Overview
Climate change and
individual duties
Augustin Fragnière*
Edited by Anja Karnein, Domain Editor, and Mike Hulme, Editor-in-Chief
Tackling climate change has often been considered the responsibility of national
governments. But do individuals also have a duty to act in the face of this problem? In particular, do they have a duty to adopt a greener lifestyle or to press
their government to act? This review critically examines the arguments provided
for and against such duties in the relevant philosophic literature. It first discusses
the problem of causal inefficacy—namely the fact that individual greenhouse gas
emissions appear to make no difference to the harmful consequences of climate
change—and whether it clears individuals from any moral obligations related to
climate change. Then, it considers various other arguments for the existence of
such duties, including integrity, fairness, universalizability, or virtue. Finally, it
assesses the existence of a duty to promote collective action through active citizenship. The conclusion emphasizes that most writers agree on the fact that individuals have at least some duties to take action against climate change, but that
disagreement remains about the exact nature and, above all, the extent of these
duties. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
How to cite this article:
WIREs Clim Change 2016. doi: 10.1002/wcc.422
INTRODUCTION
F
or more than two decades, climate change has
been recognized as a global threat raising issues
of justice between peoples. Climate ethics, as a new
investigation field for practical philosophy, emerged
in the 1990s in the wake of the international negotiations for a global climate treaty (the UNFCCC). In
particular, this has given rise to a vast philosophical
literature on the fairest way to share the costs and
benefits of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.1 This
debate is closely related to global and intergenerational justice issues and may be referred to as distributive climate justice.2 More recently, a somewhat
different (but not completely separate) line of reflection has emerged about the responsibilities and duties
*Correspondence to: afragne@gmail.com
Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Seattle,
WA, USA
Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest
for this article.
of individuals in the face of climate change. This
debate does not focus directly on distributive issues
on a large scale, but usually uses arguments and principles specific to applied ethics, and sometimes political philosophy, aiming at governing our everyday
actions. I propose to refer to this line of reflection as
individual climate ethics. So far, this debate has been
mainly focused on what morality requires from individuals in the absence of a collective global agreement on emission reductions and in the absence of
incentivizing or coercive abatement schemes at the
state level. This will be my main focus here.
The starting point of the current debate is the
following thought. Climate change, despite its huge
potential for harm, is a collective action problem
brought about by billions of tiny contributions. The
puzzle here is that nobody appears to be responsible
for it, since nobody’s emissions, taken individually,
are either necessary or sufficient to cause climate
change. Individual emissions and individual efforts to
curb them are so minute compared to the global
anthropogenic impact on the climate system that they
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can be deemed negligible and, according to some
authors, fail to justify an individual duty to reduce
one’s carbon footprint.3–9 You can personally try to
have a lifestyle as climate-friendly as possible, the
argument goes, but this will make no difference to
the magnitude of climate change. This is so because
enough other people will continue to behave in a climate unfriendly manner anyway. No matter how
green your lifestyle is, your personal contribution is
nothing but a drop in the ocean. In the face of this
observation, and considering that adopting a green
lifestyle also involves certain costs, what does morality demand of us? What kind of responsibilities and
duties can we attribute to individuals and on the
basis of which ethical principles? This problem is not
totally new in the philosophical landscape, insofar as
it concerns most situations where a great number of
uncoordinated actions lead to significant benefits or
harms, from voting to shopping to the consumption
of meat. However, climate change is a textbook
example of such accumulative harms and has largely
contributed to reinvigorate the debate. My aim here
is to review the main positions and arguments that
have emerged in the last decade, specifically about
the issue of climate change.
RESPONSIBILITY AND DUTY
In ethics, the concept of duty usually refers to a
moral obligation to perform a given act or set of acts.
The definition of responsibility, however, is a little
bit murkier as the term can have different senses. On
a backward-looking sense, to be responsible means
that one can aptly be held blameworthy or liable for
a given state of affairs (e.g., the driver is responsible
for the accident). On a forward-looking sense, it is
akin to the concept of duty. Responsibility in this
sense is about what a person ought to do, even
though the actions required to achieve it are not
always specified (e.g., parents are responsible for
their children’s safety). In the case of individual climate ethics, the debate covers both concepts of
backward-looking responsibility and duty. Some writers try to figure out whether individuals can be held
responsible for the damages resulting from past and
current GHG emissions, whereas others ask whether
individuals have a duty to refrain from emitting
GHG. It is worth emphasizing that the two debates
sometimes offer similar arguments. This is the case
because if it is true that we can be held responsible
for the harm caused by our current emissions, it is
plausible to argue that we also have a duty to refrain
from causing it. Duty and backward-looking
responsibility are often (but not necessarily always)
closely related. Hence, even though my focus will be
on individual duties, I will also refer to arguments
from the backward-looking responsibility debate
when this is relevant.
Many different kinds of climate duties have
been mentioned in the specialized literature, but I will
limit myself to two of them: the duty to reduce one’s
carbon footprint and the duty to promote and support collective action against climate change. The
former has taken the lion’s share of the discussion so
far and the latter is currently gaining more philosophical attention. Both can be called mitigation
duties, insofar as they are directed toward reducing
the very causes of climate change. Other possible
kinds of duties such as enabling adaptation, giving
money to climate projects, compensating the victims
of climate change or helping them directly have
received little attention qua individual duties
(as opposed to institutional arrangements), and will
therefore be left aside.a
The Duty to Reduce One’s
Carbon Footprint
As early as 1992, Dale Jamieson famously wrote:
‘Today we face the possibility that the global environment may be destroyed, yet no one will be
responsible.’11 The underlying idea behind this startling quote is that our current value system (sometimes referred to as ‘common sense morality’)
evolved in small communities where relations of
proximity were the norm, and is adapted to deal with
paradigm moral problems such as cases where an
individual directly harms another individual. Yet, climate change, as a large-scale intergenerational collective action problem, falls short of being such a
paradigm moral problem.b According to Jamieson,
responding properly to the challenge would thus
require a substantial revision of common sense
morality.9,11–14c The present debate can be viewed as
an investigation of this claim across contemporary
ethical theories. For instance, more than ten years
ago, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong made the provocative
statement that there is no such thing as an individual
duty to reduce one’s GHG emissions. He takes the
example of a joyride in a gas-guzzling SUV on a
Sunday afternoon, and argues that there is no obvious principle in contemporary moral theory that condemns it as morally wrong. In particular, even
though the ride unnecessarily emits a relatively
important amount of carbon dioxide, it does not
cause harm in the relevant sense.4d Jamieson
approves of this in his latest book,9 and for both
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Climate change and individual duties
writers the crux is that individual contributions make
(or appear to make) no difference to the harm
brought about. This has been dubbed the problem of
inconsequentialism or causal inefficacy.5,11,18,19e
In what follows, I delineate four different reasons why individual contributions might be judged
causally inefficacious and present the main counterarguments we find in the specialized literature. Then, I
review other arguments in favor of a duty to reduce
one’s carbon footprint that try to bypass the problem
of inefficacy.
