Michel Bourban

L’objectif général de ce travail est d’étudier certains problèmes d’éthique et de philosophie politique soulevés par le changement climatique et de proposer des politiques susceptibles de réduire les injustices climatiques. La première partie vise à justifier les devoirs majeurs de justice climatique à partir d’une approche centrée sur les droits humains menacés par le changement climatique. Les données des sciences du climat et des œuvres de fiction littéraires et cinématographiques servent comme fondement de la réflexion philosophique. La deuxième partie explore certaines pistes de réformes institutionnelles à même de réaliser ces devoirs de justice globale et intergénérationnelle. Il s’agit d’exclure certaines réponses proposées au changement climatique, comme la géoingénierie et la compensation, mais aussi et surtout de développer des politiques justes, efficaces et faisables de réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre, comme un cadre normatif pour évaluer les engagements des pays, un mécanisme de marché hybride et un rôle politique accru accordé à la société civile. Si ce travail s’inspire des recherches des scientifiques, des écrivains, des économistes et des spécialistes des relations internationales, il dialogue principalement avec les auteurs les plus influents en justice et en éthique climatiques. Au final, bien que les défis moraux et politiques posés par le changement climatique soient sans précédent, l’approche non idéale de la justice climatique développée ici montre qu’il est encore temps d’agir pour éviter les scénarios les plus nuisibles pour les pauvres du monde et les générations futures.

The remaining global carbon budget is so small that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) measures are very likely to be required to avoid dangerous climate change. Multiple scenarios consistent with a high probability of limiting global warming to well below 2 °C include removing hundreds of gigatons of carbon dioxide. At the same time, deep decarbonization pathways show that rapid and drastic emissions reductions can substantially reduce or even avoid the need for CDR. This article discusses one major problem raised by pathways relying on large-scale CDR: By potentially discouraging or at least delaying the implementation of deep decarbonization measures, such pathways might cause a substantial overshoot of the global carbon budget that would lead to severe injustices. More specifically, it highlights the problem of substitution between large-scale CDR and deep emissions reductions by explaining the structure of this problem, stressing the ethical issues it raises, and investigating three conditions under which it is likely to occur.

This chapter explains how to cope with eco-anxiety, both by mitigating its undesirable effects such as worry and stress and by harnessing its beneficial consequences such as risk-assessment and risk-minimization behaviours. It shows that ecological citizenship can serve as a normative framework that is relevant to navigating eco-anxiety as it provides coping strategies at the individual and collective levels. It investigates three of the main values of the ecological citizen. The first is carbon sobriety, a voluntary form of moderation applied to one’s individual carbon footprint. The second is hope, a disposition that encourages a realistic outlook on an uncertain future and that helps with avoiding the pitfalls of optimism and pessimism. The third is courage, an ability to act to protect environmental value despite the risks involved. All three values, especially when taken together, can help eco-anxious people to face our planetary predicament without giving in to eco-despair.

This section provides an overview of the approach to eco-anxiety developed in the book. It reviews the main features of eco-anxiety, shows why it is a moral and political problem, explains what is new about this ecological emotion, and highlights possible ways to cope with it. The chapter draws on the conceptual disruption framework to explain the relative newness of eco-anxiety, and on the framework of ecological citizenship to explore a possible way to learn to live with eco-anxiety. It explains how carbon sobriety, hope, and courage are interrelated values that guide ecological citizens in their everyday lives. Finally, it suggests future areas of research on eco-anxiety from an ethical and political philosophical perspective.

This chapter defines eco-anxiety through a detailed analysis of its major conceptual building blocks. The definition focuses on ecological risks as the object of eco-anxiety, on environmental awareness and the related feeling of insecurity, and on behavioural responses ranging from risk-assessment and risk-minimization to discouragement and paralysis. The chapter shows that eco-anxiety revolves around a core tension between certainty and uncertainty. It also explains that, even though eco-anxiety should not be categorized as a medical condition, some forms of eco-anxiety can lead to mental disorders. To help separate healthy from unhealthy forms of eco-anxiety, the chapter builds a distinction between different degrees of eco-anxiety. Finally, the chapter explains that eco-anxiety has crucial moral and political implications, as it can lead to moral injury, the violation of the human right to health, and emotional injustice.

This chapter contextualizes the topic of eco-anxiety by linking it to the anxiety culture phenomenon and the Anthropocene theoretical framework. The rise of eco-anxiety is directly related to the rise of anxiety levels over the last few decades and to long-lasting trends in the Earth system. The chapter explains the three main factors that make eco-anxiety a pervasive feature of life in the Anthropocene: the growing empirical data on the rapidly degrading state of the planet; the increasingly ubiquitous effects of global environmental changes; and the increasing number of fictional productions on ecological issues and their impacts on human and non-human beings. It also categorizes eco-anxiety as a threat-related ecological emotion and explains that even though it is not necessarily a new phenomenon, it increasingly affects people on a global scale and across different socio-demographic categories, albeit to different degrees.

Technological innovation is a double-edged sword for the environment. While it can significantly reduce environmental and societal risks of harm, technological progress is often a major contributor to environmental degradation. This suggests the need for an anticipatory approach to research oversight which can mitigate the harmful and contradictory effects of research and innovation. In this article, we conduct a scoping review to identify cross-cutting concepts between environmental ethics, environmental justice, climate ethics, climate justice, and research ethics and integrity, focusing on literature on research and technological innovation. This article identifies an important gap between research ethics and these other topic areas. It also demonstrates the importance of updating existing research ethics frameworks to incorporate environmental concerns evident in environmental ethics and climate justice. Finally, it reveals an over-representation of studies focused upon climate change at the expense of other environmental issues, and of research on the ethics and governance of geoengineering, which we suggest is not a generalisable model for governance of research.