Climate Change Ethics and the Problem of End-State Solutions

Abstract

How best to response to climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing us all. Proposed solutions come in one of two approaches. The first is conservationist, seeking to minimize these effects by reducing, if not eliminating, them by bringing climate change to a stop. The second is focused specifically on adaptation mostly through technological advances to help us endure climate change by minimizing its effects. The dilemma for these proposed solutions is in their aim of being a solution to the problems that climate change brings. In short, they mistake the kind of challenge that climate change presents us. This is what I call the problem of “end-state” solutions. It is where we attempt to bring to an end a circumstance that might be influenced positively or otherwise by our activities, but beyond our full control. So to claim a so-called “solution” to such an ever-changing problem could make it better or worse without concluding it. If climate change is this kind of problem—and I will claim it is—then end-state “solutions” can be no more than a band-aid and the nature of our challenge is different, requiring an alternative future strategy. This chapter will set out how the problem of climate change is understood through attempted solutions that do not succeed. It concludes with some ideas about why this matters and the arising implications for how we should think about climate change justice beyond the false prism of end-state solutions.