Social pact for climate change
On May 27, an event was held on the relationship between ethics and climate change, organized by the Master's Project on Climate Change, Agriculture and Sustainable Rural Development; the Ethics Program, and the School of Environmental Engineering of the University of Azuay.
The discussion was moderated by Johanna Ochoa, Coordinator of the School of Environmental Engineering, and Ana María Bustos, Coordinator of the UDA Law School with a master's degree in Environment, and Pablo Guzmán, civil engineer, PhD in Biosciences and Engineering participated. from the Free University of Brussels in Belgium and is a research professor at the UDA.
The objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change proposes to achieve the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic inferences in the climate system, that is, that the human impact on the environment does not result in dangerous consequences.
This objective must be fulfilled within a sufficient period of time to allow the natural adaptation of ecosystems and man to ensure food production and sustainable economic development.
Climate change is an ethical issue, since the cascade of impacts begins with an anthropogenic interference of greenhouse gas emissions that causes alterations in the climate (such as increases in temperature and changes in the magnitude and distribution of rainfall). .
It then causes impacts on physical systems (such as glaciers and other bodies of water), on biological systems (that is, terrestrial, aquatic, and agricultural ecosystems).
Finally, it causes damage to human systems (loss of ecosystem services, increased exposure to hazards, etc.), generating vulnerability and a greater probability of the materialization of risks.
Bustos mentioned the "Social Pact for Climate Change" as an agreement of will that begins with the recognition that in order to address the problems arising from climate change, it must first be recognized that it is a social problem.
"It is not born as an environmental problem, it has environmental consequences, but it starts as a social problem, so it must be addressed and resolved from society," declared Bustos.
Meanwhile, Guzmán stressed that through monitoring, humans can know what our ecosystem feels.
Through this monitoring, scientists are realizing that climate change is not only changing the weather pattern, but it is letting the world know that the earth needs to breathe.
"Ethics is closely related to human behavior and, therefore, is immersed in all the actions that they carry out," concluded Guzmán.
UDA Correspondents
