27.1 Introduction
The perspective of this chapter is that of institutionalized ethics consulting within public administration. The task of this kind of ethics consulting is to draw the attention of the legislator and the implementing authorities to the ethical aspects of the pertinent legal regulations that need to be taken into account. As far as ethical expertise is concerned, ethics is understood and applied as a science.Footnote 1 In this respect, ethics consulting within the administration is no different from academic ethics. Where it differs is in the specific perspective: advice is given under the conditions of the specific needs of the administration.
The following considerations are based on the experience of working for the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) and the ethics unit of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN). Both the ECNH and the FOEN’s internal ethics unit were established in the 1990s in the same context, namely in view of the emerging moral issues in dealing with the then new biotechnology and gene technology and the concretization of the Swiss constitutional mandate to take account of the dignity of living beings. While the ECNH addresses ethical questions of non-human biotechnology based on its legal mandate and advises all Federal offices affected by the mandate, the FOEN’s internal ethics unit deals with moral aspects of the office’s broad range of tasks.
More specifically, the ECNH is particularly concerned with the ethical aspects of various technological approaches and products in the field of non-human biotechnology. These include, among others, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and gene drives. For example, the Committee assesses the ethical acceptability of the idea of combining living organisms or biologically active material with non-living material (chemicals) or of creating life purely from chemical components and DNA blueprints (ECNH 2010). It is working intensively on GMOs, in particular the new genetic engineering methods, with a view to crops and livestock (ECNH 2016, 2018, 2022). Recently, genetically modified microbes have also become an issue, which are to be used to improve soil quality and plant growth, as well as to produce pesticides as a substitute for chemicals. Another example are genetically modified or synthetic gene drives that can be used to introduce additional genetic information for new traits into a population or to remove essential DNA sequences, thereby creating a lethal factor that causes the offspring to die during development, for example, in the fight against malaria. Genetically modified organisms are also relevant for the FOEN’s ethics unit, in particular the question of how new genomic techniques can be regulated appropriately based on the Swiss Constitution for the area of plant breeding and the commercial handling of GMOs. The question of the responsible use of chemicals and plastics also plays a role.
The planetary boundary ‘Novel Entities’ (NE) forms one of the nine planetary boundaries within the PB approach. In order to be able to assess this planetary boundary, the first step is to outline the approach in general. This includes a brief explanation of why some aspects of this approach are problematic from an ethical perspective. We will then take a look at the NE, in particular chemicals, plastics, and GMOs. While in our view the PB approach is generally to be welcomed, even if it currently plays a marginal role in Switzerland’s national environmental regulation, we consider the specific planetary boundary ‘Novel Entities’ to be problematic from an ethical perspective. Our impression is that it does not fit into the overall approach and runs the risk of initiating substitute discussions that distract from the actual problems.Footnote 2
27.2 Ethical Challenges for the Planetary Boundaries Framework
The planetary boundary approach (PB) attempts to determine the negative effects of human activities on the stability and resilience of planetary biophysical and biochemical processes and to show where boundaries are transgressed creating an unacceptable risk to this stability and resilience. While environmental protection is still primarily a national task, it is evident – as climate change, biodiversity loss, or plastic pollution show – that many processes have taken on a global scale that also requires an appropriate global response. With regard to the development of global management approaches, a lot has happened in recent years.Footnote 3 But they are not enough to overcome the challenges we face. In this context, any approach that helps to provide science-based arguments that can increase the pressure to act and to initiate the necessary measures at planetary level is to be welcomed.
Regarding the scientific and methodological aspects of the PB approach, there are challenges particularly due to a lack of data and because the complex interactions between the nine planetary boundaries, and the cumulative effects that may accompany them, are not yet sufficiently understood. This aspect will not be discussed next, though. Rather, it is assumed that the PB framework is a scientifically sound approach that can provide policymakers with important points of reference on the basis of which international regulations can be developed, but which can also be downscaled to a sub-global (national or regional) level.
However, the PB approach is not a purely natural scientific concept. It also contains evaluative and normative aspects, but these are either not disclosed or have no plausible justification, at least not from the point of view of ethics or political philosophy. The advocates of the PB framework should give more weight to these normative aspects and work together with the relevant specialists for their detailed elaboration. Two examples serve as illustration: on the one hand, the concept of ‘justice’ and, on the other, the relationship between the precautionary principle, the harm principle, and risk assessment. The second example is also relevant for the assessment of Novel Entities in particular.
