Abstract :

2023 has been recorded as the hottest year ever. Sierra Leone is ranked among the 10% of countries that are prone and most vulnerable to climate impacts globally and Susan Bay is bearing the brunt of climate change impacts, including rising sea levels and flooding. Biodiversity is being impacted by human unethical behavior, wrong perceptions, and unhealthy activities. This has resulted to global surface temperatures reached 1.1°C. However, to address the situation UNESCO and COMEST proposed guidelines for Governments in their mitigation and adaptation strategies an ethical tool to achieve climate justice.

An integrative review was employed to examine existing literatures. Also, key words were used to search popular databases, including Web of Science, Google Scholar, and PubMed, from the years 2010 to 2023 with a total of 53 articles.  We argued that the most affected population should receive financial compensation from G20 countries responsible for majority of the Green House Gas Emissions. Therefore, the paper proposed for the Government of Sierra Leone to ensure policy regulation and enforcement, community development and empowerment, and community protection and resilience in their actions, missions, and visions from our analytical framework.

The paper recommends for the GoSL to integrate ethical and moral values into climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, in line with UNESCO and COMEST recommendations with emphasis on: Prevention of harm; scientific integrity; and justice and equity. Inadequate financial resources and technical expertise hinders the GoSL in implementing these recommendations. To address these challenges, the study suggests that G20 nations should provide climate finance and scientific support to help the GoSL efficiently develop and execute its climate mitigation and adaptation strategies a path to climate justice.

---

Keywords :

Climate change; Climate justice, Ethical and moral dimension; Susan’s Bay; Social Justice; Sustainable Development.

---

References :

1. Ali, D. A., Deininger, K., & Goldstein, M. (2014). Environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in Africa: Pilot evidence from Rwanda. Journal of Development Economics, 110, 262-275.
2. Allen, M., Dube, O., Solecki, W., Aragón-Durand, F., Cramer, W., Humphreys, S., & Kainuma, M. (2018). Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 C. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
3. Bain, P. G., Hornsey, M. J., Bongiorno, R., & Jeffries, C. (2012). Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers. Nature Climate Change, 2(8), 600-603.
4. Ballew, M. T., Pearson, A. R., Goldberg, M. H., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A. (2020). Does socioeconomic status moderate the political divide on climate change? The roles of education, income, and individualism. Global Environmental Change, 60, 102024.
5. Barma, N. H., & Vogel, S. K. (2021). The political economy reader: Contending perspectives and contemporary debates. Routledge.
6. Blomfield, M. (2019). Global justice, natural resources, and climate change. Oxford University Press, USA.
7. Bridge, D. J. (2022). The ethics of climate change: a systematic literature review. Accounting & Finance, 62(2), 2651-2665.
8. Bryant, B., & Mohai, P. (2019). Race and the incidence of environmental hazards: A time for discourse. Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429303661

9. Calliari, E., Serdeczny, O., & Vanhala, L. (2020). Making sense of the politics in the climate change loss & damage debate. Global Environmental Change, 64, 102133.
10. Calmon, D., Jacovetti, C., & Koné, M. (2021). Agrarian climate justice as a progressive alternative to climate security: Mali at the intersection of natural resource conflicts. Third World Quarterly, 42(12), 2785-2803.
11. Caney, S. (2005). Cosmopolitan justice, responsibility, and global climate change. Leiden journal of international law, 18(4), 747-775.
12. Carrico, A. R., Donato, K. M., Best, K. B., & Gilligan, J. (2020). Extreme weather and marriage among girls and women in Bangladesh. Global Environmental Change, 65, 102160.
13. Chatterton, P., Featherstone, D., & Routledge, P. (2013). Articulating climate justice in Copenhagen: Antagonism, the commons, and solidarity. Antipode, 45(3), 602-620.
14. Chen, C., Noble, I., Hellmann, J., Coffee, J., Murillo, M., & Chawla, N. (2015). University of Notre Dame global adaptation index. University of Notre Dame.
15. Clayton, S., Koehn, A., & Grover, E. (2013). Making sense of the senseless: Identity, justice, and the framing of environmental crises. Social Justice Research, 26, 301-319.
16. Corvino, F., & Andina, T. The Global Philosophy of the (Global) Carbon Budget.
17. Diffenbaugh, N. S., & Burke, M. (2019). Global warming has increased global economic inequality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(20), 9808-9813.
18. Documentation, U. N., Reference, & Section, T. (1992). Environment and Development (Vol. 2). UN.
19. Feinberg, M., & Willer, R. (2013). The moral roots of environmental attitudes. Psychological science, 24(1), 56-62.
20. Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Kovacheff, C. (2020). The activist’s dilemma: Extreme protest actions reduce popular support for social movements. Journal of personality and social psychology, 119(5), 1086.
21. Ferguson, M. A., & Branscombe, N. R. (2010). Collective guilt mediates the effect of beliefs about global warming on willingness to engage in mitigation behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(2), 135-142.
22. Follingstad, G. (2023). Tipping Points for a Seminal New Era of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice. In (Vol. 1, pp. 3-7): MIT Press One Broadway, 12th Floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA ….
23. Ganesh, C., Schmeltz, M., & Smith, J. (2020). Introduction climate change and the legal, ethical, and health issues facing healthcare and public health systems. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 48(4), 636-642.
24. Gardiner, S. M. (2010). Ethics and climate change: an introduction. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 1(1), 54-66. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.16
25. Grasso, M., & Markowitz, E. M. (2015). The moral complexity of climate change and the need for a multidisciplinary perspective on climate ethics. Climatic change, 130, 327-334.
26. Greenwood, N., & Warren, P. (2022). The role of climate finance beyond renewables: Behavioural insights. Journal of International Development, 34(8), 1570-1586.
27. Harth, N. S., Leach, C. W., & Kessler, T. (2013). Guilt, anger, and pride about in-group environmental behaviour: Different emotions predict distinct intentions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 34, 18-26.
28. Hattingh, J. P. (2010). The ethical implications of global climate change.
29. Hurst, K., & Stern, M. J. (2020). Messaging for environmental action: The role of moral framing and message source. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 68, 101394.
30. Jamieson, D. (2010). Climate change, responsibility, and justice. Science and engineering ethics, 16, 431-445.
31. Lohmann, L. (2008). Carbon trading, climate justice and the production of ignorance: ten examples. Development, 51(3), 359-365.
32. Mach, K. J., Kraan, C. M., Hino, M., Siders, A., Johnston, E. M., & Field, C. B. (2019). Managed retreat through voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties. Science Advances, 5(10), eaax8995.
33. Markowitz, E. M., & Shariff, A. F. (2012). Climate change and moral judgement. Nature Climate Change, 2(4), 243-247.
34. Mochizuki, Y., & Bryan, A. (2015). Climate change education in the context of education for sustainable development: Rationale and principles. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 9(1), 4-26.
35. Morello-Frosch, R., & Shenassa, E. D. (2006). The environmental “riskscape” and social inequality: implications for explaining maternal and child health disparities. Environmental health perspectives, 114(8), 1150-1153.
36. Muttitt, G., & Kartha, S. (2020). Equity, climate justice and fossil fuel extraction: principles for a managed phase out. Climate Policy, 20(8), 1024-1042.
37. Opotow, S., & Clayton, S. (1994). Green justice: Conceptions of fairness and the natural world. Journal of Social Issues, 50(3), 1-11.
38. Palm, E. (2016). What is the critical role of intercultural information ethics. Ethics and communication: global perspectives. In Collste, G.(Ed.), 181-195.
39. Parmesan, C., Morecroft, M. D., & Trisurat, Y. (2022). Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability GIEC].
40. Parry, I., Morris, A., & Williams III, R. C. (2015). Implementing a US carbon tax: Challenges and debates. Routledge.
41. Pearson, A. R., Tsai, C. G., & Clayton, S. (2021). Ethics, morality, and the psychology of climate justice. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 36-42.
42. Pettit, J. (2004). Climate justice: A new social movement for atmospheric rights.
43. Pottier, A., Méjean, A., Godard, O., & Hourcade, J.-C. (2017). A survey of global climate justice: from negotiation stances to moral stakes and back. International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, 11(1), 1-53.
44. Reid, A. (2019). Climate change education and research: possibilities and potentials versus problems and perils? In (Vol. 25, pp. 767-790): Taylor & Francis.
45. Sabbagh, C., & Schmitt, M. (2016). Handbook of social justice theory and research. Springer.
46. Sandel, M. J. (2011). Justice: What’s the right thing to do. BUL Rev., 91, 1303.
47. Santha, S. D. (2020). Climate change and adaptive innovation: A model for social work practice. Routledge.
48. Schunz, S. (2023). The European Union’s roles in global atmospheric governance: evolving towards a ‘spacifier’? Journal of European Integration, 45(8), 1161-1180.
49. Smith, L., Abitbol, E., & Allard-Buffoni, F. (2021). Evaluation of UNESCO’s Strategy for Action on Climate Change (2018-2021).
50. Sultana, F. (2022). Critical climate justice. The Geographical Journal, 188(1), 118-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12417
51. Swim, J. K., & Bloodhart, B. (2018). The intergroup foundations of climate change justice. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(3), 472-496.
52. Thomas, K., Hardy, R. D., Lazrus, H., Mendez, M., Orlove, B., Rivera‐Collazo, I., Roberts, J. T., Rockman, M., Warner, B. P., & Winthrop, R. (2019). Explaining differential vulnerability to climate change: A social science review. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 10(2), e565.
53. Ulibarri, N., Figueroa, O. P., & Grant, A. (2022). Barriers and opportunities to incorporating environmental justice in the National Environmental Policy act. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 97, 106880.
54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar .2022.106880
55. White, L. V., & Sintov, N. D. (2020). Health and financial impacts of demand-side response measures differ across sociodemographic groups. Nature Energy, 5(1), 50-60.
56. Whitmarsh, L., & Corner, A. (2017). Tools for a new climate conversation: A mixed-methods study of language for public engagement across the political spectrum. Global Environmental Change, 42, 122-135.
57. Wolsko, C. (2017). Expanding the range of environmental values: Political orientation, moral foundations, and the common ingroup. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 51, 284-294.
58. Wolsko, C., Ariceaga, H., & Seiden, J. (2016). Red, white, and blue enough to be green: Effects of moral framing on climate change attitudes and conservation behaviors. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 65, 7-19.