Abstract
In the climate ethics debate, scholars largely agree that individuals should promote institutions that ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to establish that there are individual duties beyond compliance with and promotion of institutions. Duties of individuals to reduce their emissions are often objected to by arguing that an individual’s emissions do not make a morally relevant difference. We challenge this argument from inconsequentialism in two ways. We first show why the argument also seems to undermine the case for duties to promote institutions that the arguments’ proponents endorse. Second, we argue that individuals ought to cut emissions if they exceed their fair share of emissions entitlements and, by emitting, contribute to climate-related harm. In response to inconsequentialism, we specify the notion of ‘contribution’ via the so-called NESS theory, according to which an act is causally relevant for and contributes to an outcome if it is a Necessary Element of a Set of conditions that is Sufficient for the outcome. After refuting two objections to our approach, we conclude by discussing how to deal with possible conflicts between duties to promote institutions and to reduce one’s emissions.
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Notes
Neuteleers rephrased Cohen’s well-known book title ‘If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re so Rich?’ (2001) with respect to individual environmental duties.
We cannot do justice to the nuanced lines of reasoning in the space available. Rather than discussing the argument, our aim is to show why the reasoning can be applied to acts of promotion as well.
While we believe that the argument likewise works for national legislation, it may not work for very local institutional changes, e.g. if I convince my neighbours to save more energy. But even if I live in a large house with many parties, the argument from inconsequentialism renders the achieved emission reductions, and hence my promotional action, pointless.
In Germany, for example, protests against the clearing of the Hambach Forest to allow for extension of an open-pit coal mine attracted surprisingly large attention and sympathies even before FFF became prominent.
We understand the term ‘decent life’ to signify what people are entitled to in terms of justice. We understand the term as a demanding multidimensional minimum. The term ‘demanding’ expresses our belief that justice requires more for individuals than to barely survive. The term ‘minimum’ refers to an absolute or sufficientarian standard of justice. In this paper, we do not argue in favor of a specific metric of justice. Examples for such a demanding multidimensional minimum would be a human rights account or a capability list such as Nussbaum’s (2007).
Depending on the size of the remaining emissions budget an individual’s fair share can either equal or surpass the amount of emissions she requires to emit in order to be able to live a decent human life. Logically, there is a third possibility, namely, that the remaining emissions budget is so small that individual shares fall below what an individual requires to emit to be able to live a decent human life. However, to us, such an allocation of shares would not qualify as just. That is, in our view a situation in which the remaining emissions budget is that low does not allow for just distribution but for nothing more than triage.
We are thankful to an anonymous reviewer for urging us to discuss in greater detail how the fair share and the contribution aspect are related. Thinking about this comment resulted in the FSA as restated here.
As leading legal scholars stress, the counterfactual understanding of causation—saying that a cause is a necessary condition—has the implausible consequence that no one causes an outcome in certain overdetermination cases (like XII, in Table 1). Rather, a cause is a necessary element of one sufficient condition, several of which may be instantiated simultaneously (e.g. Puppe 2015, p. 217).
Hohl (2017, pp. 116–117) illustrates the NESS test by discussing three factories that emit contaminants into a river. We modify and expand her example.
In reality, this will remain a theoretical option for quite a while. Given current atmospheric GHG concentrations, emitting less is always desirable and exceeding one’s fair share impermissible.
Within the scope of integrationist climate ethics, one needs to balance the following two considerations: On the one hand wealth and emission levels are still correlated, so wealthy individuals have more means to compensate a lack of emissions entitlements and should thus reduce more. On the other hand, living in a society with high societal dependence on fossil fuels and the like makes it more difficult for individuals to reduce their emissions, thus potentially lowering what individuals can be asked to do without encroaching on their ability to pursue crucial life projects and thus live a decent human life. More importantly, integrationism transcends the realm of climate ethics by presupposing a perspective on justice founded in a general account of a decent human life, thereby getting into the broad debate if such an account is possible and necessary (for an overview over different accounts see Alkire 2002; Qizilbash 2002, for a detailed argument why such an account is not necessary, see Sen 2011).
A position we disagree with, arguing that past emissions should not be taken into account by reducing current fair shares but by additional duties to fund adaptive measure in vulnerable regions (Baatz 2017).
‘Structural’ emissions result from the provision and maintenance of a national or societal (public) infrastructure and institutions and, hence, are difficult to attribute to individuals. Different accounting strategies are conceivable; the simplest would be to split emissions equally among the population.
Ben might still be liable for the damage if we assume that he did not or could not know for sure that Bill’s rock will arrive first and shatter the glass. In that case, he assumes (or considers it possible) that he will cause or contribute to the shattering but decides to nevertheless throw the rock. We would judge this behavior as negligent.
Also, one may argue that Joss has duties grounded in her benefitting from the emissions (though she does not cause the flight and the corresponding emissions, she makes use of it and benefits from the flight caused by the other 20 passengers). This, however, is a different argument, drawing on a beneficiary pays rather than a polluter pays reasoning.
Interestingly, adaptation (to climate change) is comparable to health care: it requires sufficient funds but translating funds into the good ‘adaptation’ requires an institution.
The institution needed does not have to be state-run. Rather than donating 3% of my income to the state I might have a duty to donate 3% of my income to an NGO provider of high-quality free health care. However, on a broad understanding of the term, an NGO is just another kind of institution. By contrast, imagine a country (or a remote rural region in a country) where there is no (state- or NGO-led) health care system. There are no schooled doctors, no nurses, no pharmacies. In such a country, money cannot buy you adequate health care. Money can give you a chance to leave the country and obtain health care somewhere else, but then again you obtain health care from some kind of functioning health care system in another country.
Note, though, that the FSA is not directed against certain (types of) acts but at one’s total emissions in, say, one year. Hence, one might conclude that Sunday joy rides are permissible as long as one does not exceed one’s fair share. Note also, however, that Sinnott-Armstrong (2005) defined the original example so that the joy ride is not part of what we consider to be a ‘demanding minimum’ (see footnote 7) and that it is thus reasonable to refrain from joy riding.
Duties to comply can also demand behavioral changes (e.g. if a formerly legal activity becomes illegal). Meanwhile, duties to comply ask for behavioral changes in compliance with formal institutions. By contrast, promotion and reduction duties demand changes that go beyond what is asked for by existing formal institutions.
Classical political activities are usually undertaken in the area people live and do not involve very GHG intensive activities regarding mobility (going to a march, marching, voting) or electricity (using electronic devices to join campaigns).
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Acknowledgements
We are highly indebted to insightful feedback from several reviewers who commented on different versions of this paper. We are likewise thankful to participants of the Mancept Workshop on ‘Environmental Citizenship and Individual Responsibility for Global Environmental Problems’ taking place from September 11–13, 2017, at Manchester University and are especially grateful to numerous helpful comments from Joanne Swaffield and Derek Bell, our respondents at Mancept. Finally, we thank our audience at the 50th Societas Ethica Annual Conference, from August 22-15, 2013, Soesterberg, where we presented an early precursor of this paper.
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Baatz, C., Voget-Kleschin, L. Individuals’ Contributions to Harmful Climate Change: The Fair Share Argument Restated. J Agric Environ Ethics 32, 569–590 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-019-09791-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-019-09791-2