Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam SDB

Resilience: A Moral/Ethical Perspective

1. Introduction: Ethics as the weak link in climate discussions

While the ecological crisis, and the climate emergency, in particular, affects our common home, its impacts are felt by the members of our common household in starkly different ways. The crisis will affect first and most disproportionately the weakest and most vulnerable members of our common family. Still, such a concern is yet to become a burning moral issue in climate discourse. The debate over climate is often dominated by technical issues of carbon credits and emissions targets. But it is important to put people at the centre while talking about the ecological crisis, and precisely the poor who are worst affected by it.

In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis notes with sadness that while the worst impacts of climate change fall on the poorest, “many of those who possess more resources and economic and political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms”. (LS, 26) We cannot sweep considerations of ethics, justice and equity any more under the carpet. As John Houghton points out, our current ecological predicament, and climate crisis in particular, raise deeper “considerations of morality, equity (both international and intergenerational), justice, attitudes and motivation – qualities that make up the moral climate that need to be put alongside the physics, chemistry, biology and dynamics that govern the equations describing the physical climate”.[1] It is time to address seriously the question of “moral climate”, if we are to succeed in responding to the current ecological crisis that threatens the very future of our civilization.[2]

2. A Moral Crisis: The Many Ecological Apartheids!

The contemporary ecological crisis is not just a physical problem but is also a profoundly ‘moral’ crisis as Pope John Paul II had noted already in 1990.[3] It is so precisely for the disproportionate impacts of the crisis on poor people and communities around the world. As Pope Francis points out in Laudato Si’,[4] “the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet” (LS, 48).

“Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest”.[5] For example, the depletion of fishing reserves especially hurts small fishing communities without the means to replace those resources; water pollution particularly affects the poor who cannot buy bottled water; and rises in the sea level mainly affect impoverished coastal populations who have nowhere else to go. The impact of present imbalances is also seen in the premature death of many of the poor, in conflicts sparked by the shortage of resources, and in any number of other problems which are insufficiently represented on global agendas.[6] (LS, 48)

The current ecological crisis, and the climate crisis, in particular, unmasks the many moral travesties of our times. It hides profound injustices: historical, social and generational. Let us briefly elaborate on each of these.

First of all, the climate crisis lays bare a huge historical injustice. The current climate crisis is brewed within the crucible of inequality with deep roots that go back in time.

Climate change was manufactured in a crucible of inequality, for it is a product of the industrial and the fossil-fuel eras, historical forces powered by exploitation, colonialism, and nearly limitless instrumental use of ‘nature’. The world’s wealthiest nations, and the privileged elite and industry-owning sectors of nearly of all nations, have built fortunes and long-term economic stability on decades of unchecked development and energy consumption. By dumping harmful waste into the common atmosphere we have endangered everyone, including those who have contributed little or nothing at all to the industrial greenhouse effect: the ‘least developed’ nations, the natural world, and future generations.[7]

A historical perspective is important not only for attributing the cause of the current state of our home planet’s climate, but also for assigning responsibility for its mitigation and adaptation. From the historical perspective, the rich and industrialized nations dominate the cumulative emissions account. It is estimated that rich countries are responsible for an estimated 92% of all excess historic emissions.[8] Historic emissions amount to around 1,100 tonnes of CO2 per capita for Britain and America, compared with 66 tonnes per capita for China and 23 tonnes per capita for India.[9] Historically, fossil fuel energy has contributed to human development and improved health and survival. However, these benefits have largely been restricted to rich countries, while the adverse effects of the resulting emissions fall mainly on the poor. It is a situation of global injustice as denounced by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

While the citizens of the rich world are protected from harm, the poor, the vulnerable and the hungry are exposed to the harsh reality of climate change in their everyday lives. Put bluntly, the world’s poor are being harmed through a problem that is not of their own making. The footprint of the Malawian farmer or the Haitian slum dweller barely registers in the Earth’s atmosphere.[10]

In this regard, we may recall Pope Francis’ condemnation of the “ecological debt”. Such a debt is incurred by the exploitation and unequal consumption of natural resources from the part of rich communities and by the disproportionate emission of greenhouse gases leading to global warming and associated climate change. Pope Francis writes in Laudato Si’:

A true “ecological debt” exists, particularly between the global north and south, connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time. The export of raw materials to satisfy markets in the industrialized north has caused harm locally, as for example in mercury pollution in gold mining or sulphur dioxide pollution in copper mining. … The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming. (LS, 51)

As Christian Aid has pointed out, for their disproportionate contribution to the causes of climate change and its adverse effects, developed countries owe a two-fold “climate debt”.

