The seminar series "Climate Justice: Ethical Reflection and Transformative Action" offers an in-depth engagement with key aspects of the climate crisis. It's a low-threshold continuing education programme (compatible with full-time work; no exams). At its core is the question of climate justice — that is, the ethical dimension of the climate crisis.
The global climate emergency raises numerous, serious moral questions, particularly due to the asymmetry between the main producers of greenhouse gas emissions (wealthy countries of the Global North) and those currently most affected by global heating and its catastrophic consequences: namely poor people, women, children, and indigenous peoples in countries of the Global South, who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But even in wealthy countries like Austria, the impact of climate change is socially unevenly distributed — it hits members of the working class (e.g. construction workers) and socially disadvantaged groups harder, for example people whose homes are more severely affected by heat. This concerns the consequences of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, drought, dryness, heavy rainfall and flooding, hurricanes, and so on, which are both increasing in frequency and intensifying due to disruption of the climate system.
Topics:
- scientific foundations based on the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, AR6)
- consequences of climate change and adaptation using examples from the Global South
- public and political discourse on climate migration
- climate justice: history, positions of the international climate justice movement; introduction to philosophical climate ethics
- right-wing populist climate denial
- the climate emergency as a challenge for religions: climate activism and civil disobedience from a theological-spiritual perspective
- climate policy at international, European, and Austrian level: current state of climate policy
- civil society engagement for climate protection (including climate litigation)
- staying engaged without burning out: individual resilience in the climate emergency
- perspectives from political ecology: critique of the "imperial mode of living"
- socio-ecological transformation and power relations; the spiritual dimension of a systemic, worldview transformation
Alongside conveying up-to-date scientific knowledge, the programme focuses on personal exchange, networking, and mutual encouragement to take action among participants from various backgrounds. In support of personal resilience, an optional meditation session is offered within the seminars.
Registration deadline: 25 April 2025
www.donau-uni.ac.at/klimagerechtigkeit
