Development in the time of climate change: an issue for ethics

Introduction Climate change represents very significant impacts for the natural environment, as well as for the economy, health and security of many human communities. The recent report of the Global Humanitarian Forum, Climate Change – the Anatomy of a Silent Crisis (2009), clearly shows that poverty and extreme vulnerability to climate change are very closely associated. Even the rise of only one degree Celsius in average global temperatures can provoke famines, mass migrations and threats to public health in various parts of the globe. The global effects of climate change are especially harmful to the less well-off sectors of the world population, which, however, have contributed much less to global warming than the better-off sectors. In order to obtain action that will take into account those who are most vulnerable to climate change, several factors need to be considered with care. Here we will limit ourselves to the introduction of three topics that will require more indepth study. We begin with a brief assessment of the role of communication and public education strategies designed to raise awareness and engage the broad participation of citizens in responses to climate change. Next, we take note of the interplay of poverty and climate change from the perspective of environmental justice and international governance. After this, we propose that development merely be thought of as a matter of economic growth, supplemented by consideration through values such as well-being and equity, but also in terms of human security. Our conclusion is that, in the time of climate change, the increasing vulnerability of marginalised sectors of the world population requires that development be addressed in a new way.

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