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This article primarily explores the impact of different ethics on the evaluation and formulation of climate policies. As scientists are 95% certain that human activity is responsible for global warming over the past fifty years, governments and businesses are increasingly focused on the challenges of addressing climate change and formulating and implementing effective policies and actions. Ethical standards play a crucial role in the decision-making process of climate policy. A recent study by Decoster et al. (2021) found that ethics provide a framework of values and principles that profoundly influence people's perceptions and the decision-making process. Therefore, as an important factor in decision-making, ethical standards have become a hot topic of society recently.

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As climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time, which has profound impacts on the environment, society and economy, formulating effective climate policies determined by ethical standards is crucial for the future development of society. According to data from the United Nations (2024), approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in environments highly vulnerable to climate change, indicating the urgence of taking measures to mitigate climate change.

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Focusing on discount utilitarianism, sustainable discount utilitarianism and deontology, the article titled “Climate policy under sustainable discounted utilitarianism,” authored by Dietz and Asheim in 2024, discusses the impact of different ethics on climate policy formulation. Additionally, this study highly correlates with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) 13, which aims to combat climate change and promote sustainable development.

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Focusing on discount utilitarianism, sustainable discount utilitarianism and deontology, this study explores the differences between these moral standards and quantitatively analyzes their impact on the formulation of contemporary and future climate policies. The results indicate that, considering the overall interests of present and future societies, sustainable discount utilitarianism offers a more effective approach to mitigating climate change, which aligns with SDG13 and support its achievement.

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Utilitarianism, associated with philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, posits that utility is quantifiable and comparable. Depending on the allocation of utility weights, utilitarianism can be divided into discount utilitarianism and sustainable discount utilitarianism. Both of them emphasize evaluating policies by discounting utilities at different points in time. However, discount utilitarianism focuses more on the interests of the present society, while sustainable discount utilitarianism pays greater attention on the interests of the future society.

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In contrast to utilitarianism, which evaluates ethical behavior based on consequences, deontology, associated with philosophers like Immanuel Kant, assesses the morality of an action based on its underlying motivation. This perspective shifts the focus of ethics from heteronomy to autonomy, which is sometimes criticized for its formalistic and seemingly cold approach to ethical dilemmas.

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By utilizing the DICE (Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy) model for risk analysis, the study shows that compared to discount utilitarianism and deontology, sustainable discount utilitarianism aligns with the concept of sustainable development better. From the perspective of intergenerational equity, discount utilitarianism has significant limitations. It gives insufficient attention to the interests of future generations, leading to the deficiency of sustainability in climate policy decisions. Meanwhile, deontology overly focuses on the intrinsic nature of climate policies. Their formalistic and relatively detached approaches often restrict their ability to adopt more effective measures to mitigate climate change. Drawing upon "future Hammond fairness", sustainable discount utilitarianism more equitably considers the interests of both current and future generations when evaluating climate policies, which makes it address the complex and severe challenge better.

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Aiming to promote sustainable development and address global challenges, such as poverty, inequality and climate change, in 2015, the United Nations set up the Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), which consist of a set of 17 interconnected goals. As part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN SDGs serve as a call to action for all countries to collaborate towards a more sustainable and prosperous world by 2030. Among these goals, SDG 13 specifically calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Its sub-targets include enhancing resilience to climate disasters, integrating climate change measures into policies and improving education and awareness on climate change mitigation. Through education, innovation and adherence to international climate commitments, SDG 13 not only advances adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards in all countries, but also supports the achievement of other SDGs.

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Relation between the ethical issue and SDG 13

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Relation between the ethical issue and SDG 13

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The ethical issue related to the impact of different ethical standards on the formulation of climate policies discussed in the article is intricately related to the SDG 13. Under various ethical standards, the climate policies implemented by governments and businesses will vary significantly. For example, a government guided by sustainable discount utilitarianism tends to actively implement relatively mild measures such as emission reduction subsidies. In contrast, a government led by discount utilitarianism may favor more stringent measures. Despite ongoing efforts to combat climate change, complex and diverse climate policies determined by ethical standards make it challenging for governments and companies to unite as one and tackle climate change collectively, resulting in sluggish progress toward achieving UN SDG 13. Additionally, placing excessive emphasis on climate change issues can lead governments and companies to reduce investment in economic development, which may create a conflict between SDG 8 and SDG 13. Therefore, to address these issues, a practical approach is to select representatives from various governments to form a climate and economic committee, which can promote communication among governments and help transnational enterprises formulate reasonable development strategies to mitigate climate change and achieve SDG13.

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In addition to this article, numerous international scholars have also conducted research on similar topics. Adler and Treich (2015) further explored the impact of prioritarianism on climate policy formulation and provided a comprehensive comparison and analysis with utilitarianism. Vaz and Campos (2022) proposed Justified Moral Pluralism (JMP), which assists the governments and companies to choose the most suitable norms and values to guide their decisions and actions, aiming to explore the best ethical standard to guide climate policy formulation. From the perspective of personal morality, Chen et al. (2024) analyzed the influence of CEOs' ethical standards on corporate climate policies and found that utilitarian CEOs are more likely to make decisions that promote company development and achieve SDG13. All of these studies support countries and companies worldwide in formulating unified and effective climate policies to mitigate climate change, which promotes the achievement of SDG13.

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Ethical standards play a crucial role in the formulation of climate policies by governments and businesses. This article particularly emphasizes the different impacts of sustainable discount utilitarianism, discount utilitarianism, and deontology on formulating climate policies. Utilizing the DICE model, the article points out that, compared to other ethical standards, sustainable discount utilitarianism balances the interests of contemporary and future societies better, aligning more closely with the goals of sustainable development. From the perspective of SDG13, the task of mitigating climate change remains challenging. Governments and businesses need to engage in more active communication and more diverse cooperation to achieve harmony between humanity and nature.

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Adler, M. D., & Treich, N. (2015). Prioritarianism and climate. Environmental and Resource Economics, ⁶², 279-308.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-015-9960-7

Chen, T. H., Liu, S. C., & Wu, C. H. (2024). The influence of CEO ethics on climate change policy from the perspective of utilitarianism and deontology. The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, ⁷³, 102193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.najef.2024.102193

Decoster, S., Stouten, J., & Tripp, T. M. (2021). When employees retaliate against self-serving leaders: The influence of the ethical climate. Journal of Business Ethics, ¹⁶⁸, 195-213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04218-4

Dietz, S., & Asheim, G. B. (2012). Climate policy under sustainable discounted utilitarianism. Journal of environmental economics and management, ⁶³(3), 321-335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2012.01.003

Vaz, S. G., & Campos, A. S. (2022). Justificatory Moral Pluralism in Climate Change. SATS, ²³(1), 75-96. https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2021-0021

United Nations. (2024). Climate change. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/climate-change