Ivo Wallimann-Helmer

Global climate change is one of the biggest threats humankind faces today. Changing climatic conditions are expected to lead to rising sea levels, a higher frequency of natural hazards, extended phases of drought, and a greater risk of many other sudden and slow-onset events. These threats will impact not only economic development but also the livelihood and cultures of many communities and regions of the world. Governing climate change to minimize these risks not only concerns understanding its science but also analyzing policy options with methods from social sciences and economics. This in turn means making evaluative judgments about what policy measures can be considered just and fair. These kinds of judgments are normative; they concern ethics. The aim of this article is to lay out some of the most important aspects of justice and responsibility in governing transitions to renewable energy as a means of reducing global emissions.

Le changement climatique est l’un des plus grands défis auxquels l’humanité est confrontée. En raison des concentrations de gaz à effet de serre dans l’atmosphère, qui ont considérablement augmenté depuis l’industrialisation, les changements climatiques et les conséquences négatives qui en découlent se font déjà sentir. Si rien n’est fait, les pertes et les préjudices liés au dérèglement du climat seront inévitables, et ne cesseront de s’accroître. Afin d’éviter les conséquences négatives liées au changement climatique, il faut réduire la production de gaz à effet de serre, prendre des mesures d’adaptation et mettre en oeuvre des interventions technologiques pour agir sur le climat, c’est-à-dire des techniques de géo-ingénierie. La philosophie du changement climatique s’intéresse principalement aux implication éthiques et justice de la politique climatique. Cet article présente un aperçu des principales positions de l'éthique climatique.

Grünanlagen bzw. grüne Freiräume wie Parks, Uferböschungen von Flüssen oder Stadtwälder werden generell positiv bewertet. Dies geschieht aus ganz unterschiedlichen Gründen. Die einen nutzen den Stadtpark zum Joggen, die anderen feiern ein Fest oder Treffen sich in ihrer Community und für viele ist ein Park eine wichtige Oase der Erholung von der städtischen Betriebsamkeit. Ganz allgemein zeigen Studien, dass Grünanlagen zum Wohlbefinden der Stadtbevölkerung beitragen, sozialräumliche Polarisierung und sozialen Abstieg vermeiden helfen und darüber hinaus Umweltrisiken wie Überschwemmungen oder Hitzeextreme mindern können.

The rapid technological transition requires the adoptive approach to the digital conduct of public and private institutions. Countries and companies strive to integrate a balanced understanding of digital ethics and sustainability concepts from various standpoints, which results in a dispersed and uncategorized knowledge base. This work presents a literature review on digital ethics published from 2010 to 2020 in three technical libraries and one library maintained by the community of philosophers. The investigation process integrates a thorough review of digital ethics concepts in the leading academic libraries using keywords representing various concept applications. This study’s outcome is a quantitative and sectorial categorization of works on digital ethics, followed by a holistic review of concepts, maturity level, and conclusions on each category. This work aims to understand the trends from a technological and philosophical perspective towards designing a sustainable digital ethical frame-work applied in digital services that fulfill sufficiency thresholds of justice and do not foster overshooting of planetary boundaries. The first version of a holistic framework based on the literature review is presented at the end of this work. It will be extended in future work.

Ethics reflects the moral aspects of any kind of challenge and especially of complex problems. Ethics asks, ’What should be?’ given the facts, dilemmas and normative claims. It is always worth analyzing complex problems through a normative-ethical lens since many, if not all, complex problems incorporate moral issues. The five-step model allows decision-making in situations in which our moral intuitions do not provide convincing guidance. Ethical analysis is not only a means to clarify your individual moral position but also to analyze the challenge you face from a moral point of view. Using the five-step model allows you to identify the ethical challenges, acquire a more encompassing understanding of them and make a well-reflected ethical decision

One of the major ethical issues in waste policy concerns the just distribution of waste facilities and the associated environmental risks. This essay provides an overview of the most important aspects to consider when assessing whether unequal exposure to waste facilities is unjust. It claims that the ethical principles that might warrant such injustices are problematic due to feasibility constraints. This is why appropriate democratic involvement in policy decisions about waste facilities is crucial. However, equal recognition of all affected is given only if they all can have an effective and equal voice in policy-making about waste facilities.

