I. Introduction
This post examines the ethical issues raised by geologic carbon storage, a somewhat promising but not yet fully proven potential solution to human-induced climate change.

Carbon capture and storage technologies are comprised of a variety of technologies for removing carbon dioxide from fuel combustion (capture) and storing the CO2 in reservoirs other than the atmosphere (e.g., by injecting the carbon dioxide into geologic formation for long-term storage instead of releasing it into the atmosphere). This post focuses on the questions arising from CO2 storage in geological reservoirs.

As more fully identified below, there are some open questions about some of the risks of geologic carbon storage. These issues are under consideration in numerous studies and demonstration projects around the world. Also, several governments around the world are in various stages of development of siting criteria to deal with at least some of these potential risks.

This post summarizes conclusions on this technology reached at a workshop of scientific experts, ethicists, policy makers, and members of civil society that took place in Rio de Janeiro on October 30 to November 1, 2007. The workshop was hosted by Petrobas (Petróleo Brasileiro S.A.), and co-sponsored by Brazilian Forum on Climate Change, the Graduate School of Engineering at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the National School of Tropical Botany at the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro, and the Rock Ethics Institute at the Pennsylvania State University.
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I. Introduction
One frequently hears the argument that it would be unfair to the United States to commit to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions because some large emitting countries including China and India have not done so. Although this argument has waned somewhat since it was first strongly made in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, recently this contention has arisen again in response to proposed new US climate change laws and in discussions about what the US position should be when it negotiates a post-Kyoto regime this December in Poland and next December in Copenhagen.

In response to this argument, proponents of US government emissions reduction commitments often argue that the world needs the United States to take action to show leadership to the rest of the world even if China and India do not commit to binding emissions reductions targets. This response appears to concede that the United States has no duty to act until other emitting nations agree to act but, nevertheless, the United States should act to show “leadership” to reduce climate change’s great threat. The ideas seems to rest on the conclusion that if the United States acts to reduce emissions others will follow and therefore as a matter of “prudence” the US should make commitments given climate change’s potential catastrophic impacts. This position seems to concede that the United States has no ethical obligation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, the reason for moving ahead despite the fact that other countries have not done so is the practical need to show leadership. Can a case be made that the United States and other high-emitting nations have an ethical duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even if other nations do not do so?
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I. Introduction
Economic analysis of climate change issues can help policy makers in many ways including identification of the least costly methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how to structure incentives to encourage society’s maximum reduction of carbon footprints. Without doubt, economic analyses of climate change reduction strategies are vital to finding the most efficient solutions to human-induced climate change’s immense threat. The more low-cost solutions to climate change are found, the more hope there is to reduce climate change’s immense menace. Yet there are ethical limits to the use of some economic arguments frequently made in opposition to proposed government action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of some environmental regulatory programs can help identify proposed market regulatory interventions whose costs significantly outweigh environmental benefits. Yet CBA of some government environmental programs including climate change emissions reduction strategies often ignore serious ethical limitations on the use of this tool to guide climate change policy. Read the rest of this entry »

I. Introduction
This post examines the ethical duty to act to reduce the threat of climate change even if one assumes there is more scientific uncertainty about the causes and impacts of climate change than those identified by the scientific consensus view as articulated most recently by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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I. Introduction
The nations of the world have express responsibility under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on the basis of equity to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. For this reason among others, as stated in an earlier post, no nation can deny its responsibility to reduce emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions (See: Nations Must Follow Climate Change Justice, Climateethics.org, http://climateethics.org/?p=20)

This post reviews the responsibility of state, regional, and local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and looks at one US state, Pennsylvania, as a case study to examine these issues. Unlike many other US states, Pennsylvania has no climate change strategy. This post will make the claim that this is a moral and ethical failure even though Pennsylvania is taking some steps toward improving its energy mix in regard to greenhouse gas emissions. If a case can be made that Pennsylvania is failing to live up to its ethical responsibilities, stronger cases can be made about other US states and regional and local governments.
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I. Introduction
This paper provides a brief assessment of the ethical issues raised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group III report, Mitigation of Climate Change.¹ It argues that energy efficiency and conservation are not simply two more options that can be employed to address climate change; they are the most equitable and sustainable options.² Energy efficiency involves doing the same amount of work, or producing the same amount of goods or services, with less energy.³ Energy conservation is a broader term; it involves using less energy, regardless of the whether energy efficiency has changed.⁴ The other major options available to address climate change are direct reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, long-term storage of carbon, and adaptation.

The paper argues that Working Group III should issue a special report in the near future assessing the potential of energy efficiency and conservation to contribute to stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years. It also argues that Working Group III should directly address developed country leadership in future reports, especially on per capita energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

After summarizing the Working Group III report, this paper describes three ethical principles stated in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that are particularly relevant to efficiency and conservation, and how they indicate that energy efficiency and conservation should be prioritized. This paper then explains these recommendations.
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I. Introduction
Victims of climate change rarely get heard. While the accomplishments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are laudable – Nobel Peace Prize, four assessment reports, wide recognition as the authoritative body on climate change – their work comprises the input of a narrow elite, not the wider community now impacted by climate change. The epistemic community that makes up and informs the IPCC is largely comprised of social and biophysical scientists and technicians from Northern centers of research (see Miguez and Domingos 2002). The voices of the sufferers – people living in climate change hot spots, indigenous nations, children, disenfranchised – are not included in the assessment reports and seldom reviewed for inclusion in the work of the IPCC. They are not part of the IPCC’s decision making process, nor is their consent sought for policy decisions. These conditions have ethical implications.

Ethics, in this context, is the act of identifying criteria that ought to be used when making public policy. An ethical framework that draws on widely held principles of procedural justice helps reveal a shortfall in the work of the IPCC and offers hope for a more effective climate regime. Here I use an ethical framework we developed with the Rock Ethics Institute (see Brown et al. 2006) that serves as methodology and structure from which to assess the inclusiveness of the IPCC.

At the 27th session of the IPCC in Spain, delegates considered, among other things, the future of the IPCC. For a more inclusive and effective climate regime, we suggest an ethical framework for WG III be part of the IPCC’s future.

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