The Problem of Causal Inefficacy
The four main reasons why individual emissions
might be causally inefficacious are: (1) my emissions
are too small to be significant; (2) due to climatic
thresholds, my emissions cause no marginal harm;
(3) there is no direct causal pathway between particular emissions and climate-related harms; and (4) the
same amount of GHG will be emitted anyway. Let us
take them in turn.
Insignificance/Imperceptibility: My Emissions Are
Too Small
Individual contributions to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect are extremely minute compared to the
global GHG emissions. An average American emits
17 metric tons of CO2 each year, which represents
approximately one two-billionth of the global annual
emissions.f Thus, compared with the total amount of
carbon dioxide emitted over many years, the emissions
resulting from discrete actions are even more infinitesimal. From that point of view, driving for fun or even
flying for leisure appear very much to be like pouring a
glass of water into a flooding river.4 Particular emissions of CO2 will quite obviously make no difference
to the amount of harm brought about by climate
change, just like the glass of water with respect to the
flood. In one word, the consequences of one particular
GHG emitting act appear morally insignificant.
Against this line of argument, the first step is generally to invalidate the idea that individual contributions have no effect at all like the flood example
suggests. Indeed, if every tiny contribution made no
difference, climate change would not occur.g We can
reconcile our intuition that everyday actions have no
bearing at the global scale with the fact that climate
change is actually happening by acknowledging that
imperceptible does not mean nonexistent.6,18,24–26
Albeit very tiny, probably beyond the scope of human
understanding, individual emissions (or at least some
of them) have a very real impact on the global climate.
However, the simple fact that our actions do
have a very minute impact on the global climate does
not mean that we ought to take them into account
when we ponder what to do. Taking into account
every single effect of our daily actions would certainly make our lives impossible. Thus, to count as
harms in the relevant sense, that is to be deemed
morally significant, the consequences of our actions
must be more than trivial.27 But one can doubt that
the effects of our personal GHG emissions are
so. After all, no one’s life will be meaningfully different as a result of the carbon dioxide emitted by an
SUV ride; the difference it makes to the greenhouse
effect is too infinitesimal. If this is true, it leads us to
what can be called a ‘paradox of small effects,’ that
is the fact that a set of morally insignificant actions
can bring about morally significant harm.28,29
To find a way out of this apparent paradox,
many authors follow the famous British philosopher
Derek Parfit.16,18,28,30–34 Parfit points out that the
conditions of globalization and interconnectedness
that we experience today change the way we have to
think about the consequences of our actions.26 He
defines five so-called ‘mistakes in moral mathematics’
that we are prone to make given our new ability to
affect others in various ways. At least two of these
mistakes are relevant to climate change, the first one
being that of ‘ignoring the effects of sets of acts.’
Indeed, in the case of GHG emissions we know that
a great many other people are also emitting GHGs
and that the accumulation of all these tiny contributions causes great harm. This must be taken into
account and it would be a mistake, Parfit argues, to
consider only the consequences of our acts in isolation.26 The second relevant mistake is that of ‘ignoring small or imperceptible effects’ when they affect a
large number of persons. To understand this it might
be worth noting that if my Sunday afternoon joyride
has the effect of raising the global mean temperature
of one billionth of a degree, this will affect very
slightly not just one person but all the persons subjected to these new conditions. For Parfit, this is
clearly morally wrong because causing very small
harms to a lot of people can be morally as bad as
causing a substantial harm to one person. However,
even though Parfit gives various example to make his
claims more plausible, at least some climate ethicists
do not share his intuition.6,7,9,35
Another popular strategy around the puzzle of
insignificant consequences is to challenge the empirical claim that individual emissions cause nothing but
indiscernibly small effects. Some authors appeal to
the ‘butterfly effect,’ that is the idea that very small
changes in the meteorological system can be amplified and bring about dramatic weather events.33
Others choose a more straightforward strategy and
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try to calculate the amount of harm the lifetime emissions of an average American are responsible for.
John Nolt estimates that it amounts to the serious
suffering and/or death of two persons over the next
millennium,h which shows that the effect of individual emissions is all but negligible.37 This is so because
even though the average American’s share of the
total is very small (one two-billionth), the consequences of climate change are so huge that the harm
attributed to him is substantial. Similarly, John
Broome finds that the lifetime emissions of a westerner will cause the loss of six months of healthy
human life or will cost between $19,000 and
$65,000.38 Avram Hiller estimates that a Sunday
drive is the moral equivalent of ‘ruining someone’s
afternoon,’ which he considers not negligible.39
These figures are rough estimates and there is
an on-going debate about the relevance of such calculations. For instance, some authors argue that
what counts in assessing the consequences of individual actions is not the share of the total harm but the
marginal effect, that is the difference between two
scenarios with and without the given emissions.6,33,40
Other writers have pointed out that being responsible
for one two-billionth of four billion deaths is not the
same as being responsible for two deaths,35 or that
specific deaths are not the same as statistical
deaths.41 In any case, the debate is far from settled,
but these calculations indicate at least that we should
not be too quick to take the argument from insignificance for granted. If the math is correct, and if it
turns out that it has moral force, it follows that we
have a strong prima facie duty not to emit GHGs.
Climatic Thresholds: My Emissions Cause No
Marginal Harm
But, even if our daily emissions cannot be deemed
negligible, maybe our everyday actions make no difference for other reasons. Climatic thresholds might
play a role as well. Consider a first one that I will call
initial threshold. Because of the uptake of carbon
dioxide by natural sinks (biomass and oceans), the
greenhouse effect is not reinforced until we emit
enough CO2 to overwhelm their absorptive capacity.
This critical amount currently represents around
60% of the global emissions, which corresponds to
23 billion tons of CO2 of the 38 billion humanity
emits each year.42 This means that the first 23 billion
tons of carbon dioxide we emit each year do not
raise the GHG concentration in the atmosphere—
they are below the initial threshold—but also that we
overshoot this initial threshold by 15 billion tons of
CO2. To begin with, individuals (as well as firms or
nations) might be tempted to say that their personal
emissions are below this initial threshold and therefore make no difference to climate change. But this
argument is unacceptable because they emit in the
context of an already too large amount of global
GHG emissions, and this fact cannot be brushed
aside.30,43 Furthermore, scientists have made it clear
that the goal is to reach zero CO2 emissions (and not
just to cut them by 40%) by the end of the century.42
Now, do emissions taking place beyond the initial threshold make a difference? Philosophers call
cases where there are more causal factors than necessary for a consequence to unfold, instances of overdetermination. A typical example is that of a firing
squad consisting of five soldiers. Insofar as one bullet
is sufficient to cause the death of the prisoner, the
four others are in excess. They make no marginal difference to the amount of harm brought about,
because the man is already dead. In other words,
these contributions are not necessary. Some authors
argue that the case of climate change is analogous to
this one.4,6,8,9,44,45 Given the size of the overshoot
and the fact that large amounts of GHG are emitted
at the same time from different sources, it is tempting
to say that individual emissions make no difference
because climate change will happen anyway (as the
death would happen anyway even if one soldier
refrained from shooting). For instance, Dale Jamieson writes: ‘climate change will occur whether or not
I needless drive or thoughtlessly jet.’9
Even though there is quite a lot of philosophical
debate about the moral status of such overdetermination cases,16,26,28,45,46 the most straightforward
answer here is probably empirical. Climate change is
actually not a case of overdetermination. Unlike the
firing squad example where the harm cannot exceed
one death, climate change is best characterized as a
broadly incremental phenomenon interspersed by
various nonlinear features20,42 or, alternatively, as a
succession of interrelated micro thresholds.30,46 Once
the (supposedly) decisive amount of 23 billion tons
of CO2 has been released into the atmosphere, each
supplemental amount of GHG makes the problem
worse (or helps trigger the next threshold, see below).
