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Environmental Politics
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The ethics of climate politics:

four modes of moral discourse
a
Menno R. Kamminga
a
Department of International Relations and
International Organization, University of Groningen,
the Netherlands
Published online: 08 Aug 2008.

To cite this article: Menno R. Kamminga (2008) The ethics of climate politics:
four modes of moral discourse, Environmental Politics, 17:4, 673-692, DOI:
10.1080/09644010802193799

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 Environmental Politics
Vol. 17, No. 4, August 2008, 673–692

The ethics of climate politics: four modes of moral discourse

Menno R. Kamminga*

Department of International Relations and International Organization, University of

Groningen, the Netherlands
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This article argues that James Gustafson’s ‘modes of moral discourse’

framework is highly valuable for conceptualising the ethics of climate
politics, or ‘climate ethics’. The moral-philosophical task of developing
principles of climate justice, or the issue of how the burdens (and benefits)
of global climate change should be distributed between and within
generations, is essential to climate ethics, but it is also insufficient. Climate
ethics should avoid focusing too exclusively on ‘(technical-)ethical’
discourse, but also incorporate insights from ‘narrative’, ‘policy’, and
‘prophetic’ discourses about or relevant to climate change politics. Climate
ethics is to be conceived as pluralist: broad and interdisciplinary, but
presumably conflictual and tragic as well.

Introduction
In this article, I argue that the ‘modes of moral discourse’ framework
developed by theologian-ethicist James Gustafson (1988, 1996) is highly
valuable for conceptualising the ethics of climate change politics, or ‘climate
ethics’. This framework, which I propose as a foundation for a pluralist
conception of climate ethics, states that four modes of moral discourse (ethical,
prophetic, narrative, and policy) are apparent in literature about a diversity of
subjects, and that each of these is both necessary and insufficient for moral
reasoning. In Gustafson’s own words:
In literature about medicine, . . . economics, politics, and other activities, four
types of moral discourse are distinguishable. I . . . call these ethical, prophetic,
narrative, and policy discourse. The argument . . . is that if too exclusive attention
is given to any one of the types, significant issues of concern to morally sensitive
persons and communities are left unattended. My suggestion is that none of the
types is sufficient in itself . . . The four types have in common a concern for

*Email: m.r.kamminga@rug.nl

ISSN 0964-4016 print/ISSN 1743-8934 online

Ó 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09644010802193799
http://www.informaworld.com
 674 M.R. Kamminga

various human values; each is prompted, in my judgment, by an uneasiness, a

sense that something is awry. And each sees a different location for what is
perceived to be inadequate if not wrong, and thus uses language[,] . . . data,
information, sources of insight, and concepts that are judged to be appropriate to
[that] location. (Gustafson 1996, p. 37)1

Thus, my claim is that Gustafson’s discourses model properly applies to

literature about, and is potentially relevant to, climate politics. A selective
reading of the (mostly academic) literature is provided to show that each of
Gustafson’s four, irreducible basic types of moral discourse is both necessary
and insufficient for a morally adequate climate ethics.
One might think that climate ‘ethics’ naturally means a moral-philosophical
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search for (deontological or utilitarian) principles of justice as regards the

distribution of burdens (and benefits) of global climate change between and
within generations. Thus, Stephen Gardiner (2004, pp. 578–579) holds that
‘[t]he core ethical issue concerning global warming is that of how to allocate the
costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emissions and abatement’. Peter Singer
(2006, p. 415) puts it like this: ‘Climate change is an ethical issue, because it
involves the distribution of a scarce resource – the capacity of the atmosphere
to absorb our waste gases without producing consequences that no one wants.’
Yet, taking climate ethics as an exercise in (international) political philosophy
(see Rawls 1999), I argue that to limit the ethics of climate politics to a
‘technical-ethical’ discourse about justice would be unwarranted. ‘Abstract’
ethical discourse is not sufficient, although neither is narrative, policy, or
prophetic discourse.
Accordingly, I propose a conception of climate ethics that is pluralist:
broad and interdisciplinary, yet presumably also conflictual and tragic. While
compromises between various perspectives may be acceptable and perhaps
even necessary, an adequate climate ethics is characterised by modes of moral
discourse that each have their strengths and shortcomings, and interact with
each other on the basis of co-existence and competition without the prospect of
fusion.
I aim to reconstruct the various positions along the following guidelines. If
they are to operate critically, the moral discourse positions and the resulting
conception of climate ethics must be theoretically founded and relevant to, but
also ultimately independent of, the factual existence of (human-induced) global
warming. A philosophical model of climate politics must have meaning even in
the unlikely case that the ‘climate sceptics’ turn out to be right in the end.

Ethical discourse
Ethical discourse – in Gustafson’s meaning of constituting a subcategory
within a broader, interdisciplinary (medical, social, or political) ethics – focuses
on the articulation of action guidelines based on precise philosophical
reasoning and basic principles. It employs rationally rigorous modes of moral
reasoning developed in the discipline of moral philosophy (or moral theology).
 Environmental Politics 675

Ethical discourse entails critical reflection on moral intuitions and conventional

moral beliefs. It emphasises the consistent, coherent, and disciplined
argumentation as found in deontological and consequentialist (notably
utilitarian) theories of obligation, and clarity and precision in the use of
concepts such as rights, obligations, and justice. Ethical discourse helps to meet
the general academic need for rigorous and transparent argumentation
(Gustafson 1988, 1996).
Ethical discourse has come to occupy a leading position in the literature
about climate politics. Its starting point includes a climate change independent,
normative philosophical assumption to which two empirical assumptions
derived from (natural) climate science are added. First, normatively, the
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atmosphere is a common resource to which prima facie no individual person

