PUBLIC LECTURE: Taking Responsibility for Climate Change

A public lecture by Robyn Eckersley, Professor of Political Science, University of Melbourne.

Who should take responsibility for climate change? ‘Weather of mass destruction’ is no less catastrophic a risk than ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or terrorism, but it has not produced the same sense of political responsibility for all those made vulnerable because we cannot pin down responsibility.

In this public lecture, Robyn Eckersley will show why climate change does not fit comfortably into the dominant liberal moral grammar of responsibility, which is rooted in notions of individual agency, direct causation and culpability. This grammar of responsibility obscures the structural character of climate change risks, which are becoming increasingly complex, incalculable and uninsurable.

She will defend an alternative account of political responsibility that connects historical responsibility for causing climate change with the present capacity to prevent and/or reduce the risks of dangerous climate change and protect the most vulnerable.

This lecture is a part of the Institute of Advanced Studies 2012 lecture series ‘Global Transformation and Public Ethics’.

Cost: Free, RSVP your attendance via http://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/eckersley