Ethical challenges concerning climate change most often involve two issues that are tightly connected. The first is considerations about the just distribution of entitlements and burdens, and the second concerns the fair differentiation of responsibilities. The distribution of entitlements and burdens can be assessed by relying on one or combinations of principles of climate justice. Although the fairness of any differentiation of responsibilities must rely on these principles of justice, the applicability of these principles and the demands they make strongly depend on the agents bearing the responsibility and what policy domains are at issue. Not all agents can be ascribed the same responsibilities, and not all measures for climate action can or should be realized by the same differentiation of responsibilities. This paper examines how the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities depends on the domain and level of climate policy. It is not only the subjects of responsibility that may change, depending on whether mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, or geoengineering policy is at issue. The different policy domains also determine different objects of responsibility. Since the responsibility bearers are embedded in complex nets of responsibilities, the level of climate policy defines different institutions and principles of accountability. Common but differentiated responsibilities is not only the starting-point of climate justice but also shapes what combinations of principles of justice are most appropriate, depending on the domain and level of climate policy at scrutiny

Ethics in managing climate change most often involves two issues that are tightly connected. The first involves considerations about the just distribution of entitlements and burdens, and the second concerns the fair differentiation of responsibilities. The chapter explains the most important ethical implications of international climate politics and shows why justice plays a key role in all areas of climate policy. Furthermore, it introduces the main domains of climate justice: historical, global, and intergenerational justice. Depending on the policy area at issue, different combinations of principles of climate justice seem most appropriate. The chapter concludes by showing that the differentiation of responsibilities depends not only on which principles of justice are employed but also on the particular climate policy area and level that are at issue.

Ethik ist in Gesundheitsberufen allgegenwärtig, auch wenn das den Betroffenen nicht immer bewusst ist. Doch das Bewusstsein hierfür hat in den letzten Jahren deutlich zugenommen. Dies zeigt sich nicht nur auf politischer Ebene, sondern auch daran, dass in vielen grösseren Gesundheitsinstitutionen Ethikstrukturen geschaffen worden sind.Zudem wird der Ethik in der Ausbildung zu Gesundheitsberufen zunehmend mehr Gewicht eingeräumt. Im Folgenden gehen wir von unseren Erfahrungen als Dozierende für Ethik im Bachelorstudiengang Physiotherapie der Zürcher Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) in Winterthur aus. Wir argumentieren für die für uns zentrale Schlussfolgerung, dass die Ethikausbildung in der Ausbildung zu Gesundheitsberufen viel interdisziplinärer gestaltet sein sollte, als sie das heute meistens ist. Denn Ethik ist, wie die Kommunikationskompetenz oder das Grundwissen zur Forschung, eine transdisziplinäre und interprofessionelle Kompetenz. Das gilt nicht nur für deren Vermittlung, sondern insbesondere für die medizinische Berufspraxis.

Avoiding severe impacts from anthropogenic climate change requires not only substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions but also further implementation of adaptation measures. In many regions with smallholder farming systems adaptation can help ensure food security despite significantly changing climatic conditions. However, the space for adaptation measures has limits. In this paper, we investigate hard and soft adaptation limits and discuss their relevance to food security in smallholder farming food systems. We argue that soft adaptation limits can be defined by sufficiency levels of justice like basic needs, capabilities, human rights or levels of well-being. Depending on social, cultural, political and economic conditions different communities realize different sufficiency levels of justice. Furthermore, as normative claims of justice, these sufficiency levels not only allow the social, cultural and political and economic conditions of social systems to be described but also define entitlements. We show that for smallholder farming systems with low social and economic standards these entitlements might mean that soft adaptation limits can define entitlements to social and economic improvements despite transformational adaptation to changing climatic conditions.

Evidence of observed negative impacts on natural and human systems from anthropogenic climate change is increasing. However, human systems in particular are dynamic and influenced by multiple drivers and hence identifying an anthropogenic climate signal is challenging. Here we analyze the case of lake Palcacocha in the Andes of Peru, which offers a representative model for other glacier lakes and related risks around the world because it features a dynamic evolution of flood risk driven by physical and socioeconomic factors and processes. Furthermore, it is the object of a prominent climate litigation case, wherein a local Peruvian citizen sued a large German energy producer over risk of flooding from lake Palcacocha. Adopting a conceptual model of cascading impacts and multiple drivers of risk, we first study climatic and other geophysical drivers of flood risk. We find that an anthropogenic signal from flood risk to greenhouse gas emissions is traceable. In parallel, flood risk has been strongly shaped (and increased) by interacting socioeconomic, institutional and cultural processes over the past few decades. The case raises important questions about the differentiation of responsibilities relating to flood risk of both global and local agents, which are, however, difficult to address in cases like Palcacocha, where we reveal a complex network of interlinked global, national and local drivers. Following from this, we outline a normative framework with a differentiated perspective on responsibility, implying that global emitters commit to support strengthening capacities in affected regions and localities and that local institutions and societies engage in local risk reduction measures and policies in collaboration with and driven by local communities.

