THE ETHICSOF THE GLOBALENVIRONMENT

ROBIN ATTFIELd

E d I N B u R G H S T u d I E S I N G L O B A L E T H I C S

SECONdEdITION

9 780748 654802

ISBN 978-0-7486-5480-2

SECONdEdITION

THE ETHICS OF THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

ROBIN ATTFIELd

Cover image: Robin Kay, Vietnamese Jungle, Ha Tinh Province, Vietnamwww.shutterstock.com

Cover design: Stuart Dalziel

Your concise, up-to-date guide to global environmental ethicsThis fully updated and expanded textbook offers new reflections on global environmental issues including climate change, sustainable development and biodiversity preservation, while remaining sensitive to global developments such as the Summits at Durban on climate and at Nagoya on biodiversity. It supplies an ethical critique of current international environmental problems and negotiations, and the shape which international regimes will need in order to cope with global environmental problems.

Key features • Takes a distinctive approach to climate ethics

• Includes a new chapter on the ethics of climate change

• Contains up-to-date case studies on issues such as Haiti’s reforestation project, food sovereignty and resistance to the Xayaburi Dam (Laos)

• Integrates environmental ethics with ethical theory

• Includes new passages on environmental aesthetics, lobbying websites and the Yasuni Reserve in Ecuador

Robin Attfield is Professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University, where he has taught philosophy since 1968. He has also served as Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy at a number of African institutions. In 2008 he was awarded a D. Litt. by Cardiff University for contributions to environmental philosophy.

‘We have entered a unique century, the first century in the 35 million centuries of life on Earth in which one species can jeopardise the planet’s future. Robin Attfield’s biospheric consequentialism is insightful and persuasive, at the frontier of the crescendo of global concern for life on our wonderland planet.’Holmes Rolston III, University Distinguished Professor, Colorado State University

EDINBURGH STUDIES IN GLOBAL ETHICS

Other titles in the series:

The Ethics of Peace and WarIain Atack

Ethics, Economics and International Relations (second edition)

Peter G. Brown

World Ethics: The New Agenda (second edition)

Nigel Dower

The Ethics of DevelopmentDes Gasper

World Ethics and Climate ChangePaul G. Harris

The Ethics of PeacebuildingTim Murithi

www.euppublishing.com/series/esge

T H E ETH ICS OFTH E G LOBAL

E N V IR O NME NT2nd Edition

Robin Attfield

© Robin Attfield, 1999, 2015

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C O N T E N T S

Acknowledgements vi

List of Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1

Part I Concepts, Theories and Values

11 Nature and the Global Environment 9

12 Global Ethics and Environmental Ethics 28

13 Trustees of the Planet 46

14 The Ethics of Extinction 65

Part II Applications and Issues

15 Global Resources and Climate Change 81

16 Sustainable Development 102

17 Population and Poverty 122

18 Biodiversity and Preservation 141

Part III Global Justice and Global Citizenship

19 Environmental Justice and World Order 165

10 Sustainability: Perspectives and Principles 185

11 The Ethics of Climate Change 202

12 World Citizenship in a Precarious World 224

Bibliography 243

Index 265

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

I should like to thank the following for their helpful suggestionsconcerning the text of this work: David Attfield, Nigel Dower,Markku Oksanen, Neil Thomas, and an anonymous referee of Edin-burgh University Press, and also the Oxford Centre for Environment,Ethics and Society, to a Seminar of which most of Chapter 3 waspresented. Seminars of the Global Citizenship Project of theUniversity of Aberdeen Centre for Philosophy, Technology andSociety proved influential in the composition of Chapter 12. Butresponsibility for the final text and its shortcomings remains my own.