In other words, they do cause marginal harm. Saying
that the difference is too tiny to be relevant would
only send us back to the arguments about insignificance and imperceptibility.
However, some authors make the somewhat
controversial assumption that beyond the initial
threshold, the harm brought about by climate change
comes only in discreet thresholds (call these ones critical thresholds).i For instance, past a certain concentration of GHGs some additional weather events
such as droughts, heat waves, or hurricanes may kick
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Climate change and individual duties
in or some devastating climate tipping point might be
reached. According to this interpretation, even if
your joyride is a net addition to the amount of GHG
emitted, it is not sure that it will increase the amount
of harm brought about. If you decide to go for a ride
and the GHG concentration in the atmosphere is still
below the next critical threshold, the total amount of
harm might remain unchanged.4,7,8,48
A first answer to this line of argument is to
state one more time that climate change is also an
incremental phenomenon and that each contribution
makes the problem worse (the existence of thresholds
just means that some contributions will cause more
harm than others). A second answer is to appeal to
the expected marginal harm associated with individual acts such as a ride for fun. The reasoning goes as
follows. If your emissions are just the ones that allow
the concentration to reach the triggering level, then
they can have potentially disastrous consequences.
But we cannot know where the thresholds stand
exactly. Moreover, the contribution that triggers the
harm cannot be the only one incriminated because
the threshold would not obtain without all the other
contributions.28,46 Therefore, we should focus on
expected marginal harm (i.e., the harm associated
with the crossing of the threshold multiplied by the
probability that your particular set of emissions will
be the one that triggers it) rather than on actual marginal harm.18,29,30,46 In other words, you ought to
refrain from emitting, because there is a risk that
your emissions will trigger a harmful threshold.
Critics of this line of response argue in return that
the climate system is so complex that we have no
particular reason to think that it is empirically possible for individual emissions to trigger a harmful
threshold.7,8 But, as we have seen earlier, individual
emissions, or at least some of them, must make a difference somehow for the global effects to unfold. A
precise description of how this happens physically
does not appear to be necessary for the normative
assessment of individual contributions.
No Direct Causal Pathway
Another possible argument in favor of the causal
inefficacy of individual emissions is to assert that
individual contributions to climate change fail to
meet the relevant definition of causation. This is
mainly due to the conjunction of two features of climate change: it is caused by the accumulation of
numerous tiny causal factorsj and the harms brought
about by the excess of carbon dioxide emissions are
mediated by a series of complex climatic processes.
As a consequence, it is not possible to match individual emissions with instances of harm such as
particular weather events. The question here is
whether or not the fact that the effects of our behavior are only indirect cancels our share of responsibility for these outcomes, and thereby our duty to
prevent them. The answer is probably yes if we stick
to the traditional conception of responsibility requiring a direct and straightforward causation process,
as in the case of individual-to-individual
interactions.4,11,13,27,50–54 However, many authors
argue that in the face of the new harms the contemporary world is experiencing, we should revise this
conception and include indirect effects in the purview
of our conceptions of morality and justice.31,55–57k In
a more technical way, others argue that what should
be considered as the relevant sense of ‘causality’ is
not direct causation but the ‘contributory effect’ of
each individual. Various criteria have been proposed
to assess whether individual emissions can be deemed
to be part of the causation process (whether they are
‘causally relevant factors’), such as the so-called
NESS test, where individuals are contributing to the
outcome if they are a Necessary Element of at least
one Sufficient Set of conditions (NESS)45,60–62 (see
also Ref 63).
Same Amount of GHG Will Be Emitted Anyway
Now, let us assume that our personal emissions are
not negligible, that they do cause marginal harm and
that the indirectness of their effect does not absolve
us from responsibility. It might still appear plausible
to say that our acts make no difference, because in at
least some circumstances the amounts emitted will
remain the same whatever we decide to do. Consider
the case of air travel (and see endnote for other market effects with similar results)l. If you refrain from
flying to Barcelona for your long weekend, it is very
likely that the plane will take off anyway, because
the flights are scheduled months in advance. Thus, if
we make the assumption that the total number of
flights remains the same, the amount of CO2 released
into the atmosphere will be the same whether you fly
or not. Let us say that there must be 100 people buying a ticket for the airline to schedule an additional
flight in the future (I borrow this example from Ref
33). This means that if you are in any other position
than the 100th customer, the fact that you fly does
not make any marginal difference to the global GHG
emissions. The number of flights remains the same
and you do not add CO2 to the atmosphere compared to what would have been emitted anyway.6,19,30,33,39 However, if your purchase is the one
that triggers the threshold (the 100th or any multiple
of 100) the actual consequences are quite important.
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Assuming that the economy really works like
this (and not in a more incremental way as is plausible), the most popular response, as in the case of climatic thresholds, is to appeal to a calculation of
expected harm. Insofar as it is hard to know exactly
where the thresholds stand, the argument goes, it is
fairer for every contributors to focus on the difference they might make instead of the difference they
will actually make.18,22,30,33 The calculation of
expected harm is simply the harm caused by the
crossing of a threshold (here the harm brought about
by an additional flight) multiplied by the probability
that one particular individual will be the one that
triggers it (1% in our air travel example). The
expected marginal harm of your purchase of a ticket
to Barcelona is therefore positive, even if it makes no
difference on this particular flight. To put it another
way, buying your ticket has the effect of increasing
the demand, which makes it more likely that air
travel supply will increase over the long term. Therefore, the argument goes, you have a duty to avoid
flying.
Noncausation-Based Arguments
In the face of the controversy about causal inefficacy,
various attempts have been made to bypass the problem and justify an individual duty to reduce one’s
carbon footprint without reference to the actual or
expected consequences. In this section, I list and
briefly comment the most prominent of these ‘noncausation-based’ arguments.
Integrity
One line of argument maintains that even if refraining from performing GHG intensive actions makes
no difference, we ought to do it all the same because
it says something about our integrity as moral agents.
