The ethics of pacific climate displacement

What are we interested in?

A key methodological commitment is to bring established academic ethical frameworks into stronger dialogue with Pacific stakeholders, through a series of stakeholder, academic, and policy workshops.

Australia has recognised an ethical responsibility to share in the international response to climate displacement. Australia’s ethical responsibility derives from factors including geographical proximity to affected communities, high carbon-emitter status, and wealth. Acting on this responsibility in practice is challenging, however, because the ethical scope and content of Australia’s responsibility has not yet been clearly established. Progress requires answers to several questions: Should Australia understand its ethical responsibilities as directed primarily towards displaced individuals, or rather towards larger communities whose traditional lands and ways of life are existentially threatened by climate change? On what basis should these ethical responsibilities be shared: between Australia and other states in the international community; among people and institutions within Australia; and between displaced and non-displaced communities in the region? What policies and institutions could best uphold these ethical responsibilities?

Our approach

Most existing ethical analysis of these issues apply general concepts and principles derived from European and Anglo-American traditions to the local circumstances and problems raised by climate displacement. This project’s key methodological commitment is to bridge closer dialogue with research stakeholders within the Pacific region (including policy practitioners, community-level activists, and displaced people), whose insights as interlocutors can provide new grounds for critique and development of established ethical frameworks. We aim to draw on knowledges held by participants in everyday practices in constructing and evaluating ethical claims.