The earth is getting warmer and warmer. What to do – stop flying, get rid of the car? That cannot be the whole answer, according to the Ethics Council. Politics must create the right framework conditions.
The German Ethics Council sees the state as having a duty in the fight against global warming, but also every individual as well as companies and organizations. “Moral criticism of decisions in the area of private life and consumption is no substitute for necessary political measures,” writes the council in a statement on climate justice published in Berlin.
The Council emphasizes at the beginning of its almost 130-page statement that there is “no longer any reasonable doubt” that the earth is warming due to human influence and in particular the burning of fossil fuels. “Unbridled further global warming would have catastrophic consequences.”
Buyx: Questions of justice are not discussed publicly enough
Climate justice issues are about how to deal with climate change as fairly as possible – both with regard to the consequences of global warming and the costs or burdens that action against it can entail. Chairwoman Alena Buyx outlined the questions that the Ethics Council dealt with as follows: “How can we distribute the burdens that we all face as fairly as possible? Who is responsible for what? And how do we do that without that “We’re all going to run out of breath?” The debates around the topic are stressful. “But it is solvable.”
Buyx told the German Press Agency in Berlin: “In the best case scenario, the report will raise awareness that many problems in dealing with climate change come from issues of justice.” This has not been discussed enough so far. “Some measures against climate change place a heavy burden on low earners, who produce the least emissions that are harmful to the climate. And that is unfair. It is not at all surprising if there is resistance.”
Minimum requirements for a good life
The burdens and responsibilities of dealing with climate change should be distributed in such a way that “as many people as possible can achieve the minimum requirements for a good, successful life now and in the future,” said council member Kerstin Schlögl-Flierl. “To this end, threshold values for important basic goods such as health, nutrition, water, security or mobility must not be fallen below.”
From the perspective of the Ethics Council, questions of justice arise within societies, internationally and between generations. Those particularly affected by climate change are hardly or not at all involved in decisions about how to deal with it. “Otherwise, our freedom today will be unfairly at the expense of the freedom of other people who are worse off in our country, countries in the global south or at the expense of young and future generations,” explained Council member Armin Grunwald.
Against expectations of “moral heroism”
The Council considers bans on certain products or services to be one of the worse options. “We are not proposing any specific bans, also because we point out that bans affect the individual most,” said Buyx. The council is more concerned with political decisions and framework conditions.
“It is unreasonable to expect the state to adopt a lower-emission lifestyle and consumption as long as the conditions for this are not met within the economic and social order desired and supported by the same state,” writes the council. “In many areas, lower-emission action still requires accepting sacrifices, disadvantages, and possibly even “moral heroism,” especially from those who are financially worse off.” That is unfair and unhelpful. Grunwald said that in many rural areas it is difficult to get around without a car.
But that does not release “an individual moral obligation to cooperate,” according to the council. One should think about “personal behavior, one’s own way of life and one’s own civic engagement” independently of government guidelines.
The Ethics Council warns against relying too much on technologies such as underground CO2 storage (CCS) while doing less to combat global warming. “We actually have a tendency in technological civilization to solve a problem with technology, and the side effects of technology come later,” said Grunwald, referring to possible risks.
Special opinion and criticism
In a dissenting vote, three members partially distanced themselves from the Council’s conclusions. This does not take enough account of the role of innovations, its arguments remain too vague and it must be accused of “excessive and tendentiously illiberal moralism” if it imposes “a moral obligation to cooperate” on individual citizens to get socially involved in combating climate change. The Ethics Council is calling for far-reaching measures to combat climate change, although their chances of success remain unclear. “Time pressure does not turn an ineffective measure into an effective one.”
Grunwald, on the other hand, emphasized: “It would be downright irresponsible to forego national and European climate protection measures simply because the global implementation of appropriate measures to limit global warming does not yet appear to be certain.” His colleague Kerstin Schlögl-Flierl warned: “Relying only on others ultimately leads to nobody doing anything.”
The German Ethics Council is an independent, currently 24-member body that advises the federal government and the Bundestag and is intended to promote social discussions. He deals with ethical, social, scientific, medical and legal issues. The members come from science and associations.