I am most grateful to Robin Wackerbarth for his assiduouschecking of successive drafts, and for his earlier contributions to acustomised database, ingeniously devised by Leela Dutt, and also toMary Jo Slazak of Rowman & Littlefield and to the Library staff ofCardiff University, and in particular to Tom Dawkes, for invaluablebibliographical assistance. Thanks are further due to CardiffUniversity for releasing me from other duties for one semester tocomplete this work, and also to my colleagues of the PhilosophySection for undertaking those duties. I am grateful to Polity, publishersof Robin Attfield, Environmental Ethics (2003, 2014), for permissionto use in the second edition of the present work parts of the chapteron the ethics of climate change added to the second edition (2014) ofthat work. Above all, thanks are due to my wife, Leela Dutt, withoutwhom this work would not have been begun, continued or completed.

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vii

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

BATNEEC Best Available Technology Not Entailing ExcessiveCost

CA CaliforniaCCS Carbon Capture and StorageCDR Carbon Dioxide ReductionCFCs chlorofluorocarbonsCITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered

SpeciesFAO Food and Agriculture OrganisationGA GeorgiaGATS General Agreement of Trade in ServicesGATT General Agreement on Tariffs and TradeGDP Gross Domestic ProductGNP Gross National ProductHCFCs hydrochlorofluorocarbonsHMSO Her Majesty’s Stationery OfficeICRW International Convention for the Regulation of WhalingIMF International Monetary FundIPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeIUCN International Union for the Conservation of NatureMA MassachusettsMD MarylandMI MichiganMIT Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyNEEC Not Entailing Excessive CostNGOs Non-governmental OrganisationsNJ New JerseySRM Solar Radiation ManagementUK United KingdomUNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development

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UNEP United Nations Environment ProgrammeUSA United States of AmericaUSSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (former)VT VermontWCC World Council of ChurchesWCED World Commission on Environment and DevelopmentWCU World Conservation UnionWDM World Development MovementWHO World Health OrganisationWWF World Wide Fund for Nature

ABBREVIATIONS

1

I N T R O D U C T I O N

As seen from space, our planet, the shared natural environment ofhumanity and fellow creatures, is both valuable and vulnerable. It isvaluable as the bearer and the setting of valuable lives, and vulner -able through the maltreatment by its inhabitants of shared resources,and of each other. In circumstances such as these, a global ethicrelevant to the environment, and applying both to individuals, insti-tutions and countries, becomes indispensable. So too is its study,global ethics, the subject of this book.

There are some who disparage ethics and values, urging identifi -cation with nature instead; once we become identified with the naturalenvironment, they say, the necessary action will become obvious, ifnot instinctual. But such attempts to merge the individual with natureforget that it is largely as individuals with distinct identities, or asgroups of such individuals, that we think and act, and that we need torespect as other than ourselves the people and creatures around us,and the rest of the natural world, as we interact with them. Only onthis basis is a sense of solidarity, or even of belonging, a possibility.They also forget that, for actions to have reasons, values are needed,and that if values are to be sifted and prioritised, ethics really is indispensable.

In recent years it has become increasingly clear that humanity hasbeen driving environmental change, to such an extent that we haveentered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, in which human-generated impacts comprise a prevalent worldwide factor.1 Even beforethe concept of the global environment is introduced in Chapter 1, it isworth quoting here a passage from a recent paper in Nature, whichgoes a long way towards explaining the need for a global plan forsustainable development.

… human pressure risks causing widespread, abrupt and possibly irre-

versible changes to basic earth-system processes. Water shortages,

extreme weather, deteriorating conditions for food production,

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ecosystem loss, ocean acidification and sea-level rise are real dangers

that could threaten development and trigger humanitarian crises across

the globe.2

The values which are at stake here are yet to be considered but thesize, scope and urgency of the problems are already becomingapparent. The scope of the problems may be even greater than thispassage implies, since the future of all life on earth is at stake as wellas that of humanity. As will be seen, issues of global justice underliequestions of develop ment (sustainable or otherwise) and indeed ques-tions of survival; and all these issues will be addressed in laterchapters. But first, key concepts and values need to be introduced.

