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BPI/EPP/2009/PI/60M/06

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Environmental Ethics
A range of international treaties and other documents on the environment contain principles that could be developed into an ethical framework, but they have not been consolidated or systematised. UNESCO is engaged in advancing reflection in this area, in particular through the work of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST).

The second background principle is nvironmental problems raise specific responsibility in the common but ethical issues that international policydifferentiated sense enshrined in the oriented debate often fails to tackle. We United Nations Framework Convention on may agree that much harm done by humans Climate Change, signed at the Rio de to the living world is gratuitous and easily Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. Some avoidable. No strong ethical framework is environmental damage is unquestionably required to declare such harm caused by a specific agent, in which case it unacceptable. But what if these harmful is widely agreed that the polluter pays. But actions directly benefit human beings? when it is unclear who the polluter is, the Again, we may agree that avoidable waste damage stills needs prevention or repair. should be cut, because it reduces the capacity of others including others not yet Ethics can provide criteria for precisely such born to meet their needs. But what if assignment of responsibility. All humans are allowing for the needs of future generations collective trustees of the Earths climate, but the basic principle of sustainability certain states have specific responsibilities means real sacrifices on our part? in view of their historical pattern of Responsibility is one of the most basic development to take steps to prevent or issues in ethics. Great difficulty in assigning mitigate irreversible detrimental climate responsibility is change. precisely what This principle is characterises valuable, but it can be environmental unclear how in practice problems. Complex to apply it to specific socio-ecosystems issues. Furthermore, respond to stimuli in even in theory, it leaves ways that are poorly many important understood. Yet if we questions unaddressed. limit responsibility only UNESCOs work in to what we have environmental ethics is directly caused to be, aimed at filling in some of the Muatez Nasser Al-Adwan then we may well be gaps. responsible for nothing at all. Who then The Moral Value of the Environment bears responsibility for what? consumers? One major gap lies in the positions that the governments? industry? international community has agreed by The Ethics of Sustainability political rather than ethical consensus. Environmental ethics currently has a weak For example, sustainability and normative framework. However international responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions policy has provided an authoritative set of are judged principally by how they affect background principles to guide policyhumans. Distributive issues - for example relevant reflection. freshwater supplies - are also considered Sustainability, the first such principle, can be almost exclusively in terms of how viewed as ethical in two respects. First, any resources should be shared between interpretation of sustainability clearly states humans. gratuitous waste to be unethical. Secondly, Yet is such a stance ethical? sustainability implies a distributive principle Consider a thought experiment. It is now both between and among generations. It generally believed that biodiversity is crucial suggests that a certain pattern of resource for human well-being. Imagine that use might be excessive in terms of the conclusive evidence was produced that burdens it imposes on others, even when no humans could flourish in a world with considerations of waste apply. significantly lower levels of biodiversity.

Environmental Ethics

This information sheet is not an official UNESCO document. It aims to provide the public with information on the theme of Environmental Ethics on the occasion of the 60 Minutes meeting of 3 February 2009

Two statements of the background ethical framework

The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992, article 3.1) We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. Therefore, together in hope, we affirm the following interdependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed. (The Earth Charter, 2000, Preamble) Since its creation by the UNESCO General Conference in 1997, COMEST has devoted a number of reports and publications to environmental ethics, including most recently H.A.M.J. ten Have ed., Environmental Ethics and International Policy. UNESCO Publishing, 2006. Would we then cease to be concerned about biodiversity? Should we cease to be concerned? Opinions differ at the level of detail, but there is a fairly broad consensus that, on ethical grounds, biodiversity and other aspects of the environment have intrinsic value to quote the preamble of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity regardless of their contribution to human well-being. What should follow from this basic principle remains to be explored in many areas of practical application, including, for instance, the preservation of wildernesses that may contain natural resources of great economic value. Teaching Environmental Ethics Bridging this ethical gap is not a matter of abstract moralising. UNESCOs activities in environmental ethics emphasise embedding ethics in concrete social practices. The teaching of environmental ethics is essential: not just to ethicists, but also to engineers, agronomists, social scientists, chemists and to all other professionals whose technical choices can profoundly affect socio-ecosystems. Through activities in several regions, UNESCO is promoting exchanges and networking among environmental ethics specialists, encouraging curriculum development, and ultimately mainstreaming of environmental ethics concerns throughout the science disciplines. Individual choices can, cumulatively, have a huge impact, and yet people are often ill informed about what environmentally responsible behaviour might entail. Embedding ethics also means raising awareness, not least among school children. The Ethical Implications of Climate Change Getting the balance right between individual and collective responsibility is a particular challenge in the case of climate change. An ethics of climate change is concerned about human actions that upset the global climate, and asks what could be done to reverse the trends in global climate change that has already been detected in general, everyday experience and in scientific studies. Such an ethical approach offers potential answers beyond the necessarily limited parameters of political negotiation. In 2009, COMEST will report on the ethical implications of climate change. Attention will be given, in particular, to: - ethical issues connected with the development of climate science, understood with reference to the human right to share in scientific advancement and its benefits; and - an ethical framework for assessment of climate change adaptation policies. The report will also seek to clarify why climate change is an ethical challenge in the first place. Ethics cannot solve every aspect of current policy questions relating to uncertainty, economic costs and burden sharing. However, in the absence of an adequate ethical perspective, answers to such questions will derive from the current balance of power and interests. A balance that has no ethical basis in principle is unlikely to prove stable in practice.
Contacts: John Crowley - j.crowley@unesco.org COMEST: comest@unesco.org Link: www.unesco.org/shs/est

Environmental Ethics

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