This idea can be developed in various ways. For
instance, as an answer to the argument that ‘the same
amount of GHG will be emitted anyway,’ some
authors argue that what counts from a moral point
of view is the result of our own actions.67,68 We
ought to keep our hands clean.m So, if your flying to
Hawaii for the weekend makes no difference because
the plane would fly anyway, you still ought to refrain
from doing it because otherwise harm would be
brought about through your agency (and not that of
someone else).38,57 But let us assume that a single
flight is absolutely insignificant and that no harm at
all would be caused through your agency. Some
authors submit that it is still morally unwarranted to
fly, because you would be complicit in or participate
to a hugely harmful global practice57,64,69 (for this
argument applied to other similar issues, see Refs
70 and 71). The reason complicity is a bad thing, in
turn, can be grounded on the idea that our acts have
an expressive function and tell something about who
we are, what we think and which values we
endorse.69 Notwithstanding, the point has been made
that such an argument does not apply to GHG emissions because there is no definite group emitters
could ‘join’ in the same way as people join a violent
and uncoordinated mob.29 Other writers argue that
arguments from complicity do not succeed because
GHG emissions are not intrinsically wrong (unlike
complicity in other collective problems such as child
labor or racism).4,7
Along a different line, Marion Hourdequin has
argued that integrity does not only mean the internalization of one’s values and beliefs regarding certain
issues, but also the integration of all one’s commitments into a coherent whole.72 Thus, an argument
from consistency can be made, enjoining people
thinking that climate change should be tackled on
the collective or political level to change their lifestyle
accordingly. It is a matter of consistency or coherence
to harmonize one’s values on the collective and the
individual levels.19,69,72,73 But even though this view
appears appealing, it is vulnerable to the objection
that there is nothing inconsistent with promoting collective action and at the same time maintaining one’s
lavish lifestyle, precisely because individual actions
make no difference.3,8 For one thing, what can be
replied is that such an attitude could nevertheless be
perceived as hypocritical, which would undermine
one’s advocacy work for a political solution.3,72 For
another, lifestyle changes might inspire similar
changes by others and help start up a collective shift
(more on this in the section on the duty to promote
collective action).72,74
Fairness
Another rationale on which an individual duty to
reduce one’s carbon footprint can be based is the
idea that individuals ought to do their part of the collective endeavor to fight climate change. Indeed, at
the collective level the problem of causal inefficacy
does not arise and it is a widely held view that we
have a collective duty to reduce our GHG emissions.
Some authors derive from it a moral obligation to do
one’s part of the emission reductions.34,75,76n One
way to make sense of this idea is to attribute a ‘fair
share’ of the global carbon budget to each individual,
which she is legitimately entitled to emit (emission
rights). Indeed, climate scientists have come to the
conclusion that if we wish to have at least a 66%
chance of limiting warming to 2 C, cumulative emissions as of 2011 should not go beyond a trillion tons
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Climate change and individual duties
of CO2.42 The remaining budget has thus to be
shared among the whole humanity according to some
criterion of distributive justice. As a result, if everybody stuck to her fair share dangerous climate
change would likely be avoided (even though more
and more voices argue for a +1.5 C limit).
The upshot of this approach is, as Christian
Baatz argues, that people emitting more than they
are entitled to not only contribute to a harmful activity but also deprive other agents of part of their fair
share.76,77o Regardless of whether individual emissions are harmful or not, using more than one’s share
is thus at odds with the demands of fairness.p Hence,
individuals have a prima facie duty to stick to their
emission rights, which for most Westerners means a
reduction of their carbon footprint. Going for a joyride is morally permissible as long as it stays within
the limits of one’s fair share of emissions. However,
this is unlikely to be the case of people with affluent
lifestyles who generally have a very large carbon
footprint.62,76
This argument has been challenged along different lines, one of them being the difficulty in specifying what a fair share is. This is a complex debate
that cannot be fully reproduced here, but we can gain
a small insight into it by considering the criterion of
equal share per capita. The idea that every human
being is entitled to the same share of the carbon
budget as the others appears indeed quite common
sense. However, various philosophers have argued
that departures from equality are justified by various
criteria such as the energy needed to fulfill one’s basic
needs, the possibility to use alternative energies or
the endowment of agents with other kind of goods
and resources (see Ref 84). In other words, the size
of one’s fair share is very sensitive to personal circumstances, which means that the level of permissible
emissions must be assessed on a case-by-case basis
(see Refs 76 and 84).q However, this difficulty does
not exonerate affluent people from the duty to reduce
their carbon footprint, insofar as they are most plausible overshooting their share by a wide margin. A
second challenge is that, in the absence of a collective
agreement, GHG emissions are de facto not in limited supply. Even though we can give moral reasons
for why and how individual shares should be constrained, it is not true that emitting more than one’s
fair share deprives others of their emission rights.
Nobody is prevented from emitting.88 A response to
this objection would be to say that in anticipation of
a future collective scheme it would be unfair to
deplete the carbon budget more than one would be
allowed under the scheme.7 Even though some
authors have argued that such a collective agreement
on a finite carbon budget is unlikely to be implemented in the foreseeable future,7,8 hope is rekindling
after the COP 21 in Paris in 2015 that this could
happen sooner than expected. However, the features
that such an agreement should display (e.g. binding
or non-binding, target in terms of temperature or
GHG, etc.) to have bearing on individual duties have
not yet been be fully considered (but see Ref 62 and
88). Finally, it can be argued that such an account of
individual duties is vulnerable to situations of partial
compliance. Indeed, since it is unlikely that many
people will comply with their duty in the real world,
this situation would be unfair to the compliers who
endure the costs.90 However, one response to this
objection is that even though such a situation would
be unfair to compliers, releasing them from their duty
would be even more unfair to the victims who bear
the consequences of climate change62 (see also
section on demandingness below).
Universalization Principles
One obvious way to respond to this last argument
about partial compliance is to say that individuals
have a duty to reduce their carbon footprint irrespective of what others do. This sometimes takes the
shape of hypothetical generalizations of the type of
action one is about to perform. In other words, it
amounts to asking ‘what if everybody did that?’
For instance, some authors have sought to justify an individual duty to adopt a sustainable lifestyle
grounded in the principles of Kantian ethics.73,85,91
For Kant, the decisive criterion to assess the morality
of an act is not the consequences it brings about but
its conformity with the moral law. The test, for an
act to be permissible, is that the maxim of the action
(i.e., the practical rule one follows) must be able to
be universalized without contradiction. The classical
example is the maxim ‘make false promises.’ I have a
moral obligation not to make false promises, because
if everybody were behaving according to that maxim
this would undermine trust between people and
render it impossible to make promises, genuine or
false, in the first place. Making false promises, if universalized, is self-defeating.
