A ética da geoengenharia do clima: uma investigação filosófica de justiça climática

Abstract

This research aims to examine the ethical issues raised by the technologies known as “geoengineering,” as well as their implications within the debate on climate justice. Climate change is regarded as a central problem of contemporary ethics and political philosophy, with particular attention to the normative challenges posed by climate geoengineering technologies. Starting from the diagnosis that global warming is driven primarily by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, this study argues that climate change cannot be adequately understood solely on the basis of scientific knowledge, but instead requires a broader ethical and political analysis. In the first chapter, climate change is characterized as an ethical and political-philosophical issue. Stephen Gardiner’s conception of climate change as a “perfect moral storm” is employed to highlight its global, intergenerational, and theoretical dimensions, as well as the inequalities in the distribution of its impacts. Drawing on authors such as Henry Shue, David Wallace-Wells, and Darrel Moellendorf, the study discusses the moral responsibility of the current generation and the need for climate policies that reconcile mitigation, adaptation, and social justice, particularly with regard to vulnerable populations. The second chapter analyzes the main geoengineering technologies, with a focus on solar radiation management (SRM), discussing their objectives, risks, and the principal arguments for and against their research and possible implementation. Finally, the third chapter examines proposals for the ethical governance of geoengineering, highlighting the Oxford Principles and the Tollgate Principles, as well as non-ideal approaches to justice, such as the one proposed by Toby Svoboda. The dissertation concludes that, although geoengineering is often presented as an emergency response to the failure of mitigation policies, it should be understood less as a desirable solution and more as a normatively problematic horizon, whose research and assessment must be critically guided by the principles of climate justice.