For over-using and substantially diminishing the Earth’s capacity to absorb greenhouse gases – denying it to the developing countries that most need it in the course of their development – the developed countries have run an ‘emissions debt’ to developing countries. For the adverse effects of these excessive emissions – contributing to the escalating losses, damages and lost development opportunities facing developing countries have run up an ‘adaptation debt’ to developing countries. The sum of these debts – emissions debt and adaptation debt – constitutes the ‘climate debt’ of developed countries.[11]

The injustice associated with the climate crisis is not just historical and between the global North and South. It is also intra-generational and it is getting ever more conspicuous.

We are used to highlighting the “anthropogenic” character of the climate crisis as caused by human activities. However, it is not the lifestyle of the whole of humanity per se that puts our home planet under pressure. There exist huge disparities in the consumption of natural resources across the globe which reveal scandalous differences in the ecological footprint of individuals and communities. In other words, there is a real ‘apartheid’ between the ecological debtors and ecological creditors of the world.

If all of humanity lived like an average Indonesian, for example, only two-thirds of the planet’s biocapacity would be used; if everyone lived like an average Argentinian, humanity would demand more than half an additional planet; and if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to regenerate humanity’s annual demand on nature.[12]

The poor have benefited least from fossil fuels, and are first in line to suffer as the effects of global heating intensify. It is known that the world’s poor contributes virtually nothing to global heating. According to Partha Dasgupta and Veerabhadran Ramanathan, the top “1 billion people are responsible for 50% of greenhouse gas emissions; a further 3 billion people for 45%; while the bottom 3 billion, who do not have access to affordable fossil fuels, are responsible for a mere 5%”.[13] As the authors rightly point out, “although we all will soon be affected by climate change, it is the latter 3 billion who will, tragically, experience the worst consequences. Not only is their direct reliance on natural capital disproportionately large, they are also far less able to afford protection from extreme weather events”.[14]

There are vast differences in emission and consumption levels within the same nations, both rich and poor. With regard to climate change, for example, some developing countries have their élite who are very high emitters, while in the developed countries there are persons who are low emitters and desperately poor.

Today we need to pay greater attention emissions inequality as over-consumption by the world’s richest people is the primary cause of today’s climate crisis.[15] At the core of the inequality crisis is a highly extractive economic model based on grossly carbon-intensive growth, which largely meets the needs of those who are already rich but is loading the greatest risks onto those living in poverty.[16] The wealthiest 1% of humanity are responsible for twice as many emissions as the poorest 50%,[17] and that by 2030, their carbon footprints are in fact set to be 30 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.

At the global level, the top 10% of global emitters (771 million individuals) emit on average 31 tonnes of CO2 per person per year and are responsible for about 48% of global CO2 emissions. The bottom 50% (3.8 billion individuals) emit on average 1.6 tonnes and are responsible close to 12% of all emissions in 2019. The global top 1% emit on average 110 tonnes and contribute to 17% of all emissions in a year.[18]

The rich who over-consume Earth’s resources and over-pollute its common atmosphere are not limited to the developed world alone. The divide between the poor and the super-rich is conspicuous in most of the developing countries. In the city of Mumbai, the financial capital of India, the 27-story sprawling house of billionaire Mukesh Ambani sits uncomfortably with Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, with open sewers and crammed huts, home to more than a million people. Ultimately, the responsibility for the ecological crisis comes down to communities, households and individuals who constitute the human society. In the case of climate change, for example, the problem is basically caused by the high emission rates of approximately 1 billion high emitters of our common household. Significantly, a scientific study led by Shoibal Chakravarty of Princeton University has shown how global projected emissions can be drastically reduced by engaging the 1.13 billion high emitters.[19]

The great ethical tragedy about the contemporary ecological crisis is that a large majority of the members of our common household suffer on account of the greedy actions of a minority. As denounced by the Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara, the ecological crisis is caused because “greedy or thoughtless people destroy what belongs to all”.[20] Seen from the justice perspective, the contemporary ecological crisis clearly reveals the contours of an ecological apartheid into which humanity is drifting into.

The climate crisis and unprecedented wealth inequality are usually portrayed as separate issues. They are in fact joined at the hip. Climate crisis leads to greater inequalities and inequality also exacerbates climate change. There is a climate case for tackling inequality as well. The virus that threatens our survival as a global family is inequality. Inequality between nations, and within nations, is deadly for the future of our world. The pandemic has only highlighted it as, during this period, the wealth of the 10 richest men has doubled, while the incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off.[21] We all lose out as a result of the over-consumption by the richest people that is driving today’s climate crisis, with the emissions of the top 1% double those of the bottom 50% of humanity combined.[22]

Among the most vulnerable groups affected by the climate crisis stand out children, women, minorities and marginalized groups, and indigenous communities. It is evident when we note the impacts of the climate crisis in basic areas of human welfare like food security, health and migration.

Almost 90% of the global burden of climate breakdown-related disease is borne by children under the age of five, for example, and 80% of climate refugees, forced from their homes by global heating, are women. Children bear the brunt of the climate-related impacts, while possessing the fewest resources to respond and cope. The climate crisis represents a shocking abdication of one generation’s responsibility to the next, violating principles of intergenerational equity.[23] Indigenous people and racialized groups are disproportionally affected.[24] In the USA, Black, Hispanic or Native American people experience roughly 50% greater vulnerability to wildfires compared to other groups.[25]

Another group who will disproportionately incur the costs of the current ecological degradation are the future generations. Pope Francis warns that “we may well be leaving the coming generations debris, desolation and filth”. (LS, 161) According to Pope Francis, “our inability to think seriously about future generations is linked to our inability to broaden the scope of our present interests and to give consideration to those who remain excluded from development”. (LS, 162) Leaving an uninhabitable home to the generations that come after us in indeed grossly immoral.

3. Weaving Justice into the Ecological/Climate Discourse: An Ethical Challenge

We live in a common home, our one and only home planet. But we live as a divided family. The present state of our home planet is totally unsustainable not only physically for the common biotic community of the Earth, but also socially for our common human family. The climate crisis not only threatens the physical foundations of our common home, but also tears apart the social bonds that unite our common household. As Pope Francis reminds us, “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental” (LS, 139). In fact, “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation” (LS, 48). Given the deeply moral character of the ecological crisis, a true and effective response to it will have to be distinctly ethical. A physical response alone will not suffice. In order to rebuild our common home and reintegrate all the members of our common household, especially the most poor and vulnerable among them, we stand in need of an ethical vision built on the pillars of justice, equity and solidarity.

The first and most important pillar is that of justice. Justice demands paying back debts incurred. As Caritas Internationalis points out, the developed world has borrowed from the development potential of poorer countries and these ‘loans’ must be repaid.[26] In effect, nations that have grown rich in part by polluting without facing the costs of doing so – a subsidy by another name, one might say – must now repay their carbon debt. They have the moral responsibility to aid those whose rights have been violated by dangerous climate change. In concrete terms such an exigency requires assistance for mitigation and adaptation as well as the right to compensation of the communities and nations affected. It is not conceivable to ask poor people to pay to solve a problem created by the wealthy, at least until they, too, have the ability to pay.

Vital to addressing the climate crisis is recognizing the inequalities that perpetuate it.[27] The climate crisis is only a symptom of a much larger crisis that needs to be addressed.

The Climate Crisis is of course only a symptom of a much larger crisis. A crisis based on the idea that some people are worth more than others, and therefore have the right to exploit and steal other people’s land and resources. It is very naïve to believe that we can solve this crisis without confronting the roots of it” (Greta Thunberg).[28]

Eco-justice demands that the right to development of poor, young and future generations and poverty alleviation be placed at the heart of a true moral response to the contemporary ecological crisis. It is morally unacceptable to constrain the right of poor nations to development by imposing upon them reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, while hundreds of millions of their citizens remain poor. Poverty eradication and the guaranteeing of dignified life standards for all members of our common household form an essential part of a moral response to the crisis of our common home.

 

In a world with 2.4 billion people without secure supplies of fuel for cooking or heating, and 1.6 billion people without access to electricity, we also need to respect the primacy of poverty eradication. People who have to deal with the day-to-day reality of crushing poverty cannot be expected to focus their efforts on climate change. Countries with significant populations of poor people must have poverty eradication as their top priority.[29]

It is important to make an ethical distinction between ‘luxury’ emissions and ‘survival’ emissions as Anil Agarwal and others have pointed out.[30] While all greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change, irrespective of where they come from, they do not have the same ethical standing. The emissions arising from living in large inefficient houses, flying for frivolous reasons, and driving inefficient vehicles are qualitatively distinct from those associated with poor households using wood burning stoves for cooking their frugal meals and kerosene for lighting.[31] We ought to clearly differentiate between emissions from profligate individuals or societies, whose wasteful lifestyle choices lead to high energy use, and those associated with energy uses for subsistence living. In this regard, “the methane emissions produced by an Indian subsistence farmer growing rice are not comparable with CO2 discharges by the German owner of a big limousine. The former are “survival emissions”, the latter “luxury emissions”.[32] In a similar vein, “the emissions resulting from the efforts of a farmer in Africa as he attempts to feed his family are not on a par with the emissions resulting from the efforts of an American dermatologist as he attempts to get to Vegas for a weekend of gambling”.[33] A clear distinction between luxury emissions and survival emissions is vitally important. 

And the rights of the poor for survival emissions are indeed non-negotiable.

… If it turns out that there should be some sort of planetary limit on emissions, then you might think that everyone ought to be entitled to emit enough greenhouse gases as required for subsistence. Maybe those emissions are not negotiable. If subsistence emissions fall under the planetary limit, and we still have reductions to make, then we can only discuss reductions to luxury emissions.[34]

The imperative of poverty alleviation and the task of providing poorer populations with basic amenities like electricity and cooking gas cannot be put off in the name of mitigating climate change. It would be unethical to require people whose per capita emission rates hardly register in the global emission charts – to forego basic amenities so that the rich and affluent can carry on with their extravagant lives. It is estimated that providing basic modern energy services for all would increase carbon dioxide emissions by only an estimated 0.8 percent. The projected annual investment to achieve universal access to modern sources of energy is less than an eighth of annual subsidies for fossil fuels, one of the principal sources of greenhouse gases in the first place.[35]

Efforts to curb over-consumption by the richest people are therefore vital to tackling the climate crisis. Indeed, solutions are not lacking in this regard, if there is political will.

Wealth taxes, together with carbon taxes and bans on luxury carbon-intensive goods, are needed as part of a holistic effort to address outsize wealth, power, and consumption. Rich governments and corporations must reorient net zero targets as real zero targets that cut emissions significantly – and fairly – by 2030. They must invest in climate adaptation for low- and middle-income countries and phase out fossil fuels, while ensuring that climate adaptation finance directed to communities’ efforts to survive is based on grants, not loans. They must also provide financial and technical assistance to low- and middle-income countries and poor communities who are already experiencing economic and non-economic damages and losses as a result the climate crisis. And we must see large-scale boosts to investment in clean energy and a just transition to low-carbon jobs that are accessible to marginalized groups, such as in the care economy, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energies.[36]

The contemporary ecological crisis in general, and climate change in particular, is ultimately about justice. It is about justice between communities of the same human generation (intra-generational), between current and future generations (inter-generational), and even between human beings and the rest of the biotic community (intra-species).

A second pillar on which the edifice of an ethical response to the ecological crisis needs to be built is the principle of equity. Equity follows close on the heels of justice. It is rather a precondition for justice. The principle of equity is based on the foundational value of human equality and dignity, namely, that that all persons are born equal and have equal rights to the resources of our home planet, our common habitat (oikos), and to its common atmosphere. The fact of living in our common home and being members of our common human family confers on each human person the right to equal ecological space. In the case of climate change, such a right means that “the Earth’s atmosphere is a common resource without borders”,[37] to which all have equal rights, precisely in being members of the common household. As the Earth’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases is a “global common”, it is vital this global common should be shared equally.[38]

The principle of equity as founded on basic human equality is vitally important. It is this same fundamental principle that lies at the basis of respect for human rights and the rejection of every form of discrimination. Equity is to be applied also when it comes to emission rights in the context of climate change. People in the developing countries are entitled for per capita emissions rights on an equal footing with the people of the developed world. As Dale Jamieson writes: “every person has a right to the same level of GHG emissions as every other person. It is hard to see why being American or Australian gives someone a right to more emissions, or why being Brazilian or Chinese gives someone less of a right”.[39] So every person has ‘equal’ right when it comes to the ecological and climate space of our common home. To argue to the contrary would mean adopting a discriminatory logic which lies at the root practices like apartheid or racial or caste or other forms of segregation all of which go against the principle of basic human equality. In fact, the current ecological and ethical apartheids that we live through, and have tolerated for too long, are in fact a violation of the fundamental principle of equity and of fairness. 