In our case, this test is mostly relevant to maxims describing recurring acts or types of action such
as ‘commute with your private car’ and ‘perform
GHG emitting activities.’ At first glance there seems
to be no contradiction in the universalization of such
maxims. Bad consequences for sure, but no internal
contradiction.4 However, as some have argued, if
maxims such as ‘commute with your private car’
were to be universally followed as a rule, this would
ultimately bring about resource scarcity and a
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civilization collapse that would undermine the very
possibility of consuming fossil fuels or driving a private cars.73,91 Against this line of argument, it has
been objected that, contrary to the case of false promises, this is a very practical (and not logical) contradiction in that it relies on empirical knowledge about
the current world.8 Indeed, there would be no problem, and hence no contradiction, with performing
GHG emitting activities in a world far less populated
than the current one. Which kind of contradiction
(logical or practical) exactly counts in Kantian orthodoxy is a subject of controversy among specialists,
but, assuming that this objection is valid, at least one
response appears possible. It is to go a level of generality further and consider a maxim such as ‘live
unsustainably.’85 Insofar as an unsustainable way of
life can by definition not be universalized without
undermining itself (logical contradiction), it is contrary to the moral law. Therefore, Kantian ethics
leads to an individual duty to live sustainably. The
problem here is that this injunction is very general
and is a poor guide for particular actions. It is, in
Kantian terms, an imperfect duty, that is one that
leaves individuals with leeway in how to carry it out.
Other authors have also argued that Kantianism is
too disconnected from consequences and too focused
on the intentionality behind actions to take the environmental side effects of everyday actions into
account.5,92
A more intuitive way to appeal to universalization is to say that we have a moral obligation not to
act in ways that, if performed by everybody, would
cause a net loss of well-being. It is clear that if everybody emitted large amounts of GHG the consequences would be very bad. This principle seems thus
initially appealing. However, critics have pointed out
that it is implausible because it gives counter-intuitive
results in other cases. For example, that it would be
bad if nobody had children does not mean that we
have a duty to reproduce.4,6
Virtue
Another way to respond to causal inefficacy and partial compliance objections is to appeal to virtue. The
idea here is to focus the moral assessment not on
individual acts or maxims but on character traits.
Indeed, if individuals ought to display certain character traits by engaging in certain kinds of behavior,
then they ought to behave this way regardless of the
actual consequences of their acts and regardless of
what others do. But, insofar as consequences are of
great importance in climate ethics (it is indeed all
about how to avoid harmful consequences), virtue
ethicists usually opt for hybrid accounts where
virtues are designed to play an intermediary role
between individual acts and collective outcomes. For
instance, Ronald Sandler proposes a two-tier theory
including: firstly a consequentialist evaluation of
character traits (they are virtues if they generally promote the good), and secondly an evaluation of
actions in light of these virtues.5 In a similar vein,
Dale Jamieson argues that when it comes to collective
action problems such as environmental issues, giving
up on individual outcome calculations and focusing
on virtues gives better overall results.92 Among the
character traits most relevant to environmental problems he cites a mix of traditional and new virtues
such as humility, temperance, mindfulness, or the
respect for nature.9,12,13,92 Under some interpretations, the value of integrity described at the beginning
of this section can also be considered as a virtue.
Objections include the claim that character
traits are too general to be action guiding and that
virtues such as respect for nature and practical wisdom might be difficult to fulfill in modern societies,
insofar as we are dependent on its fossil fuel intensive
infrastructure.8 Another potential problem is that
virtue-oriented agents appear overly focused on ‘saving their own soul’ without regard to the global
catastrophe unfolding. For instance, agents adopting
the ‘keep one’s hands clean’ principle (related to the
virtue of integrity) could reduce their carbon footprint to the level of sustainability and become indifferent to the problem. But that would appear rather
self-centered, and maybe counterproductive, when
quite a lot of other things can be done to try to prevent the disaster.3,8,40
Extent of the Duty
All in all, and despite some challenges, it is safe to
say that most authors accept that individuals have at
least some duty to reduce their carbon footprint. But,
whatever the arguments they use to justify that, virtually no one claims that moral agents must totally
cease to emit GHGs.r There are different reasons
why we would want to limit the extent of individual
duties in general and climate duties in particular.
Here I summarize the two most common ones, the
notions of demandingness and control.s
Demandingness
The idea behind the demandingness objection is that
there is a limit to the demands morality can put on
individuals. Indeed, ethical reasoning can sometimes
lead to the formulation of duties that appear intuitively too costly (economically, psychologically,
socially, etc.) or burdensome for the duty bearer.t For
instance, if the lifetime GHG emissions of the average
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Climate change and individual duties
American are really responsible for the death of two
future persons, as John Nolt argues, then we can
plausibly imagine that the correlative duty would be
to bring our emissions down to zero. Indeed, what
can justify the death of two persons? But for an individual acting alone in the context of modern societies
(with very low compliance), this could result in marginalization and an almost complete loss of life prospects. Even reducing one’s carbon footprint to the
level of sustainability (approximately 2 tons of CO2
per year) could prove extremely difficult and involve
major sacrifices.76,93 Hence, most climate ethicists
have sought strategies to mitigate somewhat the burden of individual climate duties.
One can simply appeal to the notion of reasonableness and say that individuals should not be
required to make unreasonable sacrifices or say that
citizens of developed countries have a duty to reduce
their emissions ‘as much as they can.’69,94,95 But how
can such lax duties be justified in the face of the predicted devastating consequences of climate change?
One possible answer to this question is that individuals are entitled to have a life of their own and that
life projects of particular importance and legitimate
expectations must be taken into account.84,93,95,96
Thus, under such a view certain persons could be
allowed to fly to Mecca for religious reasons,
whereas taking the same flight for sheer touristic reasons would not be morally justified.u For some writers, the claim that religious or professional or
familial aspirations can override the life-threatening
consequences of climate change is justified by the
idea that taking part in producing a collective harm
is less bad than causing it directly like in cases of
face-to-face harm infliction.96
Another option to limit the scope of individual
duties, akin to the fair share argument mentioned
earlier, is to claim that duties amount to what individuals would be expected to do under a just collective
agreement, and not more. This position holds in particular that individuals have no obligation to take up
the slack left by noncompliers.84 However, this principle appears quite arbitrary when the cost to the victims by far exceeds the cost of making up for
noncompliers.8,62v
Various writers have tried to find a somewhat
more objective (and more stringent) characterization
of our duties. They draw on Henry Shue’s famous
distinction between subsistence and luxury emissions.99 Whereas subsistence emissions provide us
with the means to fulfill our basics needs, luxury
emissions are those that go beyond the essential for
the purpose of convenience or pleasure. Hence, the
argument goes, individuals are responsible only for
the harm caused by their luxury emissions.28 It
would be too demanding for them to give up their
subsistence emissions, at least when there is no reasonable low-carbon alternative, because they reflect
moral claims that are on a par with those of the
future victims of climate change, such as the right to
enjoy basic capabilities or to lead a decent
life.16,20,21,33,34,62,76 A first difficulty with this
account is that there is no objective and clear line of
demarcation between subsistence and luxury. We
understand that food production falls into the category of subsistence and that flying to the Bahamas
for leisure in that of luxury. But, where should we
classify the act of driving to work? A second difficulty is that, paradoxically, rural societies can secure
the level of subsistence with less GHGs than industrial societies. Yet, it would be rather disingenuous of
developed countries to say that they have to maintain
their high GHG emissions to secure subsistence.100
In the same spirit, other writers mention a right
to self-defense as a way to protect some basic entitlements from a duty to cease emitting. However, they
note that this right is sharply limited, in particular by
considerations of proportionality.49,101,102 Finally,
some authors offer a controversial answer to the
question by appealing to carbon offsetting schemes
as a way to discharge one’s duty at moderate
costs.29,38 This is controversial in part because it
allows agents to emit as much as they want, as long
as they offset (see Ref 103).
A major problem with demandingness objections is that they are usually not compatible with an
adequate response to climate change. Indeed, even if
everyone got rid of her luxury emissions this would
not necessarily be enough to stop the dangerous
accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere.76 There is
hence a conflict between the intuition that we must
bring climate change under control and the intuition
that morality cannot ask too much from individuals.104 As we will see later, this is a strong argument in favor of an institutionalist approach to
climate ethics, which sees justice as a matter of law
rather than individual behavior.
Control
The idea that one cannot be held responsible for outcomes that are not under one’s control is a widely
held ethical principle that has, among others, been
applied to climate change.28,31,50,95,105 In terms of
duties, this principle is often instantiated by the Kantian rule ‘ought implies can,’ which is usually interpreted as meaning that people should not have a
duty to do things that are not in their power. Indeed,
various authors have argued that a substantial part
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of an individual carbon footprint is contingent on
different structural factors such as the type of economy and infrastructure or the regulatory framework
and the wealth of the society one lives
in.32,41,48,76,94,106 As a consequence, the argument
goes, there is a limit to the control one has over one’s
carbon footprint and individual duties should be limited accordingly.
This is probably true but we have to be cautious here, because the control or ‘ought implies can’
argument can easily be mixed up with the argument
from demandingness. Consider the following example: if there is no choice in someone’s neighborhood
but to buy coal-generated electricity from the local
provider, we might think that it is impossible to get
rid of the related GHG emissions. But in fact, if one
has a very stringent duty to stop emitting CO2, one
still has the option to stop consuming electricity altogether. If such a duty appears intuitively implausible,
it is not because it is beyond one’s control but
because it would be far too demanding (Gardiner
makes this point at the collective level, see Ref 49).
Hence, if the argument from control is to be different
from demandingness it must only account for emissions that are really impossible to avoid. Examples
include the part of the emissions necessary to build,
run and maintain the main institutions of a country
and its collective infrastructure. These emissions have
to be shared out among all the citizens, thereby
increasing their carbon footprint, but are tied to no
one’s individual consumption. There is no way for
the citizens to directly affect these emissions by
means of lifestyle changes (except through the communicative potential of such action, see below). This
brings us to a second kind of duty.
The Duty to Promote and Support
Collective Action
Insofar as climate change is a collective action problem it is natural to consider a duty of another kind,
not directed toward individual behavior changes but
toward the promotion of action at the collective scale.w Virtually every author (at least among those taking a stance) acknowledges that individuals have
some duty to promote collective action, including
those who deny the existence of a duty to reduce
one’s carbon footprint.x But when it comes to a more
precise justification and description of promotional
duties, the debate is still at an early stage despite
some illuminating contributions.
There are two related ways to approach collective action against climate change. A bottom–up
approach focuses on changing lifestyles and social
norms, whereas a more top–down approach focuses
on institutional solutions. These two approaches are
related because a shift in social norms can enable the
creation of new institutions and, conversely, institutions contribute to shape social norms. After setting
out the general justifications for the existence of promotional duties, I take these two levels of application
in turn.
Justifications
Why would people have promotional duties in the
first place? After all one could claim, as Walter
Sinnott-Armstrong does, that fighting climate change
is the job of governments and professional politicians, not that of individuals.4 As it happens, most
authors writing on the subject precisely start from
the absence of action at the collective level to argue
for individual duties to take things in hand. These
duties are grounded in similar principles. Stephen
Gardiner, for instance, mentions the model of delegated responsibility. The idea is that citizens delegate
part of their responsibility for solving problems to
their political representatives, and that this responsibility falls back on the citizens when current institutions fail to discharge it.15y Elizabeth Cripps gives a
similar justification starting from the idea that groups
(even unstructured groups without any form of
organization) have a weak collective responsibility to
prevent collective harms such as climate change.
Insofar as this collective responsibility remains unfulfilled, it translates into duties to promote collective
action on the part of individuals as members of the
group.8 Simon Caney emphasizes the fact that in the
absence of a collective scheme, the odds of a massive
noncompliance with duties to curb GHG emissions
(what he calls ‘first-order’ responsibilities) are high.
In such a context, some agents get ‘second-order’
responsibilities to improve and secure compliance.
This follows from the imperative to prevent catastrophic climate change (what he calls ‘Harm Avoidance Justice’).107 Along a similar line, Carol Booth
argues that staying politically passive (‘bystanding’)
in the face of very bad events is morally wrong and
that a duty stronger than simply reducing one’s emissions is warranted.108 Finally, Advocates of the socalled institutional approach of justice (epitomized
by the philosophy of John Rawls) claim that justice is
inherently a quality of institutions and should not be
contingent on individual action. On this view, justice
is a collective project that transcends the sum of individual actions. As a consequence, individuals have a
duty to promote and maintain just institutions rather
than acting themselves to redress injustices.84,109
Notice, however, that maintaining democratic
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Climate change and individual duties
institutions and promoting effective climate policies
might conflict under certain conditions.111
Changing Social Norms
A first way to foster collective action is to work on
social norms. Indeed, emission patterns are partly
dependent on deeply entrenched social and cultural
practices that shape individual lifestyles. Hence,
changing these norms has the power to change GHG
emitting behaviors on a large scale. Shifting the representation of green lifestyles from something marginal and restrictive to something mainstream and
enjoyable can, according to some, yield great climatic
benefits. As far as individuals are concerned, this
kind of change can be promoted through a variety of
different avenues.
The most commonly invoked is to use the communicative potential of one’s own actions. Biking to
work not only reduces one’s carbon footprint, it also
sets an example and might influence and encourage
others to do so. This purported amplifying effect (see
Ref 5) of green behaviors can thus be viewed as a further justification for individual emission reductions,
not for their own sake but instrumentally as a way
to promote collective action.6,8,20,29,30,34,72,108,109,111
However, the problem with such an argument is that
it relies on empirical assumptions difficult to confirm
about the communicative power of individual
actions. It is easy to imagine that some public persons
such as A-list celebrities or politicians might have an
influence on lifestyle tendencies, but this is much
harder to ascertain for average citizens.5,44 For one
thing, certain acts, such as taking shorter showers or
turning down the thermostat, are not public and cannot serve as examples. For another, even public acts
such as commuting by bike are unlikely to be noticed
and to have influence if they are not backed by a
communication strategy.44
Other ways to influence social norms include
advocacy work and efforts to shape the way green
lifestyles are framed. For instance, whether climatefriendly behaviors are depicted as burdensome or
enjoyable in the media might make a difference on
the willingness of people to adopt them. Simon
Caney suggests that figures such as journalists, poets,
novelists or gifted communicators have a special ‘second-order’ duty to promote green lifestyles.107z
Changing Policies and Institutions
In spite of the possibility to change social norms
directly, various writers, including some of those
arguing for lifestyle changes, claim that addressing
climate change properly cannot dispense with
changes in the regulations and institutions that shape
our societies. Climate justice is inescapably a political
issue and cannot be discharged by individuals alone.
