TITLE:
Local Altruism as an Environmental Ethic in CO2 Emissions Control
AUTHORS:
Masayuki Otaki
KEYWORDS:
Parentage as Local Altruism, Social Discount Rate, Environmental Ethics, Sustainability
JOURNAL NAME:
Atmospheric and Climate Sciences,
Vol.5 No.4,
October
12,
2015
ABSTRACT: When considering
emissions control problems associated with carbon dioxide (CO2),
social planning over quite a long-term horizon is usually considered to be
necessary because it takes much time for the full absorption of CO2 by oceans and forests. Sometimes the required time horizon even becomes
infinite. Such a fact seems to impose patience beyond the limits of human
cognition. However, this study proves that the first-best emissions scenario
can be achieved only by local altruism, which is dubbed parentage. Parentage is
defined as the action of applying zero social discount rate to its subsequent generation,
and discounting the utility of generations thereafter infinitely. In this
sense, the nearly first-best emissions scenario is feasible within the ordinal cognition
and benevolence of human beings. This paper also examines the definition of
egalitarian sustainability, in which the utility of every generation must be
kept constant, and reveals that such a definition of sustainability possibly
provokes the inefficient intergenerational allocation of CO2. This
is because the vested interest of the predecessors is put much importance in
the process of the planning. It is required more rigid sustainability concept,
in which the utility of each generation is no less decreasing through time and
at least strictly increasing locally, to achieve the efficient allocation of CO2.
One will find that the intergenerational allocation by the local altruism
satisfies this property.