Adaptation to changing and new environmental conditions is of fundamental importance to sustainability and requires concerted efforts amongst science, policy, and practice to produce solution-oriented knowledge. Joint knowledge production or co- production of knowledge has become increasingly popular terms to describe the process of scientists, policy makers and actors from the civil society coming together to cooperate in the production, dissemination, and application of knowledge to solve wicked problems such as climate change. Networks are particularly suited to produce knowledge in a joint fashion. However, the process of joint knowledge production (JKP) in networks has rarely been examined. In this paper, we present a sketch of the adaptation network landscape and assess how joint knowledge production supports the development of solution-oriented knowledge in climate change adaptation networks. We conclude that the processes of JKP are diverse, complex, and highly dependent on the interests and roles of actors within the network. To keep such processes alive, signposts in form of analysis and intermediary products along the network lifetime should be positioned as means of stocktaking and monitoring for the future.

Both biofuels and BECCS serve the purpose of reducing the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, biofuels by reducing the quantity of CO2 newly added and BECCS by removing the CO2 already emitted. Both rely on the large-scale growth of biomass and hence compete with food production for arable land. Consequently, the implementation of both at large scales potentially endangers food security. Given this conflict and the need for climate action, this paper discusses whether there are differences between the ethical implications of mitigation by biofuels and geoengineering with BECCS. We apply a principlist approach, specifying and weighting four key principles of climate ethics: the polluter-pays principle, the ability-to-pay principle, the equal-per-capita principle, and the procedural involvement principle. Because the ethical and practical implications of BECCS and biofuels have many parallels, applying these four principles identifies relevant moral differences to decide between these two technologies.

Significant disagreement remains in ethics about the duties we have towards wild animals. This paper aims to mediate those disagreements by exploring how they are supported by, or diverge from, the common-sense ethical principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy and justice popular in medical ethics. We argue that these principles do not clearly justify traditional conservation or a ‘hands-off ’ approach to wild-animal welfare; instead, they support natural negative duties to reduce the harms that we cause as well as natural positive duties to promote the welfare of wild animals.

This introductory chapter summarises key findings of the twenty-two book chapters in terms of five propositions. These propositions, each building on relevant findings linked to forward-looking suggestions for research, policy and practice, reflect the architecture of the book, whose sections proceed from setting the stage to critical issues, followed by a section on methods and tools, to chapters that provide geographic perspectives, and finally to a section that identifies potential policy options. The propositions comprise (1) Risk management can be an effective entry point for aligning perspectives and debates, if framed comprehensively, coupled with climate justice considerations and linked to established risk management and adaptation practice; (2) Attribution science is advancing rapidly and fundamental to informing actions to minimise, avert, and address losses and damages; (3) Climate change research, in addition to identifying physical/hard limits to adaptation, needs to more systematically examine soft limits to adaptation, for which we find some evidence across several geographies globally; (4) Climate risk insurance mechanisms can serve the prevention and cure aspects emphasised in the L&D debate but solidarity and accountability aspects need further attention, for which we find tentative indication in applications around the world; (5) Policy deliberations may need to overcome the perception that L&D constitutes a win-lose negotiation “game” by developing a more inclusive narrative that highlights collective ambition for tackling risks, mutual benefits and the role of transformation. [Open access]

This chapter lays out what we take to be the main types of justice and ethical challenges concerning those adverse effects of climate change leading to climate-related Loss and Damage (L&D). We argue that it is essential to clearly differentiate between the challenges concerning mitigation and adaptation and those ethical issues exclusively relevant for L&D in order to address the ethical aspects pertaining to L&D in international climate policy. First, we show that depending on how mitigation and adaptation are distinguished from L&D, the primary focus of policy measures and their ethical implications will vary. Second, we distinguish between a distributive justice framework and a compensatory justice scheme for delivering L&D measures. Third, in order to understand the differentiated remedial responsibilities concerning L&D, we categorise the measures and policy approaches available. Fourth, depending on the kind of L&D and which remedies are possible, we explain the difference between remedial and outcome responsibilities of different actors. [Open access]

In this paper, I argue that the normative framework of liberal democracy is one of the sources of the failure of international climate politics. The liberal framework makes it very likely that at least some democracies will not consent to an international agreement to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. In this situation, the institution of judicial review might be viewed as crucial to overcome the risk of a tragedy of the commons. However, judicial review cannot serve this purpose in the case of climate change and an institutional change of the kind required cannot be derived from within the normative framework of liberal democracy itself

This paper argues that an analysis of the dissatisfactory outcomes of international negotiations concerning climate change must take into account procedures of political decision‐making in democracies. Although the normative ideal of republican democracy has means of dealing with such dissatisfactory results, political processes in republican democracies take too much time and risk becoming stuck in tragic or dilemmatic decision structures when facing challenges such as climate change. Consequently, this paper discusses possibilities for redesigning republican democratic institutions to counter‐act these negative forces. However, all possibilities discussed either call into question the normative ideal of republican democracy itself or would take too much time to be realized.