27.2.1 PB, ‘Safe and Just Earth System Boundaries’Footnote 4 and the ‘Planetary Commons’Footnote 5
In two recently published articles, Rockström et al. have attempted to integrate normative concepts such as harm or justice into the PB approach and to expand it to include international law and regulatory aspects. However, the proposals made are not convincing. For instance, harm is an evaluative or normative notion. They define it as
negative impacts on humans, communities and countries from Earth system change in addition to background rates.
This definition raises two questions:
First, is ‘negative impact’ to be understood as ‘is actually negative’ or ‘is considered to be negative’? This distinction is normatively relevant. The same applies regarding the concept of justice, where a distinction must be made between ‘considering something to be just’ and ‘actually being just’. The following applies to both concepts: if they are used as genuinely normative – and not as socio-political – concepts, the question must be: ‘what is harm or what is just’? And not: ‘what is considered to be harmful or just’? What is considered just can be determined empirically, for example, through surveys. The normative question, however, is whether what is considered just is actually justified. It is not permissible to draw direct conclusions about what is actually just from what is considered just.
Second, how does harm to people as individuals, on the one hand, and to countries and communities as collectives, on the other, relate to each other? Here, too, the same question must be asked with regard to the concept of justice.
Reading the definition of ‘significant harm’, one might think that, at least with regard to the first question, it is clear that Rockström et al. understand harm as what is negative, not what is considered to be negative.
[W]e define significant harm as widespread severe existential or irreversible negative impacts on countries, communities and individuals from Earth system change, such as loss of lives, livelihoods or incomes; displacement; loss of food, water or nutritional security; and chronic disease, injury or malnutrition.
However, one would then have to at least begin to sketch out a theory of objective harm that goes beyond intuitive examples. Instead, there is a back and forth between normative and non-normative (that is, socio-political) statements. This is not a satisfactory normative argument. For that kind of argument, one would have to clearly separate these aspects and show why what is considered just is actually just.
The second question about the relation of harm to individuals, on the one hand, versus countries and communities as collectives, on the other, remains unanswered. This is also a problem regarding a plausible normative argument. For what can be a significant harm for a person from the point of view of individual rights – in the sense of justified moral claims – is not necessarily so from the collective perspective of countries or communities. But what ‘just’ Earth System Boundaries (ESB) are depends crucially on this normative perspective.
The definition of ‘just’ proposed by Rockström et al. does not help in this respect. For them ‘just’ refers to a state in which ‘human exposure to significant harm (no significant harm (NSH)) from Earth system change’ is minimized (Rockström et al. Reference Rockström, Gupta and Qin2023: 103). Again, it remains indistinct whether ‘minimization’ is to be understood individually or collectively with regard to significant harm (even if many passages in their text point in the direction of a collective reading). The further explanations do not clarify this central point either:
The just (NSH) boundaries described here are necessary but not sufficient conditions for Earth system justice, which must also enable access to resources for all and distributional and procedural fairness. A foundation that enables minimum access to water, food, energy and infrastructure for all humans alongside a safe and just (NSH) ESB ceiling of maximum allowed human pressure on biophysical domains could constitute a safe and just ‘corridor’ over time.
At first sight this seems plausible, but the devil is in the detail. For example, what is meant by ‘minimum access to water, food, energy and infrastructure for all humans’? If this applies to all people as individuals, then an individualistic perspective is being adopted here in normative terms. That would mean: every human individual has a corresponding right. If it is withheld from only one individual, this would be a ‘significant harm’. As long as these normative questions have not been answered, it seems hopeless to quantify the ESB with a view to ‘justice’ – which is an explicit goal of Rockström et al. What is not tenable, at least from an ethical perspective, is an additive definition of justice (or harm for that matter) in which it is simply stated that justice encompasses both aspects: individual and collective. But this is exactly what they do. Intragenerational justice, for instance, is understood as ‘justice between countries, communities and individuals’ (Rockström et al. Reference Rockström, Gupta and Qin2023: 103). This is explained as follows:
Intragenerational justice includes relationships between present individuals, between states (international), among people of different states (global) and between community members or citizens (communitarian or nationalist .… Achieving intragenerational justice means minimizing significant harm caused by one country to another, one community to another and one individual to another.
