Values in Climate Policy

Children born today in the Maldives may someday have to abandon their homeland. Rising seas, caused by climate change, could swallow most of their tiny island nation within their lifetime. Their fate symbolizes the double inequity at the heart of climate change: those who have contributed the least to climate change will suffer the most from it. All is not lost, however. The scale and impact of climate change depends on the policies that people choose. How quickly will we eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions? How will we do it? Who will pay for it? What will we protect through adaptation? How will we weigh the fortunes of future generations and the natural world against our own? Answers to questions like these reflect a constellation of value judgments that deserve close scrutiny. In addition to providing essential background on the science, economics, and politics of climate change, this book explores the values at stake in climate policy with the aim of shrinking the gap between climate ethics and climate policy.