A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology

International Agreement Required

Global emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning are currently approaching 7 billion tonnes of carbon per annum and rising rapidly. Unless strong measures are taken, they will reach two or three times their present levels during the twenty-first century and climate change will continue unabated. To halt climate change during the twenty-first century, global emissions must be reduced to a small fraction of their present levels before the century’s end.

Because of the work of the IPCC and its first report in 1990, the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was able to address the climate change issue and the action that needed to be taken. The Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) – agreed by over 160 countries, signed by President George Bush, Snr, for the USA and subsequently ratified unanimously by the US Senate – agreed that Parties to the Convention should take “precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimise the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures.”

More particularly, the Objective of the FCCC in its Article 2 is “to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that does not cause dangerous interference with the climate system” and that is consistent with sustainable development. Such stabilization would also ...