Philosophy PhD Studentship
We welcome applications for the PhD Studentship in Philosophy, as part of the project “The
Geography of Emissions and Forward-Looking Responsibility”.
The studentship includes.
 the UK/EU tuition fees for up to three years
 an annual tax-free maintenance stipend at the standard Research Council rate for up to
three years
 a Research Support Grant of £1,000 per student per year for travel, consumables etc.
Applicants should first apply for a place in the Philosophy PhD Programme to the Philosophy
Department. Details can be found here:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/philosophy/prospectivepostgraduates/mphil_phd
To apply for the studentship, please complete the application form below, and e-mail to
h.lawford-smith@sheffield.ac.uk with the e-mail subject “Network Studentship Application”.
The studentship is open to applicants who qualify for UK or EU tuition fees. To check your
fees status, check here: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/fees/status
Project Description
The Geography of Emissions and Forward-Looking Responsibility
Primary Supervisor: Holly Lawford-Smith (Philosophy)
Secondary Supervisor: Genevieve LeBaron (Politics)
When you burn fossil fuels by driving your car, standard emissions accounting attributes
those emissions to you (and more generally, to your city, or country). But this ignores the
history of the fuels; where they were drilled for, and the potentially many steps in the supply
chain between the source and your eventual act of burning them. The question of this project
is whether the current 'statist' model of accounting for greenhouse gas emissions can be
justified given extensive international trade relationships. This is a normative project
covering two broad topics: the ethics of consumption, and climate ethics. More generally, can
an end-consumer inherit responsibility for the harms involved in a product's history? How
should responsibility for these harms be shared between those involved with a product at
various stages? And does our current method of accounting for GHGs distribute
responsibilities in a way that would be unjustified if we had a more accurate picture of the
geography of emissions across national borders?
Interdisciplinary Network
The project above is one of three in an interdisciplinary PhD Studentship Network (3
Studentships in total), supervised across Philosophy, Urban Studies & Planning, Law,
Politics, and Geography. There will be regular meetings between all students and supervisors
in the network, including reading groups where draft chapters are read. The three projects are
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1) The Geography of Emissions and Forward-Looking Responsibility
Supervisors: Holly Lawford-Smith (Philosophy), Genevieve LaBaron (Politics)
2) Collective action and discourse coalitions of energy and climate change
Supervisors: Matthew Cotton (Urban Studies & Planning), Hayley Stevenson
(Politics)
3) Vulnerable communities, collective bargaining and adaptation.
Supervisors: Tom Goodfellow (Urban Studies & Planning), Oisin Suttle (Law)
Description of the Network
Acting Together Against Climate Change
The challenge of addressing anthropogenic climate change can be seen as a series of
collective action problems at different scales. Much academic attention so far has focused on
the international negotiations around carbon emissions and carbon trading, as well as the
failure of global climate summits to reach binding agreements that will result in substantial
emissions reduction. This, however, misses some of the other critical ethical, political and
social challenges impeding climate action. These challenges all require collective action and
are intrinsically linked to the success or failure of the broader international negotiations
around how to tackle climate change.
The starting point of this network is to take seriously Nobel Prize-winning Economist Elinor
Ostrom's call for a polycentric approach to action on climate change:
“We need to recognize that doing nothing until a global treaty is negotiated maximizes the
risk involved for everyone. Rather than only a global effort, it would be better to selfconsciously adopt a polycentric approach to the problem of climate change in order to gain
benefits at multiple scales as well as to encourage experimentation and learning from diverse
policies adopted at multiple scales” (Ostrom 2010).
Instead of focusing on the kinds of treaties and agreements states and international
institutions should make, within established international forums for political negotiation, we
will focus exclusively below the level of the state and across state borders between groups of
committed citizens in different places. We focus on how we, as groups of committed
individuals, do, can, and should act together against climate change. Within the scope of this
project fall both small- and large-scale social movements, solidarity movements, political
protests, and other forms of activism both public and private, aimed at effecting social change
when it comes to the mitigation of, and adaptation to the effects of, anthropogenic climate
change.
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Application Form
Applicant details
Name:
Applicant Number:
Nationality:
Personal statement
Please tell us how you see yourself fitting into this interdisciplinary network, and why you
want to work on the specific project.
(max. 250 words)
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Research proposal
Please describe your proposed doctoral research, linking it specifically to the project
description.
(max. 1000 words)
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