Climate change and wildlife: What climate ethics duties can be justified towards wildlife

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Johann S. Ach
• Subject Area: Practical Philosophy
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563397740

There can no longer be any reasonable doubt about anthropogenic climate change and its foreseeably catastrophic and in some cases life-threatening consequences for humans, animals and plants. Many non-human animals are negatively affected by the consequences of anthropogenic climate change in a similar way to current and future humans. They are increasingly threatened by floods, heat, drought and the destruction of their habitats. However, non-human animals and their interests have so far only played a minor or subordinate role in the climate ethics debate. Against this background, the research project asks whether climate ethical duties towards wild animals can be justified and, if so, what these duties are. With a view to foreseeable conflicts of interest and trade-offs (trade-offs between humans and non-human living beings, trade-offs between individuals and species; trade-offs between individual animals), the aim is to show which interests and concerns are at stake in specific cases and how these are to be weighted, and to formulate a proposal as to what political structures and procedures could look like that are suitable for doing justice to the climate ethics obligations identified in the project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants