Date: 5 February 2025
Time: 10:00-11:45
Venue: Institute for Futures Studies, Holländargatan 13 in Stockholm, or online.
Research seminar with H. Orri Stefánsson, Professor of Practical Philosophy and Wallenberg Academy Fellow at Stockholm University, and Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. His current research concerns how one should choose insituations of extreme uncertainty, including situations where one suspects that the outcome of one’s actions (or inaction) could be catastrophic.
Abstract
This talk will center on a paper authored by speaker Orri Stefánsson and Mac Willners, Ph.D candidate in Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University and the Norms and Normativity Research School.
The paper critically examines the Global Justice Argument for solar geoengineering, according to which global justice concerns demand research of such technologies. The argument relies on two key assumptions: that anthropogenic climate change constitutes an injustice against the climate-disadvantaged and that solar geoengineering deployment seems to be the policy option that is best suited to reduce climate harms faced by the climate-disadvantaged. We argue that even if the latter, empirical claim is true, the argument fails because it lacks a necessary consent requirement. Since solar geoengineering cannot rectify the injustices by restoring pre-injustice conditions, it can, at best, serve as compensation. Drawing on the concepts of ends-displacing compensation and duties of justice, we demonstrate that a consent requirement is necessary for the global justice argument to succeed. Given evidence of explicit dissent from some climate-disadvantaged groups, we conclude that global justice does not currently demand solar geoengineering.
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