has a stronger claim than any other (see Singer 2006, p. 419, Grasso 2007, p.
238). Second, empirically, the consequences of climate change will be far-
reaching and also unevenly distributed within and between generations. It will
be disadvantageous, that is, for most of humankind, but especially so for the
many people living in the world’s poorest regions and future populations.
Third, empirically, rich countries have the greatest greenhouse gas emissions,
especially per capita, and are as such the main causers of human-induced
global warming; and while they may themselves be capable of dealing with
these changes at great cost, poor countries will not or hardly be able to do so
without enormous loss of human lives (UNDP 2007, pp. 21–107, cf. IPCC
2007). Consequently, given the clear tensions between the normative and
empirical assumptions, ethical discourse about climate politics is concerned
with fleshing out the actual global, intra- and intergenerational obligations of
‘climate justice’ (Gardiner 2006, Page 2006, 2007).
In order to determine more exactly the obligations of global climate justice,
ethical discourse theorists set out to address the issue of a fair division of the
cost to meet climate change, often by drawing upon established justice theories
such as historical libertarianism (Nozick 1974), liberal egalitarianism (Rawls
1971), and utilitarianism. Thus, Peter Singer (2002, pp. 26–50, cf. 2006) has
distinguished between two sorts of principles of justice, which will now be
briefly explained (for further discussions see Gardiner 2004, Page 2006, Grasso
2007). First, there are ‘historical’ principles, which ask how the current
distribution has come about. If based on fair procedures, the distribution is
just; if not, there should be correction or compensation. A major historical
principle is ‘the polluter should pay’, or ‘you broke it, now you fix it’. Because
the welfare of people in developed countries has been based on long-term,
massive, and perpetual use of fossil fuels, ethical discourse theorists argue that
the contemporary distribution of welfare in the world is the result of the unjust
acquisition of absolutely scarce, collectively owned, resources by a minority of
the world’s population. Serious correction or compensation, then, seems
indeed warranted. Global politics should place the costs of mitigation
(strategies directed at the prohibition or limitation of climate change) and
adaptation (strategies directed at adaptation to the effects of climate change)
 676 M.R. Kamminga

squarely at the door of the inhabitants of industrialised countries as the

pollution causers. Thus, historical principles would imply a very heavy burden
for the world’s rich (for more on this issue, see the contributions of Page, and
Jagers and Otterström in this volume).
Second, there are ‘time slice’ principles, which ask if the current distribution
is in accordance with a principle of fair distribution. Such principles might be
fairer, because the members of rich countries could not have known for a very
long time, say until 1990, that their cumulative emissions would have such
drastic effects. Yet even then, ethical discourse theorists conclude, they will
have to carry by far the heavier burdens, as the following examples
demonstrate. First, ‘an equal share for everyone’, thus, an equal waste
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disposal quota for every person (see also Singer 2006, pp. 418–419): this seems
intuitively acceptable and reasonable, especially as a starting point, though one
that immediately implies heavy burdens for the rich. Second, ‘aiding the worst-
off’: this allows differences more to the advantage of the worst-off than when
everyone gets an equal share, but this principle would still demand the rich to
bear most, if not all, the costs for the demanded changes, given the enormous
gap in resources use between them and the poor. Third, ‘the greatest happiness
principle’: this more or less demands welfare for the world as a whole to be as
great as possible and will in practice often involve prioritising the interests of
the worst-off. All of these examples suggest that time-slice principles, too,
would place the lion’s share of the cost of climate change with the world’s
richest people.
The bottom line of both ethical approaches, about which virtual unanimity
seems to exist among ethical discourse theorists on the subject, is that the
inhabitants of industrialised countries, notably those of the United States as
the world’s largest polluters, should take the lead role in bearing the costs of
climate change, while the less developed countries’ inhabitants should be
allowed to increase emissions for the foreseeable future (see Gardiner 2004, p.
579). Thus, from the perspective of ethical discourse, there seems to be a strong
case for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and financial transfers to aid
climate adaptation, which go far beyond those included in the internationally
agreed Kyoto Protocol (see Page 2007).
It seems self-evident that ethical discourse has basic and distinctive value
for climate ethics. While in practice the use of concepts such as ‘justice’ (or
‘equity’) is often vague, unspecified, flexible and ambiguous (see Weidner
2005), we cannot really say that any distribution of climate change costs and
benefits is unjust until we know what climate justice means and demands.
Without ethical discourse, climate ethics would risk defying measurement and
thus precluding meaningful moral evaluation of political institutions and
practices. Also, the principles developed by ethical discourse theorists endow
climate ethics with the capacity to criticise or justify particular climate regimes.
In the case of the existing Kyoto Protocol, the distributive outcomes it
engenders may be criticised as unjust, because: (1) it contains no effective
 Environmental Politics 677

compliance mechanism and thus also cannot force the United States to ratify
the Protocol; and (2) the rich countries together do very little to combat the
consequences of climate change, which is at the expense of the room for
emissions for the inhabitants of developing countries and sustains serious
threats to their security (Gardiner 2004, pp. 589–595). Ethical discourse would
justify a post-Kyoto climate regime only if Kyoto is transformed from goals
resulting from negotiations between consensus-oriented government leaders
towards goals based on principles of fairness and the best outcome for the
atmosphere, state boundaries not being sacrosanct ethically (Singer 2002, pp.
22, 46).
Yet ethical discourse, and therefore the issue of global (intra- and
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intergenerational) justice, is not sufficient in climate ethics, as it raises serious

concerns from other perspectives that find other forms of moral discourse
appropriate (see Gustafson 1984, 1988, 1996) and that – as I intend to show
below – can be given independent defence. From the perspective of narrative
discourse, it may be feared that global principles of climate justice demand a
sense of world community that does not, cannot (and perhaps should not)
exist; as well as whether the technical, rationalist, and abstract language of
ethical discourse possesses any real motivating capacity towards action
directed at combating climate change.
From the perspective of policy discourse, cosmopolitan ethical climate
principles, demanding as they are, seem hard to apply in concrete, practical
circumstances (see Nye 1986, p. 33, Keulartz 2005, pp. 16–17), and may even be
‘inherently revolutionary’ (see Bull 2002, pp. 84–85, 280). Global distributive
(climate) justice, that is, seems to be incompatible with the present states
system, the anarchic political environment we live in, and only realisable by an
‘ideal’ world government. It is doubtful whether, as ethical discourse theorists
sometimes suggest, we may reasonably expect the policies of industrialised
states to meet the cosmopolitan distributive demands of climate justice: states
are agents of local rather than global justice (see Kamminga 2006, contra
Singer 2002, 2006, Grasso 2007). From the perspective of prophetic discourse,
ethical discourse is short-sighted in not locating the root causes of human-
induced climate change, not challenging the dominant view of the environment
as a natural resource for human use but rather legitimising it by granting the
inhabitants of developing countries their right to development, growth, and
pollution, and also not evoking a motivating, hopeful vision. In short, climate
ethics will have to broaden its outlook beyond too strict a focus on ethical
discourse if indeed those other forms of moral discourse can each be separately
justified.

Narrative discourse
Narrative discourse, religious or secular, conceives of people as members
of moral communities, of which the outlooks and values are shaped by stories.
 678 M.R. Kamminga

To participate in a community means that one’s moral ethos, character, and

identity are shaped by its formative narratives. Narrative reasoning is largely
descriptive, and relies upon historical, sociological, or social-psychological
evidence, while emphasising the need to stay close to human experience.
It illuminates the choices people make by providing a more extended
context within which their circumstances are to be understood (Gustafson
1988, 1996).
Concerning narrative discourse, I focus on a more general issue of
political philosophy, yet one heavily theorised and arguably relevant to
climate politics: national identity (Walzer 1983, 1994, MacIntyre 1984, Tamir
1993, Miller 1995).2 First, generally, national narrative discourse emphasises
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the particularity of moral identity as inevitable and desirable. From

anthropology it derives the idea that political communities, particularly
nations, have their own identity and culture, including a rich and specific,
‘thick’ morality to which a – necessarily internal – critique must appeal if it is
to be meaningful (Walzer 1994). This identity shapes the moral outlooks of
individual members, defining who they are. As Alasdair MacIntyre (1984,
pp. 8, 10, 16) explains:
[T]he morality which each of us acquires . . . is learned from, in and through the
way of life of some particular community . . . It is in general only within a
community that individuals become capable of morality, are sustained in their
morality and are constituted as moral agents by the way in which other people
regard them and what is owned to and by them as well as by the way in which
they regard themselves . . . I will obliterate and lose a central dimension of the
moral life if I do not understand the enacted narrative of my own individual life as
embedded in the history of [my nation].

Adding descriptive social scientific insights, narrativists remind theorists

concerned about global justice that the nation remains the largest social unit
compatible with notably redistributive sacrifices for others. During human
history, solidarity and mutual sympathy have normally only been present
within distinct communities. In the modern world, it is the self-determining
nation that delivers the sense of trust between disputing parties necessary for
an enduring state of justice (Tamir 1993, pp. 97, 121). There is no globally
shared awareness of a common identity, a single community and culture, or a
common ethos, needed for distributive justice on a world scale (Walzer 1994,
pp. 8, 18–19). In Michael Walzer’s (1994, p. 83) words: ‘our common humanity
will never make us members of a single universal tribe. The crucial
commonality of the human race is particularism’. Thus, national narrative
theorists insist that distributive justice belongs inside national borders: only
national identity can provide a secure basis for grounding and implementing
conceptions of justice. The nation seems the only realistic, widespread, and
morally desirable, human community ideal in the foreseeable future (Smith
1995). The implication, then, is that national identity poses a moral limit to
global climate justice (for a contrary view, see Aaron Malthais’ paper in this
volume).
 Environmental Politics 679

Second, national narrative discourse consequently suggests that a

particularist, ‘patriotic’ moral view of climate politics may come into serious
conflict with the cosmopolitan, ‘impersonal’ moral view found in ethical
discourse. To quote MacIntyre again:

[One type of conflict-engendering circumstance] arises from scarcity of essential

resources, . . . perhaps in our time from that of fossil fuels. What your community
requires as the material prerequisites for your survival as a distinctive community
and your growth into a distinctive nation may be exclusive use of the same or
some of the same natural resources as my community requires for its survival and
growth into a distinctive nation. When such a conflict arises, the standpoint of
impersonal morality requires an allocation of goods such that each individual
person counts for one and no more than one, while the patriotic standpoint
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requires that I strive to further the interests of my community and you to strive to
further those of yours. (MacIntyre 1984, p. 6)

Taking individuals not to live in isolation but as members of separate

communities, MacIntyre suggests that individuals should vigorously put the
interests of their nation first when it comes to distributing fossil fuels and
presumably also the atmosphere’s absorptive capacity.
Third, and more specifically, national narrative discourse may illuminate
the actual position of the governments of the United States and other
climate-sceptic administrations concerning fossil fuel use and climate
politics. To begin with, it may help understanding of the American refusal
to implement a rigorous climate policy in the absence of cooperation of the
large developing countries, and the presence of a deeply rooted and daringly
optimistic trust in its own inventiveness to come up with technological
solutions. Thus, Michael Novak puts the reserved attitude of the United
States into context by telling his readers that one cannot simply deplore the
uneven distribution of the world’s resources among its inhabitants, as the
term ‘resources’ is to be traced back to the cultural history of American
capitalism:

If oil is today to be considered a ‘resource’, one must recall how short a time
ago the entire human race lay in ignorance of its potential. Most of the
materials we today call resources were not known to be such before the
invention of a democratic capitalist political economy; many were not known to
be such even one hundred years ago . . . Dumb material remains inert until its
secrets are discovered and a technology for bending it to human purposes is
invented. The word ‘resources’, therefore, includes within its meaning the factor
of culture, of which discovery and invention are expressions. (Novak 1991, pp.
299–300)

Novak’s constructivist account suggests that there can be no mass welfare

without a capitalist industrialist employment of fossil fuels, that we may even
feel gratitude towards America for this discovery; and that cultivation of guilt
in the West as encompassing those states that are the greatest beneficiaries of
historical fossil fuel use may be inappropriate (see also Novak 1981, pp. 37–
38). Yet one may further narrate the story of America’s leading role, and point
 680 M.R. Kamminga

to its special moral responsibility to address the ‘challenge’ of climate change.

