Adaptation Duties

This chapter addresses an under investigated issue of climate ethics: the duty of adaptation, i.e., a standard of moral behavior required of duty bearers due to their violation of the no harm principle which involves a practical commitment to rectify consequent harmful impacts. This chapter, after framing the duty of adaptation within a harm-centered perspective, first identifies its constitutive moral features: the duty bearers, i.e., the agent who should bear the burdens required of the duty of adaptation; the forms in which the duty of adaptation abides by its moral mandate; the scope, i.e., the morally-pertinent harm that the duty of adaptation should financially rectify; and the duty-recipients, i.e., the agents entitled to rectification and the modality of the allocation of the rectificatory actions among them. It goes on to examine the empirical features of the duty of adaptation dictated by its moral articulation: the structure through which the duty of adaptation should be attained; and the currency and magnitude of its required rectification actions. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of why and how other agents have a second-order duty to ensure the bearers of the duty of adaptation meet their commitments.