Ethics and Climate Change

By Sean McDonagh SSC

Climate change is one of the most serious ethical issues facing humanity in the 21st century. The facts speak for themselves. China’s glaciers are diminishing each year. If they disappear where will the 250 million people who depend on their melt-waters get water during the dry season? The water supply for the cities of Lima in Peru and Santiago in Chile also depends on melt waters from glaciers in the Andes? Australia is now in the midst of a 1000 year drought which is, most probably, due to global warming. Will there be enough water to support the population of Perth or Syndey? A rise of one metre in the sea level would make it impossible for over 30 million Bangladeshis to live in the delta area. A significant rise in sea-levels will inundate many of the cities of the world and create a torrent of environmental refugees.

No wonder the chief scientist to the British Government, Sir David King, believes that climate change is a greater threat to humanity and the earth than terrorism. Another scientist, Sir John Haughton, believes that it is a weapon of mass destruction. Many economists are now saying we must take urgent measures to stabilize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is one of the main causes of global warming. Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist, with the World Bank, has stated that global warming is the greatest failure ever of market economics. According to him, if we tackle it now, by lessening our dependence on fossil fuel, it will only cost about 1% percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). If we leave it for another 10 or 15 years it could cost in the region of 5% to 20% of global GDP. Behind these figures lies not, just the death of possibly hundreds of millions of people, but the fact that the earth will be a less hospitable place to live in for each succeeding generation of humans.

I was an observer at the UN Climate Change conference at Nairobi in November 2006. I noticed that almost all the negotiations around climate change quoted scientific, political and economic data but seldom mentioned the core ethical values involved in any human activity, particularly a destructive one like emitting greenhouse gases.

This is a shame because many profound ethical questions can be obscured by scientific and economic arguments about various climate change proposals. Unless ethical arguments are addressed individual nations will continue to seek their short-term economic gain no matter how this affects the global common good, especially poorer countries.

One of the first ethical principles is identifying those who are responsibility for the damages caused by climate change. This principle states that a nation cannot use the excuse of minimizing the cost to its own economy as an ethically acceptable excuse for failing to take actions on greenhouse gas emissions which affect the whole planet. This is the reason the Bush administration in the US, and the Howard government in Australia, give for not signing up to the Kyoto Protocol even though they are two of the chief polluters on the earth.

If we reduce the issue to manageable proportions the moral implications of climate change become more evident. For example, If I persisted in pouring a substance into another person’s house which made it impossible for them to live there I am sure that reasonable people would come to a number conclusions very quickly. Firstly, that what I was doing was morally wrong. Secondly, that my excuse that it was necessary for my economic growth would be brushed aside. Thirdly, that I should desist immediately. In essence buying carbon credits, which the Irish government is doing to the tune of €270 million to meet its Kyoto commitments is paying others, poorer people, to clean up our mess. Fourthly, that I should pay compensation for the wrong I had done. Rich countries, which are mainly responsible for releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the past 200 years, are obliged to pay compensation for climate change damages that are unavoidable. In a spirit of global solidarity they are also morally bound to make resources and new technologies available to poor communities so that these countries can adapt and enjoy a decent standard of living without adopting the polluting Western model of development.

Carbon trading is questionable, not merely on ethical grounds, but on economic and ecological grounds as well. Keith Bradsher highlighted a number of scams in an article in the New York Times on December 21st 2006 entitled “Outsize Profits, And Questions, in Effort to Cut Warming Gases”. He gave the example of an old, inefficient chemical factory in Quzhou in south eastern China which emits as much greenhouse gases each year as a million cars in the US or Europe each of which had clocked up 12,000 miles. It is estimated that the cost of an incinerator to clean up the mess at the factory is in the region of $5 million. Yet the foreign companies involved in the deal will pay $500 million for the incinerator. The reason for this staggering 100 times increase in costs is the European-based market in carbon dioxide emissions. Because the waste gas has a far more powerful effect on global warming than carbon dioxide emissions, the foreign companies must pay a premium price which is way beyond the actual cost of the cleanup. Despite the inflated costs these deal still makes sense to the companies which are financing them because it is a lot less expensive than having to clean up their own operations. The huge profits from the deal will be divided between the owners of the chemical factory, the Chinese government, and the consultants and bankers who cobbled the deal together in the wealthy Mayfair district of London. I wonder how much of the €270 million, set aside by Minister Cowen in the recent budget, will end up in the bank accounts of carbon traders to help finance their SUVs, yachts and Lear jets?

When it comes to Allocating Global Emissions among Nations - The polluter pays principle is consistent with the demands of distributive justice. This means that there is an ethical imperative on every nation to try to promote sustainable development policies. Faced with the disruption which climate change will bring, everyone, but especially industrialized countries must assume their responsibility by cutting their carbon emissions.

Some countries have used the excuse of scientific uncertainty with regard to climate change to avoid cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. Petrochemical corporations, especially, Exxon-Mobile, have played a very negative role in trying to pretend that climate change is not due to burning fossil fuel. Once again this excuse transgresses basic ethical norms. When there is a possibility that activity, in this case burning fossil fuel, will cause great harm then the precautionary principle dictates that nations take precautions not to harm other nations. At this point in time scientific uncertainty around global warming is now minimal.

Listening to some of the delegates at the Nairobi conference, especially those from the US, Australia and Russia, one would think that new technologies will solve all our problems. Traditionally we used to pray - Our Help is in the Name of the Lord. Now the mantra seems to be Our Help is in Technology which will save us. No adequate technology exists at present to capture carbon. The only way to proceed at the moment is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. The International Panel on Climate Change believes that we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 60%-80% by the year 2030.

On the theological level as Christians we are called to care for God’s creation. Climate change is upsetting the natural cycles upon which God’s creation – animal, plants and humans - depends. Sometimes we forget that humans depend on the natural world for almost everything.

Our faith calls us to care for others, especially those most vulnerable. We know that climate change will have a terrible impact on the poor, the very people who did least to cause the problem in the first place.

In the Magnificat, Mary tells us that God’s mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him (Lk. 1:50). Each generation is called to hand on to the next generation a world as fruitful and as beautiful as the one they inherit from their parents and grandparents. Unfortunately, the full impact of climate change will take decades and maybe centuries to become fully apparent. Future generations will not thank us for making their world a less hospitable place for each succeeding generation to live in.

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church either in its diocesan structures, religious communities or development agencies has not given the lead in educating people about climate change and what actions must be taken to avoid it. The Australian Church is an exception. The bishops Committee for Justice, Development, Ecology and Peace published an excellent document called Climate Change: Our Responsibility to Sustain God’ Earth in November 2005. The main drafter of that document was Columban Missionary, Fr. Charles Rue.

At the Nairobi conference I was delighted to see the Columban Logo at seminar organized by the Up in Smoke group. For over 2 years Ellen Teague, a Columban Justice, Peace and Ecology worker in Britain, has been working with this group. They have developed material on how climate change will adversely effect Africa, Latin America and Asia. As Columbans, we are proud to be associated with this group, particularly since our recent General Assembly in 2006 commits us to engage the issue of Climate Change for the next 6 years.