The first part of the book seeks to clear the ground for the study ofthe ethics of global environmental problems. The first chapterattempts to analyse and clarify the concepts of nature and environ -ment, which are much less clear than they may seem. Human beings,for example, interact with nature, and yet are also part of nature. Thereagain, they sometimes resolve to regard as natural only what is unin-fluenced by humanity, and then discover that on the surface of ourplanet almost everything betrays a human touch. And if the envi-ronment seems less problematic, the question soon arises of whetherthis does not just comprise the surroundings (or perhaps the significantsurroundings) of each human being, and of whether, if so, talk of theglobal environment (the kind of talk present in the opening of thisIntroduction) even makes sense. This chapter defends the concept ofthe global environment, and argues for shared national and interna-tional responsibilities in its regard. While read ers anxious to plungeinto ethics could move ahead to the next chapter, those willing toreflect on key concepts relating to the global environment, and pivotalfor many of the issues discussed in later chapters, should begin here.

Chapter 2, in keeping with other works in the World Ethics series,contrasts three approaches to ethics, realism, communitarianism andcosmopolitanism, surveys key stages in the history of the third ofthese, and defends both this kind of approach and a particular formof it, biocentric consequentialism. Cosmopolitanism refuses to drawethical boundaries where obligations are concerned, and is here arguedto cope with problems of ethics (including global ethics) in waysunmatched by the other approaches. Consequentialist theories arepreferred because all the foreseeable consequences of action (andinaction) are taken into account, and biocentric theories because theyinclude all bearers of interests, and not human interests only. Someof the problems for these theories are considered in later chapters.

In the third chapter, the tradition which regards humanity as trustees

THE ETHICS OF THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

3INTRODUCTION

of the natural environment of the planet is discussed and upheldagainst a wide range of criticisms. The shared belief of Judaism,Christianity and Islam that human beings are stewards answerable toGod for the care of nature is defended; also a secular version of thestewardship (or trusteeship) approach, including a secularised under-standing of answerability, is argued to be coherent, and open to peoplewithout any form of theistic belief. The trustee ship approach is, in myview, consistent with a range of ethical positions, including thatdefended in the previous chapter (biocentric consequentialism). Byproviding a credible metaphysical backdrop for the role of humanity(whether religious or secular), it also reinforces motivations forfollowing such an ethic, supplementing the reasons for action whichthis ethic enshrines such as concern for the good of human beings andfellow creatures.

The fourth chapter comprises thought-experiments concerning thepossibility of human extinction. This subject is studied not as ifextinction were a serious likelihood, but because reflection on itspossibility serves to elicit values which are often not consciouslyrecognised. It emerges that we have like reason to care about futurelives as about present ones, and also that we may well have reasonsof self-interest to care about something larger than ourselves. Thefindings of this chapter prove to cohere with the ethic defended earlier,which supplies reasons for caring, including caring about futuregenerations, as well as supplying guidance about policies and conductin the present. They also cohere with the trusteeship ap proach.

Part II applies the ethic of Part I to global environmental issues,beginning in Chapter 5 with issues surrounding resources, affected asthey now are by the problem of global warming. Con temporaryproblems relating to forests, energy and water are intro duced anddiscussed, interim conclusions are drawn, and the need is explainedfor a new basis for a post-Kyoto international regime for the regu-lation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Chapter 6 discusses and defends the concept of sustainable devel op - ment. While this concept is sometimes employed as a mere rhetoricaldevice, and is sometimes used to justify policies imposed by Northern(or ‘developed’) countries on Southern (‘developing’ or Third World)countries, development of a sustainable kind is argued to be vital forthe satisfaction of current needs, and for the sake of the foreseeablefuture, as was recognised at the Rio Conference on Environment andDevelopment in 1992. The aim is not to assimilate Third Worldconsumption to current American levels, but to attain sustainabilityworldwide on an equitable basis. Without sustainable development,

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environmental problems will predictably worsen. However, itsattainment involves a restructuring of international trade and finance,and thus of international relations.

While environmental problems are not principally due to popula tiongrowth (as opposed to global technological change on the one hand,and poverty on the other), the problems of population and of povertyare discussed in Chapter 7 against the background of the need to feeda human population on a sustainable basis. If humanity is to haveadequate nutrition, a stabilisation level of around the eight billion targetenvisaged at the UN Cairo Conference of 1994 (rather than a muchhigher level) becomes crucial, as do related national population policiesfor all countries. Despite its questionable use of coercion, the Chinesepopulation policy may, I claim, comprise an important contribution.

