PhD Students: Alix Dietzel
Details
Email: a.dietzel@sheffield.ac.uk
Working Thesis Title: Global Justice and Climate Change
Start Year: 2011
Supervisors
Garrett Brown and Hayley Stevenson
Research Topic
Climate Change is one of the most pressing and important global problems we currently face as an international community. Although there is no scientific consensus on what the exact effects of climate change will be, it is generally agreed that the global climate will become markedly warmer, and that weather will become increasingly unpredictable. The effects of climate change will exacerbate existing global issues, such as poverty, hunger, and poor health, as it will make farming difficult, lead to water shortages, and displace populations. Furthermore, climate change will have detrimental effects on less developed countries. They will be most exposed to drier, hotter climates, unpredictable weather patterns and flooding, and are less capable of adapting to these conditions because of their limited resources.
Action on climate change is urgently required. The Stern Review has called for ‘an international response, based on a shared understanding of long-term goals and agreement on frameworks for action.’ However, action taken so far has been less than ideal. The global response to climate change has been associated with empty promises and breakdowns in communication. This suggests that the ‘international response’ called for in the Stern Review has not yet materialized. I believe that for this response to emerge, two separate problems need to be addressed. The first is a lack of ‘shared understanding,’ which I view as a moral issue, and the second is the absence of an effective ‘framework for action,’ which I view as an institutional issue. I would like to address both of these problems in my thesis.
The first part of my research will focus on mapping the moral issues and normative approaches associated with climate change. I will explore multiple normative approaches, in order to illustrate why a global justice approach is the most appropriate for combatting climate change. Climate change raises complex distributive issues about who should pay how much for mitigation and adaptation, and global justice theories best capture all of the nuances of these issues. Using global justice theory, I hope to develop a unique ethics of climate change. I plan to apply this ethics of climate change to broader institutional questions in order to develop a coherent framework for action. This framework will outline suggestions about how to improve current action against climate change. I hope that my work, through its two-tiered approach, will make a useful contribution to future discourse on combating climate change.
Research Interests
Climate change, global justice, cosmopolitanism, human rights, international development, political theory, and international relations theory. I am especially interested in using political theory to approach current global issues.
Research Training Group / Research Cluster Membership
- Political Theory (2009 – 2010)
- Political Theory and Global Justice (2011 – Present)
Professional Affiliations
- Centre for Political Theory and Global Justice
Awards
- University of Sheffield Fee Scholarship, for MA and MPhil/PhD.
Previous Education
- 2009 – 2010: MA Research Methods in Politics and International Relations, Distinction (University of Sheffield).
- 2006 – 2009: BA Politics and International Relations (University of Sheffield).
- International Baccalaureate (IB), Bilingual Diploma (English and German) awarded 2006.
Other Experience
- November 2010 – May 2011: Internship at CODA International, an international development charity.
- December 2011 – Present: Research assistant work for Ian Bache.