Why We Need Ethical Arguments to Set Good Climate Policies

Climate policy is about values and not all value choices are subject to optimisation. We need to be alert whenever normative positions about values masquerade as neutral solutions. This chapter argues that ethical arguments have an important role in setting climate policy: they can highlight what values are at stake, inspire new horizons of thought, and help ground normative arguments in public deliberations. Ethical arguments can also inspire new horizons of thought. Self-interest, viewed by some as an alternative to ethics in climate policy, is insufficient to guide policymaking. There is no bypassing the messy political debates. Ethical questions are embedded in policy choices, and they always come into economic models used in decision-making. These value choices should be debated openly to get climate policy right. Instead of purely technical solutions or even eco-authoritarianism, what is needed is more genuine and inclusive democratic debate.