A third foundational pillar of an ethical response in order to build resilience in the face of climate crisis is solidarity. Solidarity is more than responsibility. It is co-responsibility for our common home and for all the members of our common household, especially the poor and most vulnerable. Solidarity springs from the profound conviction, as Pope John Paul II wrote in his social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, that “we are all really responsible for all’.[40] Solidarity is based on the truth of global commons, namely that our home planet and its common atmosphere, ecosystems and natural resources are ‘common goods’, which belong to all. As Pope Paul VI wrote: “God intended the Earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. … created goods should flow fairly to all”.[41] In order to truly achieve eco-justice for all the members of our common household “we need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family”. (LS, 52) Pope Francis speaks eloquently of solidarity and the preferential option for the poor as the best means to attain common good and build eco-justice.

In the present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes, logically and inevitably, a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest of our brothers and sisters. This option entails recog­nizing the implications of the universal destination of the world’s goods … it demands before all else an appreciation of the immense dignity of the poor in the light of our deepest convictions as believers. We need only look around us to see that, today, this option is in fact an ethical imperative essential for effectively attaining the common good. (LS, 158)

Over half a century ago, Pope John XXIII had called for solidarity within the common family of humanity in the context of the increasing discrepancies between the poor and the rich. According to him it is “impossible for wealthy nations to look with indifference upon the hunger, misery and poverty of other nations whose citizens are unable to enjoy even elementary human rights” and denounced “as nothing less than an outrage of justice and humanity to destroy or to squander goods that other people need for their very lives”.[42] These words today appear indeed prophetic. The need for solidarity is all the more urgent in our days. Solidarity also needs to be inter-generational.

Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us. The Portuguese bishops have called upon us to acknowledge this obligation of justice: “The environment is part of a logic of receptivity. It is on loan to each generation, which must then hand it on to the next”[43] (159).

The crisis of our common home is one of the greatest ethical dilemmas of our time, on account of the stark injustice and inequity masked by it. At the same time, the silver lining in the clouds is that acting against it in the spirit of solidarity, humanity has also a precious opportunity to create a more equitable and just world. It is up to our generation to rise to the occasion and respond to this unique challenge.

 

[1] John Houghton, “Foreword” in Michael S. Northcott, A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2007), vii. The italics as in the original.

[2] See in this regard the recent UN report: https://www.undrr.org/gar2022-our-world-risk

[3] Pope John Paul II, Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation (Message for the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1990), nn. 7-8, 15.

[4] Laudato Si’ is, in fact, a social encyclical rather than one on climate change. “Climate” is mentioned just 14 times in the text, while “the poor”, 59 times. See Mike Hulme, “Finding the Message of the Pope’s Encyclical”, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 57/6 (2015), 17.

[5] Bolivian Bishops’ Conference, Pastoral Letter on the Environment and Human Development in Bolivia, El universo, don de Dios para la vida (23 March 2012), 17.

[6] Cf. German Bishops’ Conference, Commission for Social Issues, Der Klimawandel: Brennpunkt globaler, intergenerationeller und ökologischer Gerechtigkeit (September 2006), 28-30.

[7] Chris J. Cuomo, “Climate Change, Vulnerability, and Responsibility”, Hypatia 26 (2011), 693.

[8] J. Hickel (2020). Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary. The Lancet Planetary Health, Vol. 4, Issue 9, e399-404, September 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519620301960; Nabil Ahmed, et al. Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 33.

[9] United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/08, 41.

[10] Ibid, 166.

[11] Christian Aid, Community Answers to Climate Chaos: Getting Climate Justice from the UNFCCC (September 2009), 9.

[12] Global Footprint Network, et al., Living Planet Report 2012, 43.

