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Type: Article × Subject: Fairness ×

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    Relating climate compatible development and human livelihood
    (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2013) Reusser, Dominik; Lissner, Tabea; Pradhan, Prajal; Holsten, Anne; Rybski, Diego; Kropp, Jürgen P.
    We explore the link between improvements in human development and greenhouse gas emission. We argue that a disaggregated view on human development is required to understand the potential for decoupling of development from greenhouse gas emissions. To do so, we relate 16 elements from the livelihood index to emissions. Improvements in livelihood are decoupled from emissions for 10 elements, while only 6 are related to significant emissions. We operate the proposed framework for the example of food consumption and related emissions and find a reduction potential of about 13% compared to the total emissions from this sector.
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    A thought experiment on sustainable management of the earth system
    (Basel : MDPI AG, 2018) Heitzig, J.; Barfuss, W.; Donges, J.F.
    We introduce and analyze a simple formal thought experiment designed to reflect a qualitative decision dilemma humanity might currently face in view of anthropogenic climate change. In this exercise, each generation can choose between two options, either setting humanity on a pathway to certain high wellbeing after one generation of suffering, or leaving the next generation in the same state as the current one with the same options, but facing a continuous risk of permanent collapse. We analyze this abstract setup regarding the question of what the right choice would be both in a rationality-based framework including optimal control, welfare economics, and game theory, and by means of other approaches based on the notions of responsibility, safe operating spaces, and sustainability paradigms. Across these different approaches, we confirm the intuition that a focus on the long-term future makes the first option more attractive while a focus on equality across generations favors the second. Despite this, we generally find a large diversity and disagreement of assessments both between and within these different approaches, suggesting a strong dependence on the choice of the normative framework used. This implies that policy measures selected to achieve targets such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals can depend strongly on the normative framework applied and specific care needs to be taken with regard to the choice of such frameworks.