As Al Gore tries to motivate his fellow Americans:
Americans have a special responsibility. Throughout most of our short history,
the United States and the American people have provided moral leadership for
the world. Establishing the Bill of Rights, framing democracy in the Constitution,
defeating fascism in World War II, toppling Communism and landing on the
moon – all were the result of American leadership. Once again, Americans must
come together and direct our government to take on a global challenge. American
leadership is a precondition for success. (Gore 2007)

What this combined narrative suggests is that while a convincing normative

critique of American choices from outside is harder to provide than it seems at
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first sight, an internal critique of the American attitude towards the climate is
always possible and now perhaps even required.
The typical importance of (national) narrative discourse for climate ethics
seems clear enough. It points to the importance of sectional communities for
individual moral identity; draws attention to both the socio-psychological
possibilities and limits of human moral motivation; explains the potential
moral clash between climate cosmopolitanism and national patriotism; and
shows the double moral relevance of industrial (American) ‘culture’. Climate
ethics without narrative discourse would lack contact with the practical
reasoning of people as community members, perhaps promoting conflictual
circumstances and unempathic judgements.
However, narrative discourse cannot suffice in climate ethics (see Gustafson
1988, 1996). From the perspective of ethical discourse, in unconditionally
accepting national or cultural projects and trivialising the power of abstract
and systematic moral argumentation to challenge popular belief effectively, it
may yield unduly conservative outcomes and impede conversation with non-
nationals about a just climate politics. From the perspective of policy
discourse, narratives are rather unhelpful in devising a desirable climate
policy, having little concrete to say about responsible political behaviour.
From the perspective of prophetic discourse, narrative discourse allows
dubious limits upon status quo criticism because of its too convenient moral-
psychological attitude, underrating people’s capacity to create political
communities more open towards non-members and non-human beings, and
think globally about climate change.

Policy discourse
Policy discourse asks what is desirable within the limits of the possible. It
concerns the role-bound and contextual responsibilities of the agents who
make the choices and often cannot avoid getting dirty hands. It emphasises the
possibilities and limitations of resources within which choices are actually
made, and the consequences, intended and unintended, of concrete actions.
The ideals advanced by prophetic and ethical discourse may be valuable, but
they offer insufficient immediate moral guidance. Good decision-makers
 Environmental Politics 681

recognise that people generally are not driven by prophetic or ethical concerns,
and that there will be practical moral limits to the aspirations of those people
who insist on prophetic or ethical action. Within a decision-making context,
empirical evidence regarding technical, social, cultural, economic, and power
conditions should be considered besides fundamental concerns (Gustafson
1988, 1996).
Policy discourse is clearly present in the literature on climate politics. First,
(international) climate policy discourse assumes a climate change independent,
pragmatic-philosophical foundation. Classical realist theorists emphasise that
applying ethical principles is especially difficult in international politics,
because human nature is hardest to handle in an anarchic environment. From
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the viewpoint of the responsible policy-maker or states(wo)man, one cannot

ignore the historical experience that generally people do not behave as they
should. Alastair Murray (1997) argues that one of realism’s philosophical roots
is Augustine’s moral imperfectionism, in which politics is ever imperfectly
moral. Being caught between the poles of eternal values and temporal
necessities, humans cannot fulfil the requirements of transcendental ethical
principles, even if they can do good. Under anarchy, advance and reformation
should be sought by a power use that is responsible, guided by prudence
(Morgenthau 1973, pp. 10–11, Nye 1986, p. 24, Murray 1997, pp. 116–118).
‘Normative prudence’, Alberto Coll (1999, pp. 75–76) argues, recognises ‘the
difficulty of translating ethical intentions and purposes into policies that will
produce morally sound results’ and ‘draws attention to the statesman’s
character as a key component of his ability to act morally in the political
world’. Political leadership is not simply about applying ethical principles, but
about making sound moral judgements and acting as responsible trustees for
the people one represents. Consequently, policy discourse about climate
politics is sceptical about principles of global distributive justice. Despite
globalisation, the world remains dominated by national interests, and it would
be politically unwise to pursue ‘pure’ climate justice by sacrificing national
welfare systems that are seen as constitutive elements of legitimate democratic
policy (see Weidner 2005, p. 23). Climate politics should help achieve
cooperation under pluralist conditions, within which exists a great diversity
of persons and parties with very divergent world views; this requires a basic
attitude directed at openness, communication, and consultation instead of one
of ecological idealism (Keulartz 2005).
Second, climate policy discourse stresses the need to consider the actual
moral foundation of the contemporary climate regime, non-ideal as it may be
since it reflects the dominance of intergovernmental negotiations. Put very
briefly, these efforts include the following (Singer 2002, Christoff 2006). In
1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations
group of distinguished scientists, reported that the threat of climate change was
real and a global treaty was necessary to address it. In 1992, at the Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 181 governments accepted a Climate Treaty. This
treaty was little more than a framework for action for developed countries to
 682 M.R. Kamminga

stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels. However, two years of

