The Ethics of Global Climate Change

Argues for new ways of conceptualising our ethical obligations regarding global climate change and responds to first-generation literature.

Global climate change is one of the most daunting ethical and political challenges confronting humanity in the twenty-first century. In this book, authors argue for new ways of conceptualising our ethical obligations in order to address a problem of this scope and difficulty.Global climate change is one of the most daunting ethical and political challenges confronting humanity in the twenty-first century. The intergenerational and transnational ethical issues raised by climate change have been the focus of a significant body of scholarship. In this new collection of essays, leading scholars engage and respond to first-generation scholarship and argue for new ways of thinking about our ethical obligations to present and future generations. Topics addressed in these essays include moral accountability for energy consumption and emissions, egalitarian and libertarian perspectives on mitigation, justice in relation to cap and trade schemes, the ethics of adaptation and the ethical dimensions of the impact of climate change on nature.