University of New England

UNE environmental scientist John Lemons is one of the authors of UN report on ethics of climate change

University of New England Professor John Lemons, Ph.D., was one of 25 scientists and scholars from around the world who researched and wrote the "White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change," which was released by the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi on Nov. 8, 2006.

UNE Professor John Lemons, Ph.D., one of the authors of the UN  "White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change"

Ethics, human rights, and distributive and procedural justice must be an integral component of international negotiations seeking any comprehensive solution to climate change, according to the new report.

It argues that ethical considerations must enter into post-Kyoto policy formulation in order to achieve a fair and humane consensus on reducing the threat of climate change and to provoke a broader discussion of who should be held responsible for climate change damages.

The paper draws strong ethical conclusions about positions taken by some governments in climate change negotiations on several issues. For instance, the paper concludes that those nations that use scientific uncertainty, cost to their national economy alone, lack of action by other nations, or waiting for new, less costly technologies to be invented as justifications for not reducing their emissions to a level that represents its fair share of safe total global emissions, are acting unethically.

In particular, the report disparages the notion that a country may contribute to global warming without consideration of any other nation’s well-being, noting, “climate change policies developed by nations that result in harm to life, liberty, and securities of people in other nations violate basic human rights.”

The paper adds, “The world community must refuse giving credence to these arguments as a matter of justice and ethics.” The report contends that there is a consensus among ethicists for many of its preliminary conclusions while also identifying other issues about which additional ethical reflection is needed.

John Lemons
Professor Lemons, on the faculty on UNE's Department of Environmental Studies, has been a principal researcher involved in the UN climate change project for many years. He has authored more than 100 publications on global climate change, conservation of biodiversity, high-level nuclear waste disposal, environmental ethics, sustainable development, the role of science in public policy, and higher education. His seven books include Sustainable Development: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy and Perspectives on Ecological Integrity.

In his writings on the role of science in public policy and decision making, Prof. Lemons has contributed to the creation of alternatives to traditional risk assessment practices.

The White Paper
The "White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change" is the work of the Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change (EDCC), whose secretariat is the Rock Ethics Institute at the Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. The complete "White Paper" and a list of the program’s collaborating organizations and individuals that included ethicists, scientists, economists, legal experts, philosophers, and negotiators, can be found at http://rockethics.psu.edu/climate.