negotiation resulted in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which established binding
goals for 39 developed countries concerning the limitation or reduction of
greenhouse gas emission in 2012, and which came into force in 2005 after
Russian ratification. The limitations and reductions were set up to reduce total
emission of the developed countries to a level of at least 5% below that of 1990
(European Union minus 8%; US minus 7%). Developing countries were only
encouraged to accept voluntary goals. To help countries meet their targets,
Kyoto includes ‘flexible mechanisms’: ‘emission trading’, ‘joint implementa-
tion’, and the ‘clean development mechanism’.3 Admittedly, the largest
polluter, the United States, decided not to join by mouth of the Bush
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administration, primarily for economic reasons and the apparent ‘free ride’
given to major developing countries such as China and India; and Australia,
the world’s largest per capita greenhouse emissions producer, also decided not
to ratify the Protocol (Christoff 2005). Yet Peter Christoff (2006) emphasises
the significance of Kyoto’s actual (non-cosmopolitan) moral base, also as a
jumping board for improving the regime’s legitimacy and effectiveness. Thus,
Kyoto set emission reduction targets only for industrialised states, agreed
according to the rationale that these states could rightly be regarded as having
the responsibility, capacity and potential to mitigate first, with the unstated
hope or expectation that developing states will also adopt targets in later
commitment periods. Thus, the regime’s logic of ‘environmental justice’, or
‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, concentrates first on those states
that are both the greatest beneficiaries of historical fossil fuel use and currently
the majority contributors to climate change, and does not yet assign reduction
targets to developing countries, but respects their concern to protect their right
to develop living standards towards parity with the West (Christoff 2006, pp.
842, 847).
Third, climate policy discourse aims to outline the moral possibilities and
limits of national climate policies. Thus, Helmut Weidner’s (2005) account
suggests that what is possible at best for national policies is ‘ecological
modernisation’: a problem-solving, market-oriented view of incremental
innovations to increase eco-efficiency for making capitalism less wasteful while
retaining its basic system of production and consumption, with only marginal
interest in justice or equity concerns. Practically and strategically, such a
framework is much more coherent and institutionally well-embedded than the
abstract notion of climate justice, and allows for the development of clear-cut
environmental strategies by the government (Weidner 2005, p. 44). For
example, even in Germany, where broad support exists for a ‘progressive’
national climate policy based on accepting a moral obligation to support
developing countries, a climate policy based on global fairness standards could
erode the strong public commitment if it entailed individual cost burdens
experienced as prohibitive (Weidner 2005, pp. 70–81).
Fourth, policy discourse tries to build upon existing climate initiatives and
show ways towards moral improvement. Thus, Christoff (2006) suggests
 Environmental Politics 683

shifting the focus of negotiations over the second Kyoto commitment period
away from attempts to re-engage the United States and towards building a
stronger ‘culture of compliance’. He proposes to expand the ‘climate coalition
of the willing’ by enhancing measures to reward and sanction Kyoto’s current
participants and by including the emerging major emitters, China, India and
Brazil, and so more than compensate US (and Australian) absence: ‘post-
Bush’, but not ‘post-Kyoto’. Christoff acknowledges that his approach calls for
substantial transfers of wealth and technology. However, he adds, this will
strengthen the climate regime’s pragmatic and moral legitimacy. There is now
every reason to add China, India and Brazil – emergent political forces with
increasing emission levels – to the countries with binding obligations. There
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already exists growing moral pressure on these countries to commit to future

targets while also pursuing legitimate development goals. While the rich states
have produced the bulk of greenhouse pollutants so far, they did not know they
were producing global warming until the 1980s; in contrast, the new industrial
powers do know that they are harming the atmosphere. Interestingly, such an
inclusion would naturally increase the moral pressure upon the United States
(and Australia) to come to support Kyoto (Christoff 2006, pp. 842–857).
Policy discourse, then, is indispensable in climate ethics. It reminds climate
ethics scholars that a system of (sovereign) states under anarchy still defines the
starting point for international political action concerning the climate (Waltz
1979, cf. Wendt 1999), and that they therefore must have concern for
practicable yet demanding climate policies. Without policy discourse, climate
ethics could not be of meaningful moral assistance to international political
agents using their powers towards a more healthy state of the climate. Policy
discourse makes clear that a moral climate politics under current circumstances
cannot engender cosmopolitan justice but at best interstate beneficence (see
Hattori 2003). Indeed, it makes climate ethics scholars aware that Kyoto, even
if it will at most slow down climate change, may well be regarded as a small
miracle, given existing interest conflicts, responsibilities, choice limitations, and
trusteeship obligations, and that therefore a major concern is how to improve
Kyoto prudentially.
Yet, in pragmatically working with limited visions and reference frames,
policy discourse is not sufficient in climate ethics (see Gustafson 1988, 1996).
From the perspective of ethical discourse, policy discourse assumes a morally
flawed, non-rigorous and non-cosmopolitan, view of climate justice, and it may
easily degenerate into satisfaction with the merely possible, tending to accept
reduction targets for states willing to participate in an international regime.
From the perspective of narrative discourse, climate policy discourse is
meaningless without an inclusive narrative that defines the community for
which political leaders should act as trustees. From the perspective of prophetic
discourse, in accepting existing power relations, ignoring questions about
ultimate human value orientations, and practising mere fine-tuning, climate
policy discourse blindly accepts the status quo of the states system that may be
a ‘Westfailure system’ (Strange 1999, cf. Linklater 1998). It is, that is, a major
 684 M.R. Kamminga

cause of climate change itself, and it offers no hope whatsoever for a truly just
and sustainable world order. In sum, while policy discourse makes a legitimate
and important contribution, it should be thought of as merely one of the inputs
of climate ethics, rather than as its ultimate output or implication.