[13] Partha Dasgupta and Veerabhadran Ramanathan, “Pursuit of the Common Good: Religious Institutions May Mobilize Public Opinion and Action”, Science 345 (19 September 2014), 1457. See also V. Ramanathan, in The Emergency of the Socially Excluded, Proceedings of the Workshop, Vatican City, 5 November 2013; https://bit.ly/3gOlMIo

[14] Dasgupta and Ramanathan, “Pursuit of the Common Good”, 1457.

[15]> Here we refer to the per capita emissions of the richest 10% which in 2030 are set to be nearly 10 times higher than the global 1.5°C-compatible per capita level of emissions. From T. Gore (2021). Carbon Inequality in 2030, op. cit.; Nabil Ahmed, et al. Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 34.

[16] E. Berkhout, et al. (2021). The Inequality Virus: Bringing together a world torn apart by coronavirus through a fair, just and sustainable economy, op. cit.; Nabil Ahmed, et al. Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 34.

[17] T. Gore (2020). Confronting Carbon Inequality: Putting climate justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery, op. cit.; Nabil Ahmed, et al. Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 34.

[18] Climate change & the global inequality of carbon emissions, 1990-2020, Summary, Lucas Chancel (October 18, 2021).

[19] See Shoibal Chakravarty, et al., “Sharing Global CO2 Emission Reductions among One Billion High Emitters”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (2009), 11884-11888.

[20] Helder Camara, Sister Earth: Creation, Ecology and the Spirit (New York: New City Press, 2008), 7.

[21] Nabil Ahmed, et al., Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022).

[22] T. Gore (2020). Confronting Carbon Inequality: Putting climate justice at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery. Oxfam. https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/confronting-carbon-inequality-putting-climate-justice-at-the-heart-of-the-covid-621052/ 60 International Monetary Fund (2021); Nabil Ahmed, et al. Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 33.

[23] Combating climate crisis must be based on respect for human rights – World, ReliefWeb, https://reliefweb.int/report/world/combating-climate-crisis-must-be-based-respect-human-rights

[24] Oxfam (2019). Forced from Home: Climate-fuelled displacement. Media briefing. https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/forced-from-home-climate-fuelled-displacement-620914/

[25] Environmental Justice Foundation | Inequality is worsening as climate… https://ejfoundation.org/news-media/inequality-is-worsening-as-climate-crisis-deepens-new-report

[26] Caritas Internationalis, Climate Justice: Seeking a Global Ethic (Rome: Caritas Internationalis General Secretariat, 2009), 4.

[27] Nabil Ahmed, et al., Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 33.

[28] H. Lock and K. Mlaba (September 30, 2021). 10 Powerful Quotes from Vanessa Nakate & Greta Thunberg at the Pre-COP26 Youth Summit. Global Citizen. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/vanessa-nakate-greta-thunberg-quotes-cop26

[29] Christian Aid, Climate Debt and the Call for Justice (September 2009), 2.

[30] See Anil Agarwal, et al., Green Politics (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1999). See also Henry Shue, “Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions”, Law & Policy 15 (1993): 39-60.

[31] Sujatha Byravan – Sudhir Chella Rajan, “The Ethical Implications of Sea-level Rise Due to Climate Change”, Ethics and International Affairs 24 (2010), 244.

[32] Wolfgang Sachs, et al., eds., Greening the North: A Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity (London: Zed Books, 1994), 72.

[33] James Garvey, The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World (London: Continuum, 2008), 81.

[34] Ibid.

[35] United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2011, 9-10.

[36] Nabil Ahmed, et al. Inequality Kills (Oxfam, 2022), 35.

[37] United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/08, 39.

[38] Anil Agarwal – Sunita Narain, Global Warming in An Unequal World: A Case of Environmental Colonialism (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1991), 13.

[39] Dale Jamieson, “Adaptation, Mitigation, and Justice” in Perspectives on Climate Change: Science, Economics, Politics, Ethics, eds. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong – Richard B. Howarth (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005), 231.

[40] Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, n. 38.

[41] Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, n. 22.

[42] Pope John XXIII, Mater et Magistra, nn. 157, 161.

[43] Portuguese Bishops’ Conference, Pastoral Letter Responsabilidade Solidária pelo Bem Comum (15 September 2003), 20.