The Project
This research stream brings together scholars from multiple disciplines to discuss ethical questions, problems and solutions relating to the climate crisis. Our main research interests include:
Philosophy of Climate Science
We are currently setting up a philosophy of climate science research group within CEPPA’s Climate Ethics stream. Topics of future research may include:
- Explanation, Prediction, and Understanding in Climate Research
- Certainty and uncertainty in climate modelling
- The New Demarcation Problem in (the philosophy of) Climate Science: The role of social and moral values for objectivity in climate science.
Climate Justice and Climate Finance
- How can the disparity between global climate impact and uneven responsibilities be squared with the ideal of climate justice?
- How are climate policies and priorities inflected by questions of distance (space and time)?
- How should institutions and policies reflect global and intergenerational justice?
- If positive interest rates block green transitions, should we fix the interest rate at zero?
- How should climate finance reflect the interests and rights of developing countries?
Climate Affects and Conceptual Loss
- Do we have the right ethical concepts to face climate change?
- What role can climate protest play in a warming world?
- What’s the role of the imagination in a climate transition?
- Which affects and emotions sustain activism; which undermine it?
Ethics of Climate Mitigation and Technologies / Climate Accounting
- What are the ethical concerns around carbon mitigation pathways and their various associated timescales and costs?
- How to navigate the ethical tensions regarding mitigation vs carbon dioxide removal vs geoengineering?
- What are the normative foundations of greenhouse gas accounting practices?
- How can we compare various kinds of environmental impacts (impacts on human health, biodiversity, and other things of value; climate change, ocean acidification, plastic pollution, etc.)?
Climate Change and Population Ethics
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What duties do we have towards future people, and what considerations of justice hold between different generations?
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What are the individual responsibilities to be environmentally friendly, given that the emissions of most individuals will have no (clear) impact on how bad climate change will be?
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In what way, if at all, does the badness of climate change impacts the morality of having children?
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What are the implications of population ethics and the non-identity problem for climate ethics
People
- Mara van der Lugt (University of St Andrews)
- Elizabeth Ashford (University of St Andrews)
- Alex Douglas (University of St Andrews)
- Miguel de la Cal Moreno (University of St Andrews & University of Stirling)
- Simon Hope (University of Stirling)
- Quân Nguyen (University of Edinburgh)
- James Rae (University of St Andrews)
- Derek Ball (University of St Andrews)
- Luca Stroppa (University of St Andrews & University of Turin)
- Theron Pummer (University of St Andrews)
Events
Ongoing events
- Monthly interdisciplinary Climate Ethics research seminar, on Thursdays 4-5.30pm.
- Reading groups.
Previous events
- Climate Ethics Conference, St Andrews (7-8 June 2023). Organisers: Joel Joseph, Theron Pummer, Luca Stroppa, Mara van der Lugt.
- Workshop: Climate Justice: Transdisciplinary and Intercultural Conversations (29-30 May 2024)
- Public lecture by Prof. Stephen Gardiner (University of Washington): Beyond Institutional Denial: A Global Constitutional Convention for Future Generations (29 May 2024)
- Public lecture by Prof. Tahseen Jafry (Glasgow Caledonian University): About Climate Justice: What Does it Mean and What Lies Ahead (30 May 2024)
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