Apart from the fact that it is unclear why minimizing significant harm should be a criterion of justice, this ‘definition’ simply lines up the collective and individual aspects without saying how they relate to each other.Footnote 6
The arbitrary results this leads to can be seen at the ‘just’ ESB for climate change. In this respect, they are of the opinion that the boundary is an average global temperature rise of 1.0°C. The reasoning is as follows:
Assessment of significant harm from climate change suggests the need for a stricter just (NSH) boundary [than 1.5°C]. At 1.0°C global warming, tens of millions of people were exposed to wet bulb temperature extremes …, raising concerns of inter- and intragenerational justice. At 1.5°C warming, more than 200 million people, disproportionately those already vulnerable, poor and marginalized (intragenerational injustice), could be exposed to unprecedented mean annual temperatures, and more than 500 million could be exposed to long-term sea-level rise …. These numbers of people harmed vastly exceed the widely accepted ‘leave no one behind’ principle and undermine most of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The problem is that, regarding the tens of millions of people who were exposed to wet bulb temperature extremes, it is not explained what justice concerns this raises. That would be important in order to assess the relevance of the number of people affected. But even then, the question remains: Why is this number relevant at all? If only one or 100,000 or 1 million were affected, why should this matter? If the relevant arguments are not explained in detail, these judgmental statements are arbitrary.
This critique also applies to the explanations as to why 1.5°C of warming is too high from the point of view of justice. The thesis would have to be: the harm to the aforementioned affected parties could be so great that its actual occurrence must be avoided at all costs. But, again, why should the number of people affected be relevant? What if only 100 or 1,000 or a million were affected? Would the justice consideration then no longer apply? Would the harm, if it occurred, not be ‘significant harm’? Of course, such a threshold can be defined politically. But that does not change the fact that it is arbitrary, even if one has a collective understanding of justice.
The critique remains the same if another widely accepted (political) principle is invoked as justification, namely the principle of leaving no one behind, and it is argued that the number of those affected far exceeds the number of those permitted. The same questions arise with regard to this principle, at least from an ethical perspective. It shows how problematic it is to transfer ethical concepts such as justice into the political or legal sphere. These concepts retain their core moral content, and the questions associated with them cannot be neutralized by adapting them to what is politically and legally feasible.
Questions of global justice are complex. The answers are controversial within political philosophy. If one wants to discuss questions of justice plausibly in this context, one has to engage with them. One has to work out and justify one’s point of view and then show what follows from it. To be able to do this and to avoid arbitrary conclusions, expert knowledge is needed. What should not be done is to adopt common patterns of argumentation and simply string them together, such as ‘Intragenerational justice combines justice between countries, communities and individuals through an intersectional lens’ (Rockström et al. Reference Rockström, Gupta and Qin2023: 113). One should also avoid mixing psychological and normative arguments: one cannot draw conclusions about what is actually just or unjust from the way people perceive justice and injustice, because here, too, what is right is one thing; what is considered right may be something else. Furthermore, a mixture of political, legal, and ethical aspects should be avoided. These methodological rules and distinctions are not sufficiently taken into account in the arguments of Rockström et al., and, as a result, the statements regarding the ‘just’ Earth system boundaries cannot serve as the foundation of a tenable argument.
In Rockström et al. (Reference Rockström, Kotzé and Milutinović2024) a proposal is made as to how the Earth’s biophysical systems, on which humanity collectively depends, can be ‘governed’ in such a way that their stability and resilience can be guaranteed in the long term. The aim is to secure the critical functions of the Earth system regardless of national borders. The idea is to treat these systems as ‘global commons’ and regulate them accordingly.
The planetary commons include, but significantly expand on, the current global commons by embracing all critical biophysical Earth-regulating systems and their functions, irrespective of where they are located, because they are essential to sustain all life across the planet, including the stability of our societies.
