Ethics, Equity and International Negotiations on Climate Change

Distributional Preferences and the Incidence of Costs and Benefits in Climate Change Policy

“…Many different authors have considered the distribution of climate change impacts and issues related to the problem of how to craft domestic policies and international agreements concerning climate change mitigation which are sufficiently acceptable in terms of their distributional consequences. Some examples include Azar and Sterner (1996), Stephan and Muller-Furstenberger (2004), Reibstein (2005), Thomas and Twyman (2005), Lange (2006), Mendelsohn et al (2006), Parks and Roberts (2006), Raymond (2006), and Anthoff et al (2009).…”

Roles of religion and ethics in addressing climate change

“…The last significant publication on the international scene to date appeared in 2007: the 4th IPCC report. The book argues that solutions to the problem of climate change are best founded on ethical and equitable grounds, which lead to more practical, effective solutions than the present utilitarian, market-driven strategy (see insightful book review by Reibstein 2005) International events and agreements The Rio Declaration and UNFCCC have first and foremost been instrumental in establishing norms about responsibility for climate change, including that 'nations have the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of activities within their jurisdictions' and that 'developed nations have the responsibility to take the lead in reducing the threat of climate change' (Brown et al 2006, p. 14). Nevertheless, there has been a significant lag and even unwillingness of parties to take responsibility or meaningful action, which is why much further action and commitment is needed.…”