problems than Contraction and Convergence, including the need for development mentioned earlier. But in view of the urgency of attaining some kind of agreement, it seems best not to insist on the principles of the Greenhouse Development Rights scheme being implemented, since doing so might be the best guarantee of no agreement being reached at all. The prospects of success seem much greater if negotiators aim at implementing the principles of Contraction and Convergence, a scheme that has already attained some degree of international support, and tackle the problem of funding development separately, or perhaps as part of a related agreement on Adaptation.

Accordingly the moral case for mitigation is sufficiently urgent that an agreement involving mitigation is urgently needed – so urgently that we should not wait for one that is morally ideal to be agreed. This, I suggest, makes the principles of Contraction and Convergence the best prospect, and ones well supported by the moral case. But as the moral case is more important than principles such as Convergence, some other kind of agreement would still be desirable, as long as it provides significantly for mitigation.
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REFERENCES

1. Baer, P., Athanasiou T., Kartha, S. and Kemp-Benedict, E., 2008. The Greenhouse Development Rights Framework: The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World,
2^nd edn, Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation, Christian Aid, EcoEquity and the Stockholm Environment Institute. www.ecoequity.org/docs/TheGDRsFramework.pdf.

2. Houghton, J., 2004. Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, 3^rd edn., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

3. Lomborg, B., 2001. The Sceptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

4. Meyer, A., 2005. Contraction & Convergence, The Global Solution to Climate Change, Schumacher Briefing no. 5, Totnes, Devon: Green Books, 2005.