Overcoming climate action implementation challenges in Energy, Governance, Public Health, and Waste Management
using applied ethics strategies

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Explore challenges by system:

Energy Governance Public Health Waste Management

Explore a city challenge to learn how applied ethics strategies could accelerate climate action implementation

Energy

Governance

Public Health

Waste Management

About this tool

Implementing climate action presents tough decisions, not least around how burdens and benefits are distributed. Acceptance or support for action is contingent on what those involved value and consider to be the right course of action for them, and those they care about. Justifications matter. When policies, investments, instruments, or interventions designed to promote action are blind to, or neglect, the ethical frameworks of those involved, their implementation can be limited, face backlash, or worse—fail altogether.

This is where applied ethics comes in. Applied ethics offers a practical approach to better understand human choices and address real-world problems. Its efficacy in fields such as medicine, science, and engineering is well established. Applied ethics provides new insights for how to implement climate action, helping to identify obstacles, routes to overcome them, and new pathways to accelerate delivery and enhance impact.

Cities are a key implementation locus for global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Those implementing climate action in cities must navigate diverse communities with different ethical frameworks and consequent perspectives. Therefore, innovative approaches that help build awareness, understanding, and capacity to identify and better work with the ethical dimensions of this type of action could be globally transformative.

Through the presentation of illustrative examples based on real-world challenges faced by cities internationally, this tool aims to demonstrate how applied ethics strategies could accelerate the implementation of climate action. Each case presented intentionally focuses on the application of just one of these strategies, but in real life more than one might be applied for better effect.

Whilst some elements of these strategies might seem familiar to those with experience in the implementation of climate action, their deliberate, systematic application is far from widespread and if adopted more comprehensively, could be globally transformative.

Credits

This tool was developed by Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs as a Carnegie Ethics Accelerator output. It was inspired by an expert convening in New York City held under the Chatham House Rule that brought together a group of expert participants including specialists in applied ethics and those working to catalyze the implementation of climate action in cities.

To learn more about the conversation during the convening, download the Meeting Notes.

For press inquiries or questions, please contact Carnegie Ethics Accelerator Lead Samuel Bradshaw at sbradshaw@cceia.org.