But why would such an institutional approach be
superior to a more bottom-up approach? Most of the
reasons for this have already been mentioned in the
previous sections and usually fall into one of three
categories put forward by Elizabeth Cripps.
Effectiveness: lifestyle changes can achieve only
so much and responses to the climate challenge are
bound to stay ineffective if the issue is not tackled
(also) from the institutional side. It is so for various
reasons including the facts that: (1) without binding
regulations widespread noncompliance is to be
expected;3,15,84,107–109 (2) insofar as a substantial
part of the emissions is not under the control of individuals, the necessary cuts cannot be achieved without structural changes, even under the hypothesis of
full compliance.32,48,84,108
Efficiency: as we saw earlier, it can be very
costly for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint
depending on the circumstances in which they live.
The institutional approach alleviates this burden by
enabling the adoption of climate-friendly lifestyles.8,84,94,107 The economic and social cost of
curbing GHG emissions can be reduced through the
development of public transportation and renewable
energies, for instance, or by adapting working conditions to the new constraints. It is also plausible that
the social and psychological cost of giving up on
some GHG intensive activities would be lower if everybody changed at the same time, and consequently
new that this sacrifice is not ‘useless.’93,109
Fairness: a collective scheme is the proper way to
tackle collective action problems because cases of partial compliance are unfair to the compliers.8,94,109 Why
should they make efforts when the others do not
budge? Institutional solutions are also fairer because
they clarify individual fair shares and make it possible
for virtuous individuals to stick to them without having to take up the slack for the noncompliers.84
In Practice
The institutional view implies firstly a citizens’ duty
to support legitimate institutions and regulations.
This includes complying with the regulatory framework, refraining from undermining its enforcement
and a degree of what Kok-Chor Tan calls institutional vigilance.62,76,84,93,109 But in the absence of a
just climate regime, citizens have the duty to bring
such a regulatory framework about.
Here, the aim of promoting duties is not so
much to influence fellow citizens, but to foster the
creation of new regulations and, if necessary, new
institutions more adapted to the challenge. This can
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be interpreted in a minimal sense as the duty to ‘at
least vote green,’7 as well as in broader terms as
including all the actions at the disposal of active citizens. This includes: writing blogs and articles, petitioning the local government, emailing one’s
representatives or executives, campaigning and voting
for candidates, lobbying, running for office, organizing and/or attending rallies, donating to organizations, and the like.8,84 This could even include, under
some circumstances, performing acts of civil disobedience.15,107 Note that on this view, individual lifestyle
changes can also play a role as indications of a willingness to change for policy makers.93,109
The main objection against such a view is again
an argument from causal inefficacy. Why would individual action make more of a difference here than in
the case of emission reductions? Are your ballot and
your presence at a rally not as insignificant and useless
as your individual emission cuts? Various responses to
this challenge have been proposed. Elizabeth Cripps
argues that, unlike unilateral emission reductions, promotional efforts are not ‘throw-away acts’ but contribute to a cumulative collective endeavor.8 This appears
somewhat contentious, because a rally can make absolutely no difference (activists do not always get what
they seek), whereas emission reductions can pile up
almost indefinitely. Nevertheless, as Carol Booth argues,
though the outcome of political activism is fraught with
uncertainty, it can potentially yield much greater results
than individual emission cuts.108 In other words, it is
our best hope to address climate change meaningfully.
Demandingness
Promotional duties are also subject to demandingness
issues, insofar as they are potentially endless given
the inertia of political processes. But even though
these duties falling on citizens might appear quite
demanding, they must nevertheless be discharged. As
Stephen Gardiner notes, modern democratic regimes
have been so effective at delegating responsibility to
professional politicians that average citizens have forgotten what it takes to play an active role in the
steering of a society.15 The most demanding account
of promotional duties to date is probably Elizabeth
Cripps’s. In her view, those who are the most able to
do something about climate change and those who
have contributed to its causes (the polluters) must
carry out promotional duties up to the point where
they would have to give up some of their central
human functionings (life, health, bodily integrity,
practical reason, etc.).8 In contrast, Neuteleers and
Tan argue that within an institutionalist approach
citizens’ duties to promote just institutions are limited
by considerations of costs and liberty. For the sake of
value pluralism, the pursuit of justice should not be
the only legitimate aim in one’s life.84,109
Also, various writers agree that the scope of
promotional duties is not the same for every citizen.
Some of them endorse a ‘with power comes responsibility’ view, according to which the most powerful
and influential people have special duties to tackle
climate change (and correlative responsibilities in
case of failure) that ordinary citizens do not have.
Politicians and economic decision makers, for example, have a greater responsibility to act in their
respective domains.78,94,107 Elizabeth Cripps tempers
this view by arguing that, whereas we cannot expect
the same outcomes from every individual, morality
imposes the same demand (i.e., effort) upon them.
Average citizens should not be expected to devote
less of their time to the cause than talented communicators or influential thinkers.8aa
CONCLUSION
It should be clear from this review that most writers
agree that individuals have a duty to take at least some
steps to reduce their GHG emissions, be it for their
own sake or instrumentally with the aim of promoting
collective action. It is equally clear that citizens also
have a duty to act toward an institutional solution to
the problem. However, the authors differ quite a lot
with regard to the stringency of these duties. One
upshot of this debate, in particular, is that the extent of
one’s duties depends heavily on the particular circumstances of the agent and on the cost of complying with
them. This means that there is no way to determine in
the abstract what such duties precisely involve, and
suggests that such a question should be answered, at
least partially, on a case by case basis. This also seems
to be true, although there is no consensus among writers on that point, when it comes to deciding which
one of the two duties considered here (that of reducing
one’s carbon footprint and that of promoting collective
action) takes precedence when they conflict.
Over the last 10 years, philosophers have come
a long way toward identifying the reasons why individuals should care about climate justice and how they
ought (or ought not) to act on it. But, more work still
needs to be done, in particular when it comes to the
question of how exacting the demands of duty should
be and the integration of individual climate duties
with other duties of justice such as poverty alleviation. In the meantime, my hope is that this review will
help raise awareness on the fact that climate justice is
not an issue just for high-level negotiators, but must
also be addressed at the individual level.