The idea is to extend the territories already protected as ‘global commons’, such as the Antarctic or the deep seabed, to systems that are critical for sustaining life and the habitability of the planet, such as boreal permafrost, tropical rainforests, or coral reefs. From an ethical point of view, if there is a duty to achieve the goal, this duty extends to the instruments and measures required to achieve the goal as effectively and efficiently as possible while making the transition phase as fair as possible. There are good reasons to believe that it is indeed a moral duty to protect the stability and resilience of the Earth system and its associated systems and subsystems in the long term. The question is not whether the extended global commons should be protected, but whether this approach is the best possible or at least a promising approach to achieve the goal; or whether there are better alternatives. The main challenge is that this global system would continue to be supported primarily by nation-states. This raises the question of political feasibility, especially because the central motive required is not national self-interest, but the moral idea of ‘planetary stewardship obligations on states and civil society to collectively safeguard Earth system regulatory functions’ (Rockström et al. Reference Rockström, Kotzé and Milutinović2024: 6). Yet this inevitably involves restrictions on state sovereignty. This challenge seems enormous, despite the fact that there are (more or less) successful examples of global environmental regulations. A step-by-step approach as before, in which the nation-states continue to play the central role, may seem to be a more realistic alternative, but the question is whether the goal can be achieved in the time available in this way. This depends largely on how urgently the goal needs to be achieved and how much time is left.
27.2.2 Precautionary Principle, Risk Assessment, and Harm Principle
Harm scenarios are of central importance for the ethical assessment of the planetary boundaries since we do not have sufficient causal knowledge of many complex processes affecting the Earth system. This applies to all planetary boundaries, including the NE. For example, we cannot predict with certainty what will happen if the average global temperature rises by more than 1.5 degrees. We can make even less causal predictions about the NE. If we could make reliable predictions, we could determine the extent of the harm and then define the measures required to prevent it from occurring.
The following options remain: either we have enough knowledge to be able to determine and assess the risks, where risk is a function – usually the product – of the likelihood of harm occurring and the extent of harm. In this case, we can decide whether the risks are acceptable or not, and if not, what needs to be done to reduce them sufficiently. Or we know that significant harm can occur, and that the probability is greater than 0, without being able to specify it any further. In this case, we are in a precautionary situation in which the precautionary principle applies. Or we are in a situation in which the potential harm based on scientifically plausible scenarios reaches such an extent that the probability of its occurrence becomes irrelevant: It is simply a matter of preventing it from occurring.
These are the central aspects from which the planetary boundaries, including NE, must be ethically assessed. The ethical questions to be answered are, for example: What criteria should be used to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable risks? When is a potential harm of such an extent that the probability of its occurrence no longer plays a role because, regardless of this, it is only a matter of preventing its occurrence, and the precautionary principle no longer applies either? (This is because this principle assumes that the object to be analysed could be a permissible risk. For this reason, the precautionary principle states that the occurrence of harm must be avoided as far as possible, but at the same time everything necessary must be done to obtain the data needed to determine the probability of its occurrence, allowing the risk to be determined.) And if the harm is so great, what means may be used to prevent it from occurring? What role do normative criteria such as proportionality or respect for fundamental rights play in such situations?
One of the deficits of the PB approach, including the NE, is that its advocates do not adequately apply the precautionary principle and inadmissibly mix it with risk assessments. For example, Richardson et al. write:
A large body of recent research … provides strong evidence supporting the conclusion … that the climate change and biosphere integrity boundaries are in a zone of rapidly increasing and systemically linked risks. This strengthens the rationale for using the precautionary principle to set the planetary boundaries at the lower end of the zone of increasing risk. For example, for the climate change planetary boundary, we retain the boundary of 350 parts per million (ppm) CO2 with the zone of increasing risk ranging from 350 to 450 ppm before reaching high risk.
The distinction between two risk zones only makes sense if we know the risks. In this case, however, the precautionary principle is not required. Rather, it would then be a matter of deciding, whether and if so, why the risks become unacceptable over 350 ppm. In this case, the 350 ppm is a risk threshold. The precautionary principle, on the other hand, is needed if these risks, especially the probabilities, cannot be determined based on the data available, but at the same time we must assume significant potential harm. Since Richardson et al. understand precaution in colloquial terms, they believe that the aim here is to build in a safety margin. This is correct insofar as in precautionary situations measures should be taken to prevent the occurrence of harm as far as possible and at the same time allow the possibility of collecting the data required to determine the risk. This presupposes the assumption that the risk is not unacceptable from the outset. At this point, it becomes evident how decisive the harm potential is. If it is catastrophic, it can be argued on the basis of the harm principle that everything must be done to prevent its occurrence and that, unlike in precautionary and risk situations, the probability is not relevant unless it is zero (because that would mean that the damage cannot possibly occur) or one (because that would mean that the occurrence of the damage cannot possibly be prevented by human means).
