Ethical risks of attenuating climate change through new energy systems: the case of a biofuel system

It has been estimated that a quarter of global energy could be consumed by transport, accounting for approximately 25% of total carbon dioxide emissions. This provides opportunity to reduce emissions through alternative fuels. As a result, biofuels have recently become the focus of many climate change policy discussions. However, those produced from agricultural crops are not greenhouse gas neutral and have the potential to transform many of the earth's natural landscapes into monocultures. This land transformation leads to ethical trade-offs that should be addressed before policy is put in place. These trade-offs will likely result in competing social institutions with different values. A scientific approach to assessing ethics is too reductionistic to achieve a fair outcome. Normative ethical theory is discussed as a means to deal with competing values in a just manner. The Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE) process should be used to achieve the fairest policy.