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NOTES
a
However, regarding the duty to meet the costs of adaptation, see Ref 10. Regarding the duty to directly help the victims of climate change, see Ref 8.
b
Jamieson encapsulates this in his now classic story of Jack
and Jill.
c
For the view that common sense morality nevertheless
gives us some sense of what we ought to do in the face of
climate change, see Refs 15 and 16. Even though these
authors acknowledge that global environmental problems
challenge our ethical theories, they maintain that the current inaction is best understood as a motivational and institutional problem.
d
An earlier article by Baylor Johnson makes the argument
that individual restraint is not warranted in the case of a
tragedy of the commons (and according to him climate
change is such a case), because it would be a ‘fruitless sacrifice.’3 This constitutes another version of the ‘no difference’
argument that focuses on the lack of positive effect when
one restrains from emitting GHG. For another article,
about air pollution, that prefigures many aspects and arguments of the current debate, see Ref 17.
e
A large part of the debate revolves around the concepts of
harm and causation. It is a widely held view among philosophers that the duty not to harm others without a good
reason is a fundamental feature of our moral life and that
climate change contradicts this duty.8,20,21 But a causal link
must be ascertained between an act and the harm for this
principle to obtain. If I know that my act is not going to
cause harm, I have no reason to refrain from performing
it. Consequentialist theories are sometimes deemed to fall
pray to the problem of causal inefficacy in a similar way
(see Refs 22 and 23).
f
Data from: http://cdiac.ornl.gov. In 2011, global emissions amounted to 34.5 billion tons of CO2.
g
This is a version of what philosophers call the Sorites
paradox.
h
Taking the next millennium into account might come as a
surprise to non-philosophers. However, in the field of
applied ethics it is usually accepted that distance in space
and time plays no role in the moral assessment of an
action. Causing the death of a person is bad, regardless of
the proximity of the victim. On discounting, see Ref 36.
i
To be sure, there are strong evidences that such non linear
features do exist, but they supplement rather than replace
the incremental nature of climate change.42,47
j
This is sometimes referred to as the « fragmentation of
agency »49 or as « the problem of many hands ».50
k
The necessity to take the indirect effects of our actions
into account has quite often been stressed in the context of
other issues of global justice such as poverty and
exploitation.58,59
l
Other market effects, that I cannot describe in the main
text for reasons of space, have been mentioned. For
instance, Benjamin Hale argues that due to the Hotelling
Rule governing the extraction of finite resources, all the
fossil fuel reserves will ultimately be burnt. He concludes
that for this reason individual restraint will in the end make
no difference.64 In the same vein, ‘carbon leakage’ (the
emission cuts in developed countries result in the outsourcing of polluting industries to developing countries) and
various kinds of ‘rebound effects’ (a drop in fossil fuels
demand results in lower prices, which in turn boosts new
demand by others) can be observed at the global
scale.3,44,65,66 However, determining whether these effects
really offset individual efforts to curb GHG emissions is
particularly tricky. It seems plausible that individual reductions can at least slow down somewhat the rise of CO2
emissions (see Ref 62).
m
In his influential article, Jonathan Glover dubbed this the
Solzhenitsyn principle, by reference to the ideas expressed
in the novelist’s Nobel lecture.68
n
The same question arises about whether collective (backward-looking) responsibility for climate-related harms can
be distributed to individuals.28,63,78,79
o
Of course, apart from its role in the debate about individual duties, the fair share argument has a long history
within the subfield of distributive climate justice, where
philosophers discuss the fairer way to distribute emission
rights among nations and/or individuals. For a collection of
seminal articles on this issue, see Ref 80.
p
Another way to characterize the wrongness of not doing
one’s part is in terms of free riding.29 This argument has
mostly been made as a way to justify backward-looking
responsibility and liability to bear the costs of climate
change. Collectives and individuals emitting more than
their fare share (or inheriting the benefits of past emissions)
are benefitting from an ‘unjust enrichment’ and they ought
to give this back by bearing the costs of climate
change.66,81,82
q
Some authors argue that the duty to reduce one’s carbon
footprint is thus an imperfect duty, that is a duty that gives
leeway as to how to discharge it.44,76,85 Some others argue
against this view.86,87
r
John Broome is almost making such a claim when he
writes: ‘each of us is under a duty of justice not to cause
the emission of greenhouse gas without compensating the
people who are harmed as a result. Your carbon footprint
ought to be zero, unless you make restitution.’38 However,
he allows the use of carbon offsetting to comply with
this duty.
s
Another reason why individuals could be dispensed with
complying with their duties is excusable ignorance. There
is a wide consensus among authors that at least since the
1990s individuals in western countries can reasonably be
expected to be aware of the problems associated with
GHG emissions; see, for example, Refs 28 and 93. However, for the opposite view, see Ref 9.
t
There is a longstanding debate in philosophy about the
status of this demandingness objection. Does it modify the
extent of our duties in the first place, or does it only provide us with legitimate excuses for not complying with
them? We do not need to enter into the details of this
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debate, but a clarification might be useful. Demandingness
has traditionally been associated with duties to help
others, which can potentially be endless, rather than with
duties not to harm. In the traditional sense, it is indeed
for most of us quite easy to avoid killing, wounding or
hurting others. But as it has already been mentioned at
the outset of this article, accumulative harms stray from
these paradigmatic cases and give rise to potentially
weighty duties.
u
For a brief objection to this line of argument, see Ref 20.
v
There is a growing philosophical literature about the
existence of a duty to take up the slack in situations of partial compliance. For applications to the case of climate
change, see Refs 8, 34, 76, 97 and 98.
w
Different names have been proposed for this duty. Here I
call it ‘promotional duty’ after Elizabeth Cripps.8 The
broad meaning of the term allows different kinds of actions
to enter into this category.
x
Or maybe should I say especially those who deny the
existence of mitigation duties. The need to focus on the collective scale rather than on personal reductions was part of
the original argument against such a duty by Baylor
Johnson and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.3,4 As for Elizabeth
Cripps, a substantive part of her book it devoted to the
idea that promotional duties take precedence over emission
reductions.8 This being said, authors arguing for a duty to
reduce one’s carbon footprint usually also agree that we
have promotional duties. Hence, the dichotomy between
‘lifestyle’ and ‘institutional’ approaches should not be
overemphasized.
y
In the backward-looking sense, Steve Vanderheiden
argues that individuals can be held responsible (qua citizens) for the failure of their government to take steps
against climate change, even if they do not themselves emit
greenhouse gases.79
z
To be sure, means to influence social norms are not limited to these examples. For instance, Simon Caney mentions the role scientists and engineers play in the
enablement of new lifestyles and the rectification of erroneous and misleading information about climate change.107
aa
With the exception of these individuals who have voluntarily taken on institutional responsibilities. Cripps argues
that more can be demanded from professional politicians
and institutional actors.8
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Stephen Gardiner, Anja Karnein, Christian Baatz, and an anonymous reviewer for
insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. Any and all errors are mine alone. I also
gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant
P2LAP1_151774).
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