Prophetic discourse
Prophetic discourse, religious or secular, has two forms. Indictment asks what we
should reject about current society. It shows dramatically how far human society
has fallen from what it should be. Self-consciously ignoring ‘surface issues’ (such
as the question of distribution climate burdens noted above) it focuses on the
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roots of what is seen as evil and likely to lead to disaster if not halted. Assuming
incremental improvements to be inadequate, indictments aim to evoke a sense of
urgency and crisis. The language intends to arouse sentiments, is often passionate,
sometimes apocalyptic. To the gloomy prophet, ethical and policy discourse is
‘simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic’ (Gustafson 1996, p. 41, cf.
Dobson 2000, p. 27). As a human-induced catastrophe is near, we should
radically turn away from the evil and convert ourselves, or prepare for a
punishing or healing intervention ‘from the other side’. Utopian discourse asks
what ideal society we may hope for, and aims to inspire us towards spiritual
renewal, creativity, and endurance. The utopianist proclaims a healthy and happy
future in which society is what it should be – an ideal that functions as an
attractive allure and may motivate towards its realisation. Appealing to human
idealism, utopian language is symbolic and visionary (Gustafson 1988, 1996).
A coherent and comprehensive ecological theory exists that seems
prophetic in both its forms, strongly relevant to climate politics, and deeply
independent of climate change empirics: ‘green politics’. As Matthew Paterson
(2005) explains, green politics rests on three pillars: ecocentrism, limits to
growth, and decentralisation. A first feature of green prophetic discourse,
ecocentrism, is a profound philosophical critique of the dominant anthropo-
centric man- and worldview, which is seen as the ultimate cause of the
environmental crisis. It seeks, instead, a fundamentally different attitude
towards the man–nature relationship. Ontologically, ecocentrism assumes
holism: the idea that the world is composed of interrelationships instead of
individual entities. All beings are ecologically embedded, so that no convincing
criteria exist with which to distinguish ‘humans’ from ‘non-humans’. Morally,
ecocentrism means that man should not place himself at the centre and regard
the value of non-humans as purely instrumental. The entire ecosystem with all
its living beings should be central, because between mankind and the rest of
nature no morally relevant dividing line runs. Anthropocentrism is rejected on
consequentialist grounds: viewing nature as a collection of ‘natural resources’,
it has catastrophic effects on the environment. Ecocentrism, by contrast, is
primarily defended deontologically: people have no right to dominate the rest
of nature, because emancipation concerns both human and non-human nature
(Eckersley 1992, Dobson 2000).
 Environmental Politics 685

Now ecocentrism does not exclude ‘weak anthropocentrism’, since that

seems constitutive of the human condition. The search for the value of nature
is a human one: it will always be a human being asking questions, and only
a human being is able to conceptualise nature in terms of ‘intrinsic value’
according to which non-human forms of life possess distinct and inde-
pendent moral value (Dobson 2000, p. 55). Yet ecocentrism remains a
transcendental call for reflection on the question of whether a life led in
conscious harmony with nature is not more meaningful than the life
commonly led today. As theologians could say, modern humans may have
misunderstood ‘dominion’ as ‘exploitation’ (Kinnamon 1991, p. 57; referring
to Genesis 1: 28). Climate change provides an obviously acute context for
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such reflection.
A second prophetic feature of green politics is its concept of limits to
growth as, first of all, an indictment of the practice of taking unlimited
economic growth as sacrosanct in the industrialised world (Dobson 2000, pp.
62-111) – a practice taken for granted by the Kyoto Protocol. This feature
follows from the key claim of the famous Club of Rome report, The Limits to
Growth (Meadows et al. 1972): exponential economic and population growth is
impossible within a bounded ecological system. Whereas anthropocentrism is
the ultimate cause of the environmental crisis, the infinite and resource
intensive economic growth of the last two centuries is its direct cause.
Expansive industrialisation in the North has led to a neglect of the fact of
inescapable scarcity and to a misuse of the ecosystem, with biodiversity decline
and global warming as its consequences. Radical solutions in the sphere of
human behaviour are required; technological solutions do not work and are
even suspect (nuclear energy, biomass energy), given the contribution of
technology to the environmental crisis. Energy-saving innovations (catalytic
converters, energy-saving light bulbs) are dubious means to evade fundamental
choices: the number and size increase of cars driving around simply exceeds
their efficiency increase. The Brundtland report’s concept of ‘sustainable
development’ is clearly anthropocentric and pro-economic growth (WCED
1987, especially p. xi). What is needed is a state of sustainability: ecological
stability on ‘spaceship earth’. Sustainability requires curbing of growth,
consumption reduction (instead of recycling of what has been consumed
already), and halting practices that reproduce the growth economy (such as
advertising). A state politics directed at perpetual economic growth must be
radically stopped.
The limits to growth indictment is probingly worded (and theologically
justified) in the report of the seventh assembly of the World Council of
Churches, held in Canberra in 1991:
It is shocking and frightening ... that the human species ..., which came on the
scene somewhere around 80,000 years ago in the 4.5 billion-year long history of
this earth, has been able to threaten the very foundations of life ... in only about
200 years of industrialisation. This crisis has deep roots in human greed,
exploitation and economic systems which deny the elemental truth that any and
 686 M.R. Kamminga

every economic and social system is always a sub-system of the eco-system and
is totally dependent on it. The industrial/postindustrial economic systems
treat nature simply as ‘natural resources’ and abuse it for profit. (Kinnamon
1991, p. 56)

This statement is clearly meant to awaken readers and to evoke a sense of crisis
and urgency concerning the condition of the environment: the industrial
revolution embodies highly dangerous value orientations. And this view relates
directly to climate change since, given the central role of the atmosphere in the
ecosystem, it may lead to loss of biodiversity, disruption of global water
balance, impoverishment of land, and desertification (Keulartz 2005, pp. 14–
15). Indictment discourse concerning economic growth in industrialised
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countries, then, aims to convey moral indignation about our dealing with the
environment and the climate, anxiety about the enormous ecological footprints
of modern man and society, and a call to moderate and simplify our life and
consumption patterns (De Geus 2003).
Third, the green-prophetic discourse of limits to growth entails a highly
critical view of any ‘international climate regime’ – Kyoto or otherwise – as a
response to climate change. Green politics deeply distrusts the ‘environment-
alism’ embedded in pragmatic acceptances of the contemporary international-
political order. ‘Environmentalism’ generally accepts the framework of the
existing political, social, economic, and normative structures of world
politics, trying to solve environmental ‘problems’ within these structures. It
advocates managing environmental problems for the sake of public health
and welfare, assuming that these can be solved without basic changes in
contemporary values of patters of production and consumption (Paterson
2005, p. 236), and looking to a ‘cleaner service economy sustained by cleaner
technology and producing cleaner affluence’ (Dobson 2000, p. 11). By
contrast, green politics regards existing structures themselves as one main
cause of the environmental crisis and therefore insists that these very
structures be challenged and transformed. We should not deal with the
climate issue ‘environmentalistically’ by means of ‘flexible mechanisms’
(Kyoto), and not focus on inter-human justice that serves to legitimise
pollution. True sustainability demands radical changes in our attitude
towards nature and thus in society and global politics (Dobson 2000). While
aware of the environmentalist objection that the limits-to-growth critique
lacks problem-solving potential, the ‘critical’ green perspective maintains that
existing polluting structures may not be taken for granted but should
themselves be subjected to critical scrutiny.
Fourth, the green decentralisation argument entails a utopian discourse
that aims to work as a hopeful, ‘magnetic compass’ (see De Geus 1996, pp.
189–205) towards a global political structure in harmony with the ecosystem.
From the perspective of ecocentrism and limits to growth, the existing system
of sovereign states is unacceptable for being bound to technological
revolution, instrumental rationality, economic growth, and neglect of global
obligations. States are egoistic and designed to protect the interests of their
 Environmental Politics 687

own citizens, not to address global environmental issues. If green politics

pleaded for a strong world authority to tackle boundary-crossing, global
environmental threats such as climate change by enforcing the needed
behaviour change from above, it would be anything but inspiring: an eco-
dictatorship with totalitarian consequences for human freedom is no
attractive prospect at all. However, green politics offers a more hopeful
alternative: an ‘ecoanarchist’ vision that entails a substantial transformation
of the capitalist culture of possession-directed individualism. The required
long-term cultural change may be established in small-scale, self-reliant and
open ‘post-sovereign’ communities which interact with each other on the
basis of equality within a global network. In this way, people may learn to
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live close to (and integrated with) nature such that they ‘think globally and
act locally’.
Obviously, green decentralisation relies heavily on the changeability of
political structures and cultures, and a drastically pursued decentralisation
process will likely have unforeseen, damaging social consequences. However,
the meaning of the idea of a politically decentralised, sustainable, world society
lies at a deeper level. As Andrew Dobson explains:

[T]he possible political arrangements in a sustainable society seem to range all the
way from radical decentralization to a world government. Ecologism, though, is a
transformative political ideology: transformative of people and the way in which
they think about, relate to and act in the non-human natural world . . .
Transformative greens are in much the same position as Rousseau: the raw
material is inadequate to the task at hand. Greens are asked political-institutional
questions, and they have to answer them. Taking ‘men’ (and the societies that
have spawned them) as they are, decentralized politics seems ineffective and naive.
Taking ‘men’ (and their modes of production and consumption) as they might be,
though, decentralized politics is the preferred radical green form – and for some
of these radical greens, indeed, decentralized politics is the ecological equivalent
of Rousseau’s Lawgiver: the source of the transformation of human nature.
(Dobson 2000, p. 111)

Thus, the green decentralisation view does not purport to be realistic, but self-
consciously seeks utopian appeal.4 A truly climate friendly world society is
possible in principle, and is therefore no illusion but a meaningful ideal:
eventually, humans and cultures can experience the required radical changes,
and they may trust their efforts to be successful (Kinnamon 1991, p. 59).
The separate importance of prophetic discourse for climate ethics seems
clear from the above treatment of green politics. It informs one of the aspects
of industrial economics and international politics that might otherwise have
escaped the attention of morally conscientious observers of climate change: our
political–economic world order may well engender enormous ecological costs.
It is likely that the Kyoto approach will fall far short in dealing with global
warming; and it is very doubtful whether we could eliminate the possibility of a
climate catastrophe on the basis of a mix of pragmatic action and abstract
ethical principles without having to transform basic value orientations.
 688 M.R. Kamminga

Prophetic discourse draws our attention towards a fundamental aspect of

climate change about which we should feel uncomfortable or even ashamed: as
our behaviour towards nature and environment as a whole may have long been
wrong, global warming, even if unknown until the 1980s, was simply one major
ecological accident waiting to happen. Even climate scientists now strike alarm
like Old Testament prophets, calling for mass conversion, lest we face
punishment through famines, animal species becoming extinct, and land
disappearance. Using Biblical language that refers to a terrifying end of the
world, we might call climate change ‘apocalyptic’, called down on our heads
‘because of our sins’ (Klaus 2007). Fortunately, green prophetic discourse also
delivers a hopeful vision about how global political life in principle can be. If
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we have serious reason to be critical about the moral standing of current global
political organisation, we need a daring and appealing view of what a more
ecologically sustainable global politics looks like and how transformation
towards it could take place. Climate ethics should include utopian views that
uncompromisingly take men ‘as they might be’ rather than ‘as they are’
(Dobson), and thereby stress desirable, even if not very realistic, human
possibilities.
Green prophetic discourse, like its rivals, is insufficient in capturing the full
range of concerns of climate ethics (see Gustafson 1988, 1996). From the
perspective of ethical discourse, prophetic reflections do not help to set up an
adequate moral judgement about how we should act concerning climate change
and how we could justly divide the accompanying costs. From the perspective
of narrative discourse, prophetic climate discourse seems to ignore that the
moral outlooks, solidarities, and sympathies of persons are highly determined
by and largely limited to the (national) communities to which they belong.
From the perspective of policy discourse, prophetic green theory fails to
acknowledge the patience needed to invest in the modest incremental
improvements that actually could occur in climate politics. Yet anyone who
advocates climate policy discourse should recognise that a green-prophetic
climate movement, possibly inspired by historical examples such as the
abolition of slavery and the equalisation of women’s rights with those of men,
might develop the power to make its utopian vision realistic someday.

Conclusion
I have argued that each of the four modes of moral discourse that James
Gustafson has distinguished – ethical, narrative, policy, and prophetic – has
basic and independent, yet relative value for the ethics of climate politics.
Gustafson’s model may be said to define the scope of climate ethics, because its
discourse modes share and give expression to the belief that what ultimately
matters in climate politics is that it is moral, and thus protects a particular (set
of) deep political value(s). To focus moral discourse about climate politics too
exclusively on ethical discourse would mean losing sight of spheres of choice
and activity that appear to be of serious moral importance. Climate ethics
 Environmental Politics 689

should not be monist by being ‘ethicalist’, that is, it should not take the
analytical clarity and force of ethical discourse as a sufficient underpinning (see
Brown 2007, pp. 10–12). Climate ethics should become pluralist by making
room for all four perspectives with their shared yet different articulations of
climate morality and promoting critical interactivity between them for the
purposes of mutual recognition and limitation. To quote Gustafson (1996, p.
xiii): such a ‘traffic from different roads . . . exposes strengths and weaknesses
of different contributions; it sharpens self-critical efforts on the part of
participants; it contributes to a more comprehensive interpretation of the
phenomena under examination’. Admittedly, a Gustafson-based climate ethics
is less systematic and less rigorous than a strictly ethical conception. However,
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in reflecting a complex and imperfect human condition of an ineradicable

plurality of moral experience with climate change, it has the great advantage of
being more pedagogical (see Gustafson 1984, 1996, p. xvii).
Thus, for climate ethics to conjoin contributions from diverse moral–
political disciplines in the way just described is highly desirable, for it offers a
more profound understanding of climate change as a moral issue and a better
informed basis for moral guidance than would be possible with ethical
discourse alone. Gustafson’s model provides a moral foundation for
interdisciplinary working on climate politics – in which disciplines participate,
such as ethics, natural science, political science, international relations,
economics, social science, history, and (theological) metaphysics – to realise
non-exclusive, dialectical, and open-ended processes and procedures that make
disagreement bearable.
Yet, if indeed my reconstructions of the various positions are sufficiently
representative or otherwise plausible, it should also be acknowledged that such
a pluralist conception of climate ethics entails conflict and tragedy. After all,
while the threat of climate change seems serious, far-reaching, and urgent, in a
world of imperfect people and institutions there are clear moral limits to its
management and the distances between various modes of moral discourse are
great. It seems quite justifiable that the climate policies of industrialised states
are characterised at best by some demanding version of ecological modernisa-
tion and cooperation with other states towards a strengthened international
climate regime. For if state leaders take their responsibility to help their states
survive and flourish under anarchy, they cannot, and should not, implement
transformative ecological views and abandon industrialism or advocate global
equity through redistributive policies on a global scale at the cost of core
national interests. In contrast to Gustafson (1988, pp. 272, 275), my own view
is that in the climate politics case ethical discourse cannot plausibly be seen to
function as providing some intervening arguments for moving from prophetic
and narrative discourse to policy recommendations.
While a fusion between the four modes of moral discourse might risk doing
justice to none of them, some compromise or another might be possible. A
promising one seems to be striving for a global system that, as the result of an
immanent critique of contemporary international politics, has come to consist
 690 M.R. Kamminga

of re-built, ecological-democratic, ‘green’ states (Eckersley 2004, cf. Barry and

Eckersley 2005, Paterson 2005, pp. 250–254). Time will tell whether
compromises such as this (which should include the United States) can be
both feasible and morally acceptable; naturally, they will attract criticisms
from all four discourses. Pessimism, rather than the extremes of optimism and
fatalism, seems to be our best guide here.

Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at the 4th General Conference of the
European Consortium for Political Research, Pisa, Italy, 6–8 September 2007. The
argument and text occasionally draw on discussions in some of my earlier articles
(Kamminga 2005, 2007).
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Notes
1. Gustafson acknowledges that those who insist on stringent limits to the language,
concepts, and argumentation procedures of the discipline of ethics would find
‘morally relevant discourse’ more appropriate than ‘moral discourse’. However,
preferring the latter term himself, Gustafson ‘does not take on the old problem of
sharply distinguishing between the moral, the nonmoral, and the premoral’. His
discourses model appeals to readers’ generosity ‘to tolerate some ambiguity for the
sake of clarity on a different level’ (Gustafson 1996, p. 36, cf. p. 8).
2. To include religious identities would also seem appropriate. However, in the
modern world membership of religious communities is less typical and widespread
than national memberships, and the particularity of especially religious narratives
might impede discourse with those who do no share their authority (see Gustafson
1988, p. 269).
3. Emission trade allows a country to buy emission rights from another country that
meets its target and still has something left. Joint implementation permits rich
countries to finance energy saving projects in other industrialised countries
(particularly in Eastern Europe) in order to meet their own obligations. A clean
development mechanism allows industrialised countries to set up projects for
sustainable development in developing countries, and to subtract the resulting
emission difference from their own emissions.
4. While so drastic a proposal of political transformation seems a natural outcome of
the principles of ecocentrism and limits to growth taken together, theorists such as
Robyn Eckersley (1992, cf. 2004), Robert Goodin (1992), and Marius De Geus
(2003) argue that the state should continue to exist, albeit ‘greened’. They stress that
power and systematic coordination are needed for adequately tackling global
environmental issues and enforcing compliance. Thus, Goodin (1992, pp. 158–168)
claims on the basis of collective action logic and game theory that any plausible
model of policy coordination between decentralised green communities requires a
centralised coordinating mechanism with sanctioning powers (but see Paterson
2005, pp. 237, 246–254). Yet, while from a realistic standpoint much can be said for
this feasibility awareness, from the green politics viewpoint such a position would be
halfhearted and misunderstand the distinctively utopian significance of the
decentralisation argument. From the perspective of ecocentrism and limits to
growth, the acceptance of the states system tends towards environmentalism, while
the decentralisation idea does seem a consistent extension of the green vision of a
global society. If we start from prophetic, deeply critical principles such as
ecocentrism and limits to growth, we cannot comfortably resort to the states system,
advocate the further development of international environmental institutions, and
 Environmental Politics 691

thus try to ‘rebuild the ship while still at sea’ (see Eckersley 2004, p. 5); that would
imply an appeal to considerations that have their place within policy discourse and
perhaps also ethical discourse, but are susceptible to prophetic criticism precisely for
this reason. Even so, the above position might entail a viable climate ethical
compromise between the various modes of moral discourse, as I shall suggest in the
conclusion.

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