Governing climate risks in the face of normative uncertainties

Abstract

Governing risks is not only a technical matter, but also a matter of ethical and societal considerations. In this article, we argue that in addition to scientific and technical uncertainties, we need to also address normative uncertainties of risk decisions. We define normative uncertainties as situations where there are different partially morally defensible ‐‐ but incompatible ‐‐ options or courses of action, or ones in which there is no fully morally defensible option. We conceptualize normative uncertainties, distinguishing between the four categories of evolutionary, theoretical, conceptual, and epistemic normative uncertainties. We will show different instances of normative uncertainties in climate adaptation strategies. We finally present two methods for identifying and dealing with normative uncertainties, namely, the Wide Reflective Equilibrium and adaptive planning. Situations of normative uncertainties have always been and will continue to be present in risk decisions and they have often been dealt with in an implicit manner. In this article, we make them explicit, which could lead to better morally informed and justified decisions about climate risks. This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change.

Reframing strategic, managed retreat for transformative climate adaptation

“…These determinants of strategic, managed retreat, both priorities and processes, cannot be readily mapped or deduced at large scales to provide probabilistic, geographically explicit estimates. Even if they could, the ways in which people relate to place, their aspirations, and the values they ascribe to mobility or stability will be dynamic through time and sometimes contradictory (13,53). Assessing future needs for managed retreat requires integration of compound-hazards climate science; studies of dynamic socioeconomic development and migration; techno-economic eval-uation of engineering solutions; and analysis of sociocultural, psychological, political, institutional, and financial factors central to the viability-or lack thereof-of protecting societies in place as climate risks increase (14,37,52).…”

“…(13). Iterative consideration of goals is crucial because visions for the future evolve through time, including through the process of adaptation itself (53).…”

Enabling assessment of distributive justice through models for climate change planning: A review of recent advances and a research agenda

“…In this domain, the arbitrary use of certain distributive principles without proper ethical justification has been criticized (Kartha et al, 2018). The diverse preferences of moral principles are also a manifestation of ethical uncertainty, as different moral principles illuminate different ethical issues at stake (Taebi et al, 2020). Hence, it is useful to simultaneously explore multiple moral principles when comparing alternative policies.…”

“…Hence, in order to have a fair representation of future generations, we need to explore plausible value changes (requirements 4.2). As argued by Padilla (2002) and Taebi et al (2020), accounting for intergenerational justice requires one to acknowledge that the values of the current generation cannot simply be assumed to also hold for future generations. Furthermore, the values that people uphold in turn influence how they behave under different circumstances (Ajzen, 1991).…”

“…This started to change in late 1960s, when ecological damages resulting from dams closing made environmental concerns an additional objective of the water management (Correljé & Broekhans, 2015). In addition to uncertainties pertaining social aims of future generations, there also exists uncertainties in what distributive principles future generations will prefer—coined as evolutionary normative uncertainties (Taebi et al, 2020).…”