| Project Detail |
Paving the way for fair carbon limits
As the global climate crisis escalates, many question the ethical implications of luxury emissions from the world’s elite. While previous discussions focused on justifying subsistence emissions, researchers are developing a carbon-limits theory that identifies luxury emissions and advocates for their prohibition, independently of subsistence emissions. With the support of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PROHIBLUX project will analyse three ethical arguments (axiological, image-externality and moral-corruption) and subject them to rigorous scrutiny against objections such as offsetting and coercion. Second, they will establish criteria to identify luxury emissions based on the arguments. The project will also undertake an ethics-and-policy analysis of various implementation strategies for carbon limits, such as a ban, a luxury carbon tax, and a no-trade individual cap.
Many share the intuition that the luxury emissions of the global top 1% are morally wrong, given the current state of the climate crisis. Yet, the subsistence/luxury distinction has been used so far to justify a right to subsistence emissions, rather than a ban on luxury and extravagant emissions. PROHIBLUX aims to develop a carbon-limits theory of emission-permits distribution, i.e. an ethical theory that clearly identifies luxury emissions, indipendently of subsistence emissions, and justifies their proibition. PROHIBLUX research is developed in three stages.
First, the candidate will analyse three possible ethical arguments that can support the carbon-limits claim: the axiological argument, the image-externality argument, and the moral-corruption argument. Each argument will be tested against two main objections: the offsetting objection and the coercion objection. Second, the candidate will provide identification criteria for carbon limits, based on the ethical arguments that pass the objections test, and he will address any mismatch by devising an integrated grid of identification criteria. Third, the candidate will lead an ethics-and-policy analysis of different implementation policies of carbon limits, taking also into account the risk of luxury carbon leakage: a ban, a luxury carbon tax and a no-trade individual cap.
Through the training program, the candidate will qualify as a researcher at the intersection of ethics and climate policies and acquire new skills related to income and funding generation, project management, student supervision and scientific communication. PROHIBLUX will contribute to the philosophical debate on climate change, proposing a new critique of carbon inequality as an alternative to egalitarian, utilitarian and subsistence-based arguments. PROHIBLUX will contribute to a fair and inclusive transition by developing policy-ready guidelines for the just implementation of carbon limits. |