This paper suggests a way to elaborate the ethical implications of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) as decided at COP 19 from the perspective of justice. It advocates three pro-posals. First, in order to fully understand the responsibilities and liabilities implied in the WIM, adaptation needs to be distinguished from loss and damage (L&D) on the basis of the different goals which should be attributed to adaptation and to L&D approaches. Second, the primary concern of the WIM should be compensatory justice. In case of climate L&D, three aspects of compensatory justice should be kept separate: corrective liability, remedial responsibility, and with regard to the resources available, fair remedy. Third, it is crucial to distinguish between recov-erable damage and irrecoverable or at least not fully recoverable loss. This distinction is crucial because it informs the principles of fair remedy and because damage and loss may differ in their relevance for the stability and functioning of a human system.

This paper provides a critical comment on Philip Kitcher’s as yet unpublished book “The Ethical Project”. In the first part it explains why Kitcher’s position is naturalist as well as pragmatist. In the second part it is argued that the role ethics plays in human history is richer than Kitcher conceives it: Building on his view, this paper suggests that ethics not only provides a mechanism to diminish the risk of social conflict and social instability, but it also enables the emergence of self-conceptions. This reveals according to what processes certain particular changes occurred in the evolution of ethics.

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 197-220. There seem to be good reasons that democratic institutions must be reformed in order to minimize the danger of unsustainable policy decisions infringing upon duties of intergenerational justice. This is why there exist a number of different proposals of how to reform democratic states in order to foster their duties towards the future. However, the debate lacks a systematic assessment of these suggested reforms within a coherent theoretical and norma-tive framework. This paper aims at developing such a framework. We suggest two conceptual dimensions defining the spectrum of different justi-fiable institutional reforms: the relation between democracy and justice as one dimension and the conditions considered relevant for viewing democracies as responsible collective agents as the other. Depending on how we understand this relation and these conditions, it is possible to substantiate a set of types of institutional reforms that will promote democracies? capacities to comply with their responsibilities towards the future.

In this comment a challenge Kerr’s claim that a coherent expression of a ‘liberalism of freedom’ needs an extended first Rawlsian principle of justice incorporating the principle of fair equality of opportunity for two reasons. First, such an extended first principle leads to illiberal consequences by narrowing down the scope of individual responsibility for choice and effort way too much. Second, such an extended first principle misses a main Rawlsian insight, namely that in a theory of justice the principle securing basic liberties and the principle of fair equality of opportunity serve different purposes.

In the Cancun Adaptation Framework, the parties to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed “that adaptation is a challenge faced by all Parties, and that enhanced action and international cooperation is urgently required to enable and support the implementation of adaptation actions aimed at reducing vulnerability and building resilience in developing country Parties […].” Furthermore, the conference of the parties requests the developed countries to provide developing countries with additional finance, technology, and capacity-building. This paper argues that this decision tends to oversimplify matters because it seems to differentiate responsibilities for climate change adaptation according to differences in the contribution to anthropogenic climate change only. However, the differentiation of responsibilities for climate change adaptation is more complex than it first appears to be. To show why the differentiation of responsibilities for climate change adaptation is more complex, this paper analyzes the aspects of responsibility as a fourfold concept. Someone is always responsible for something, answerable to some institution, and held accountable to a norm. The paper argues, first, that the appropriate object of responsibility in climate change adaptation is the burdens to be shared for effective and efficient adaptation. Second, for such adaptation to occur, however, subjects of responsibility should not only be developed countries. If appropriate competence and decision-structures are given in developing countries, these countries should also be deemed responsible for their own adaptation. Third, the paper shows that those vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change should decide on their own what adaptation measures they wish to take. Fourth, the argument of this paper suggests that ability-to-pay principles are the most appropriate norms by which to blame countries for failing their responsibilities in climate change adaptation.

Der anthropogene Klimawandel trifft die armen und ärmsten Weltregionen und Bevölkerungsgruppen besonders hart. Weder haben diese in der Vergangenheit viel zum Klimawandel beigetragen, noch ist ihr heutiger Treibhausgasausstoß annähernd so hoch wie derjenige in den entwickelten Industrienationen und einigen Schwellenländern. Benachteiligte Bevölkerungsgruppen sind den negativen Folgen des Klimawandels zudem häufig besonders stark ausgesetzt. Diese Auswirkungen sind bereits jetzt zu spüren und werden sich in Zukunft noch verstärken.

This paper provides a critical comment on Philip Kitcher’s as yet unpublished book “The Ethical Project”. In the first part it explains why Kitcher’s position is naturalist as well as pragmatist. In the second part it is argued that the role ethics plays in human history is richer than Kitcher conceives it: Building on his view, this paper suggests that ethics not only provides a mechanism to diminish the risk of social conflict and social instability, but it also enables the emergence of self-conceptions. This reveals according to what processes certain particular changes occurred in the evolution of ethics.