CEPPA Talk (in-person & online) – Derek Ball (St Andrews) & Caroline Touburg (Umeå University)

Title: Philosophical Foundations of Green-House Gas Accounting

Abstract: International agreements such as the Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement require countries to measure and track their greenhouse gas emissions.  Companies (as well as universities and other organisations) are required by governmental regulations or their own net-zero goals to do the same.  Greenhouse gas accounting is the project of measuring and tracking GHG emissions.  Although there are a range of standards and guidelines governing GHG accounting practice, a number of issues remain unresolved in the literature, including how to account for emissions of short-lived but potent GHGs such as methane, and how (and indeed whether) to account for temporary storage of CO2 (for example, in wood products); and standard approaches to these issues are, in our view, seriously flawed.   Our talk has two aims, one technical, the other theoretical.  The technical aim is to sketch a framework that provides a principled resolution of these issues.  The theoretical aim is to discuss the normative presuppositions of the framework.  Notably, the framework relies on the idea that in some cases, we should focus on the preservation of some valuable thing – avoiding loss and minimizing damage – rather than on some aggregable value (such as money, or well-being).  This shift in focus puts us in a position to avoid some of the problems we see in extant approaches, and has potential for application in other areas of moral philosophy.

Location: Edgecliffe G03