Sustainability, however, involves the preservation of the ecosys temson which humanity and other creatures depend, and thus of biologicaldiversity, including the preservation of most of the species of the planet.Chapter 8 discusses issues surrounding biodiversity preservation, inthe light of the Biodiversity Convention of the 1992 Rio United NationsSummit on Environment and Development. Consequentialism isfound helpful in determining how strictly po licies of preservationismshould be followed. Principles for equitable international funding forbio diversity preservation are also dis cussed, as are principles for the recognition of indigenous knowledge among Third World peoples.

Part III steps back from the problems to relate the emerging conclu-sions to an understanding of global justice, of international order, ofequity across the generations, and of global citizenship. Chapter 9compares different accounts of global justice, and bears out the impor-tance of a theory which is biocentric as well as consequentialist. Italso discusses regimes for the global commons (such as the oceans,the atmosphere and Antarctica), and the desir ability of an internationalorder short of world government in which sovereignty is to somedegree pooled in international institutions.

Chapter 10 discusses the importance of recognising diverse na tionalperspectives on global policies aiming at sustainability, in view of theneed for further international negotiations to develop the regime ofKyoto (1997), in the light of the largely successful agree ment (Montreal,1987, amended at London in 1990) to ban CFCs. It also sifts princi -ples of intergenerational equity, some of which prove vital for sustain-ability, and gives special consideration to the Pre cautionary Principle(which urges intervention to prevent seriously possible disasters inadvance of the availability of scientific information), its justificationand its scope.

THE ETHICS OF THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

5INTRODUCTION

Chapter 11 discusses the ethics of climate change, and is new tothe second edition. It discusses relevant principles of equity, forms ofpossible international agreement, the ethics of geo-engineering, andthe responsibilities in these matters of collectives such as states andcompanies and of individuals.

The final chapter relates consequentialist obligations to

campaign ing for political change (a possibility which in my viewhelps to overcome a recurrent objection to consequentialism), andinvesti gates whether enhanced procedures for decision-making aredesir able or necessary for environmentally sensitive decisions. Itargues for the appointment to legislatures of a small number of proxiesto represent future generations and non-human creatures, but claimsthat environmentally sensitive decisions and policies are possible inapparently unpromising contexts, and need not await procedural orconstitutional reforms. It also defends a concept of global citizenshipwhich does not presuppose a global state, but involves participationin one or another of the worldwide networks comprising global civilsociety. Global civil society, itself an aspect of globalisation, iscapable of challenging other aspects, and of enhancing prospects forglobal solutions.

The ethical theory presented in this book is more fully defended inValue, Obligation and Meta-Ethics (Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA:Rodopi, 1995), and applied to environmental ethics in EnvironmentalPhilosophy: Principles and Prospects (Aldershot: Avebury andBrookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1994). In the present book it is related toglobal and international issues. Every effort has been made to keepabreast of conventions, institutions and conferences (for which theList of Abbreviations may be found helpful by some readers); butunexpected developments arising after 2013 could require somepassages to be imaginatively updated by observant students of inter-national affairs. But the ethical principles defended here, and conceptssuch as those of the global environment, global citizenship and globalcivil society are, happily, unlikely to age, and can as confidently becommended to readers of the third millennium as they were in thefirst edition to those of the final year of the second.

NOTES

1. Steffen W., J. Grinevald, P. Crutzen and J. McNeill, ‘The Anthropocene:

conceptual and historical perspectives’, Philosophical Transactions ofthe Royal Society A 369 (2011): 842–67. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0327

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2. See Griggs, D. J., M. Stafford-Smith, O. Gaffney, J. Rockstrom, M.

Ohman, P. Shyamsundar, W. Steffen, G. Glaser, N. Kanie and I. Noble,

‘Sustainable Development Goals for People and Planet’, Nature, vol.

495, 2013, pp. 305–9, at p. 306.

THE ETHICS OF THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT