ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the case for why climate change mitigation is ethically preferable to adaptation on human rights, global justice, environmental value, and welfarist grounds. Climatic and ecological effects from anthropogenic increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) concentrations are already occurring. Global climate change dramatically increases non-human species extinctions rates. Distributive justice is not the only ethical consideration that favours more intensive mitigation. A human rights approach requires to reconceive the way in which one thinks about the costs involved in mitigation and adaptation. Some mitigation strategies are much more likely to have negative unintended impacts than others. In some cases, negative ecological impacts are foreseeable. In policy discussions regarding mitigation, the focus has been on how much to mitigate, as well as how to fairly distribute mitigation responsibilities between nations. Some considerations relevant to mitigation evaluation are technical.
