Children born today in the Maldives may someday have to abandon their homeland. Rising seas, caused by climate change, could swallow most of their tiny island nation within their lifetime. Their fate symbolizes the double inequity at the heart of climate change: those who have contributed the least to climate change will suffer the most from it. All is not lost, however. The scale and impact of climate change depends on the policies that people choose. How quickly will we eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions? How will we do it? Who will pay for it? What will we protect through adaptation? How will we weigh the fortunes of future generations and the natural world against our own? Answers to questions like these reflect a constellation of value judgments that deserve close scrutiny. In addition to providing essential background on the science, economics, and politics of climate change, this book explores the values at stake in climate policy with the aim of shrinking the gap between climate ethics and climate policy.

David Morrow studies the ethics and political philosophy of climate change and climate policy. He is a Research Fellow with the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University and Director of Research for the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University. He was previously Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York and an M.A. in Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

Acknowledgements / Preface / Introduction / 1. The Physical Science of Climate Change / 2. The Economics of Climate Change / 3. Values in Climate Politics / 4. The Moral Foundations of Climate Action / 5. Cross-Cutting Issues in Climate Ethics / 6. Values in Mitigation Policy / 7. Values in Adaptation Policy / 8. Intergenerational Justice and Climate Policy / 9. Nature, Values, and Climate Policy / Bibliography / Index