27.3 Problems of a Planetary Boundary for New Entities from an Ethical Perspective
The inadequate distinction between the precautionary principle, risk assessment, and harm principle also has negative impacts on the planetary boundary of NE. The criterion for this boundary is determined with reference to the precautionary principle, because ‘quantifying a single boundary for the multitude and diversity of novel entities is an intractable problem’ (Persson et al. Reference Persson, Carney Almroth and Collins2022a: 6788). However, a closer look shows that the relevant principle, if any, is the harm principle and not the precautionary principle. This is because the boundary is introduced based on the idea that NE could pose a threat to the stability and resilience of the Earth system and could therefore cause harm of immense proportions. Nowhere are probabilities of even a qualitative nature mentioned. With regard to chemical pollution, for example, Persson et al. state:
Chemical pollution has the potential to cause severe ecosystem and human health problems at different scales, but also to alter vital Earth system processes on which human life depends.
Even if this thesis is based on a plausible scientific foundation, it is not comprehensible how one can simultaneously claim that ‘the safe operating space of the planetary boundary of novel entities is exceeded’ (Persson et al. Reference Persson, Carney Almroth and Collins2022b: 1510). The justification given for this is not convincing. It is claimed that,
the safe operating space of the planetary boundary of novel entities is exceeded since annual production and releases are increasing at a pace that outstrips the global capacity for assessment and monitoring.
Assuming it is empirically correct, the argument nevertheless is not plausible. In view of their claim that ‘quantifying a single boundary for the multitude and diversity of novel entities is an intractable problem’, and in view of the potential extent of harm, their conclusion should be to demand a complete ban on the registration of new NE. Even more so as:
Humanity has repeatedly been surprised by unintended consequences of this release, e.g., with respect to the release of insecticides such as DDT and the effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on the ozone layer.
With regard to the planetary boundary of NE the question is rather: Even if certain chemicals do have this potential, are there plausible scientific hypotheses regarding the other substances assigned to the NE category that they have a harm potential large enough to directly affect the stability and resilience of the Earth system? This question would have to be answered separately for each substance. The harm could also result from a cumulative effect of several of these substances. Only for those substances for which there are plausible scientific hypotheses that they have a potential for severe harm could it possibly be justified to ban their marketing in accordance with the harm principle. For nuclear waste and for GMOs it seems even more questionable to assume such a direct effect on the Earth system. As long as this direct link between NE and the stability and resilience of the Earth system has not been satisfactorily shown, it is not possible to see how a separate planetary boundary with regard to NE can be justified.
What is not in dispute is that some of the NE can and do have a significant impact on core planetary boundaries such as biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss) or climate change and in this sense pose a global threat. However, this does not require or justify a specific planetary boundary ‘Novel Entities’. This is true all the more for an appropriate approach to GMOs. And it is also true in the case of Gene Drives, where a planetary boundary may seem plausible at first sight. Gene drives are designed to achieve a specific benefit by reducing or eliminating entire populations, for example, to protect the affected population from malaria by controlling malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. In this respect, they can have a considerable influence on entire ecosystems. It is conceivable that this could set in motion dynamics that have a negative impact beyond the boundaries of the ecosystem and are difficult or even impossible to control. However, a direct impact on the stability and resilience of the Earth system seems unlikely. More likely are negative effects on other planetary boundaries such as biodiversity in particular. GMOs must be evaluated from the point of view of the risks associated with them. And globally, they must additionally be assessed from the point of view of climate- and biodiversity-friendly agriculture that produces enough to feed an increasing world population in a way that ensures everyone’s right to adequate food in the long run. What the concept of NE can contribute in this context remains in the dark. Advocates of the PB approach would have to clarify this specifically with regard to GMOs. Without such clarification the NE concept does not seem relevant in normative terms. Rather, it runs the risk of leading to a substitute debate that misses the indisputably existing enormous problems caused by some NE.
In our view, the ethical conclusion would be to dispense with a planetary boundary for NE and instead to consistently apply the precautionary principle to each individual substance and demand appropriate risk assessments when dealing with the very different substances that are summarized under the term NE.
Open access