Vol. 1 No. 2 (2017)
Articles

Population, climate change, and global justice: A moral framework for debate

PDF HTML
  • Elizabeth Cripps
Elizabeth Cripps
University of Edinburgh
Bio
This image of the cover of this issue of The Journal of Population and Sustainability has the title in block letters on a grey-green background.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.2017.1.2.23

Published 2017-05-01

Keywords

  • population policy,
  • climate justice,
  • global justice,
  • tragic choices,
  • hard choices,
  • procreative rights
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Cripps, Elizabeth. 2017. “Population, Climate Change, and Global Justice: A Moral Framework for Debate”. The Journal of Population and Sustainability 1 (2):23–36. https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.2017.1.2.23.

Copyright (c) 2017 Elizabeth Cripps

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

Abstract

This paper outlines a moral framework for the debate on global population policy. Questions of population, climate justice and global justice are morally inseparable and failure to address them as such has dangerous implications. Considerations of population lend additional urgency to existing collective duties to act on global poverty and climate change. Choice-providing procreative policies are a key part of that. However, even were we collectively to fulfil these duties, we would face morally hard choices over whether to introduce incentive-changing procreative policies. Thus, there is now no possible collective course of action which is not morally problematic.

PDF HTML

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

  1. Cafaro, P. and Staples, W. 2009. The environmental argument for reducing immigration into the United States. Environmental Ethics, 31, 5–30.
  2. Casal, P. 1999. Environmentalism, procreation, and the principle of fairness. Public Affairs Quarterly, 13, 363–376.
  3. Conly, S. 2015. One child: do we have a right to more?. New York: Oxford University Press.
  4. Coole, D. 2013. Too many bodies? The return and disavowal of the population question? Environmental Politics, 32, 195–215.
  5. Cripps, E. 2016a. Climate change, population, and justice: hard choices to avoid tragic choices. Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric, 8, 1–22.
  6. Cripps, E. 2016b. Population and environment: the impossible, the impermissible, and the imperative. In: Gardiner, S. & Thompson, A. (eds.) Oxford handbook of environmental ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  7. Ehrlich, P. R. & Holdren, J. P. 1972. A bulletin dialogue on “the closing circle”: critique. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 28, 16–27.
  8. Frankfurt School of Finance and Management 2016. Global trends in renewable energy investment 2016. Frankfurt: Frankfurt School-UNEP Centre/BNEF.
  9. Gardiner, S. M. 2011. A perfect moral storm: the ethical tragedy of climate change. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
  10. Hardin, G. 1974. Living on a lifeboat. Bioscience, 24, 561–568.
  11. Heyward, C. 2012. A growing problem: dealing with population increases in climate justice. Ethical Perspectives, 19, 703–732.
  12. IPCC 2014. Summary for policymakers. In: Field, C. B., Barros, V. R., Dokken,
  13. D. J., Mach, K. J., Mastrandrea, M. D., Bilir, T. E., Chatterjee, M., Ebi, K. L., Estrada, Y. O., Genova, R. C., Girma, B., Kissel, E. S., Levy, A. N., Maccracken, S., Mastrandrea, P. R. & White, L. L. (eds.) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: global and sectoral aspects. contribution of Working Group II to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
  14. Kates, C. 2004. Reproductive liberty and overpopulation. Environmental Values, 13, 51–79.
  15. Nair, S., Kirbat, P. & Sexton, S. 2004. A decade after Cairo: women’s health in a free market economy. Corner House Briefing. Amsterdam & Sturminster Newton, UK: Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, The Corner House.
  16. O’Sullivan, J. 2016. Population projections: recipes for action, or inaction? The Journal of Population and Sustainability, 1 (1), 45–57.
  17. Overall, C. 2012. Why have children: the ethical debate. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  18. Robeyns, I. Unpublished. Is procreation special?
  19. Shue, H. 2010. Deadly delays, saving opportunities: creating a more dangerous world? In: Gardiner, S. M., Caney, S., Jamieson, D. & Shue, H. (eds.) Climate ethics: essential readings. New York: Oxford University Press.
  20. UNDESA (United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs) 2011. World economic and social survey 2011: the great green technological transformation. New York: United Nations.
  21. UNDESA 2015a. Trends in contraceptive use worldwide. New York: United Nations.
  22. UNDESA 2015b. World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision. New York: United Nations.
  23. UN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME 2014. Human development index and its components. New York: United Nations.
  24. UNITED NATIONS 1994 Programme of action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development. Cairo. UNFPA.
  25. WWF 2012. Living planet report. Gland: World Wide Fund for Nature.
  26. WWF 2014. Living planet report. Gland: Worldwide Fund for Nature.