Ethical Dimensions of Climate Crisis: Examining Challenges and Critical Perspectives in an Intertemporal Context

The thesis explores the ethical dimensions of climate change, delving into the intersections of environmental challenges, economic paradigms, and ethical considerations. The study begins by elucidating the ethical aspects inherent in climate change, acknowledging the limitations of solely economic, scientific or technical approaches. The thesis navigates through the ethical quandaries of passing on environmental issues to future generations, critically examining concepts like monetary offset and discounting future harms, leading to an investigation of principles surrounding future generational concerns, including an analysis emphasizing the significance of considering posterity. A pivotal aspect of the study involves constructing a comprehensive framework for sustainability, showing the nexus between values and normative theories in environmental ethics. This framework scrutinizes the ethical obligations toward future generations and evaluates sustainability through the lenses of anthropocentrism, rights-based approaches, and communitarian theories. Finally, the thesis investigates the shortcomings of international climate policies, questioning the efficacy of the existing climate regime. It tackles the challenges of reconciling feasibility and justice within the context of climate change and delineates the prerequisites for considering the welfare of future generations.