Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: climate change and ethics
- 1 Energy, ethics, and the transformation of nature
- 2 Is no one responsible for global environmental tragedy? Climate change as a challenge to our ethical concepts
- 3 Greenhouse gas emission and the domination of posterity
- 4 Climate change, energy rights, and equality
- 5 Common atmospheric ownership and equal emissions entitlements
- 6 A Lockean defense of grandfathering emission rights
- 7 Parenting the planet
- 8 Living ethically in a greenhouse
- 9 Beyond business as usual: alternative wedges to avoid catastrophic climate change and create sustainable societies
- 10 Addressing competitiveness in US climate policy
- 11 Reconciling justice and efficiency: integrating environmental justice into domestic cap-and-trade programs for controlling greenhouse gases
- 12 Ethical dimensions of adapting to climate change-imposed risks
- 13 Does nature matter? The place of the nonhuman in the ethics of climate change
- 14 Human rights, climate change, and the trillionth ton
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
9 - Beyond business as usual: alternative wedges to avoid catastrophic climate change and create sustainable societies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2011
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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: climate change and ethics
- 1 Energy, ethics, and the transformation of nature
- 2 Is no one responsible for global environmental tragedy? Climate change as a challenge to our ethical concepts
- 3 Greenhouse gas emission and the domination of posterity
- 4 Climate change, energy rights, and equality
- 5 Common atmospheric ownership and equal emissions entitlements
- 6 A Lockean defense of grandfathering emission rights
- 7 Parenting the planet
- 8 Living ethically in a greenhouse
- 9 Beyond business as usual: alternative wedges to avoid catastrophic climate change and create sustainable societies
- 10 Addressing competitiveness in US climate policy
- 11 Reconciling justice and efficiency: integrating environmental justice into domestic cap-and-trade programs for controlling greenhouse gases
- 12 Ethical dimensions of adapting to climate change-imposed risks
- 13 Does nature matter? The place of the nonhuman in the ethics of climate change
- 14 Human rights, climate change, and the trillionth ton
- Select bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
There is a curious disconnect in climate change discourse, between explanations of the causes of global climate change (GCC) and discussions of possible solutions. On the one hand, it is widely acknowledged that the primary causes of climate change are unremitting economic and demographic growth. As the Fourth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) succinctly puts it: “GDP/per capita and population growth were the main drivers of the increase in global emissions during the last three decades of the 20th century … At the global scale, declining carbon and energy intensities have been unable to offset income effects and population growth and, consequently, carbon emissions have risen.” On the other hand, most proposals for climate change mitigation take growth for granted and focus on technical means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate scientists speak of the “Kaya identity”: the four primary factors which determine overall greenhouse gas emissions. They are economic growth/per capita, population, energy used to generate each unit of GDP, and greenhouse gases generated per unit of energy. Over the past three and a half decades, improvements in energy and carbon efficiency have been overwhelmed by increases in population and wealth.
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- The Ethics of Global Climate Change , pp. 192 - 215Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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