Ethics and Global Environmental Policy: Cosmopolitan Conceptions of Climate Change
Edited by Paul G. Harris, Hong Kong Institute of Education ‘We’ve had 20 years of government-level conferences at Kyoto, Copenhagen and Cancun, but greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Taking a cosmopolitan approach to climate change in this excellent and timely book, Paul Harris and his contributors argue that citizen action is an essential complement to state action. The challenging, unsettling and absolutely vital argument of these high-quality essays is that distance makes no moral difference in our globalised world; individual high emitters have a duty to reduce their emissions, wherever they are.’ – Andrew Dobson, Keele, University, UK This collection of provocative essays re-evaluates the world’s failed policy responses to climate change, in the process demonstrating how cosmopolitan ethics can inform global environmental governance. A cosmopolitan worldview points to climate-related policies that are less ‘international’ and more ‘global’. From a cosmopolitan perspective, national borders should not delineate obligations and responsibilities associated with climate change. Human beings, rather than the narrow interests of nation-states, ought to be at the centre of moral calculations and policy responses to climate change. In this volume, expert contributors examine questions of individual and global responsibility, burden sharing among people and states, international law and environmental justice, capitalism and voluntary action, pluralist cooperation and hegemony, and alternative approaches to climate action and diplomacy. The book helps to illuminate new principles for global environmental policy that can come from cosmopolitan conceptions of climate change. Ethics and Global Environmental Policy should be read by scholars, students, policymakers, activists and analysts in the fields of climate change, international ethics, environmental policy, international environmental diplomacy, global environmental politics and environmental studies. Government officials, nongovernmental actors, and informed readers concerned about climate change and global justice will also find much to interest them in this book. All of the editor’s royalties from the sale of the book will be paid to Oxfam directly by the publisher. Contributors: N. Dower, R. Felli, P.S. Golub, P.G. Harris, M.W. Howard, J. Kent, J.-P. Maréchal, R. Paehlke, S. Vanderheiden 2011 224 pages Hardback HB ISBN: 978 0 85793 160 3 £65 E ISBN: 978 0 85793 161 0 http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?id=14350
