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The existential climate crisis indicates new fossil fuel projects cannot be scientifically or ethically justified. Action is therefore required by professionals well beyond the health field [1]. The IPPC wants urgent ‘near term’ climate actions, and governance and policy changes. Researchers too have highlighted how a lack of moral guidance and ethics for the oil industry has damaged policy, governance and professional engagement with sustainable approaches to the climate crisis [2,3].
The ethical position requires little explanation or justification. The global effects of continuing to produce carbon are obvious in terms of human morbidity and mortality that health professionals increasingly address. The environmental damage from fires, floods and droughts is clearly visible. Tackling climate change upstream by stopping new fossil fuel industry developments is now critical to public health.
Recently a group of mainly English lawyers pledged not to act for the fossil fuel industry in defiance of their existing professional body rules. One lawyer observed the law ‘worked for the industry’ but they based their pledge on the climate science [4]. Individual professionals, however, still working for or with the fossil fuel industries like environmental impact assessors, engineers, chemists, geologists, planners, economists, and bankers continue to support new oil and gas developments for various reasons. There are those who fear reprisals if they to refuse to work on new or expanded existing oil and gas projects. Others indicate their work will mitigate the most damaging climate effect developments and do not explain how this can be achieved in an immediate global crisis. Yet others indicate they simply obey orders, accept developments are legal and display ‘wilful ignorance’ of the known climate change effects. The fact is no new developments can happen without them.
Strong professional ethical codes could influence, guide and possibly protect these professionals if they declined to work on new proposals: a difficult and challenging decision to make. Such codes could be overseen by an independent regulatory body. Currently , the codes touch on ethical issues but may infrequently mention climate and public health. They usually ‘suggest,’ sometimes ‘advise,’ sometimes ‘recommend’ actions by members. They rarely ‘require” members to act ‘sustainably’ and protect the public, the environment, and future generations. Different codes exist too for each professions such as the Royal Academy of Engineering, the UK Society for the Environment, and the Royal Town Planning Institute [5,6,7]. None appear to monitor and regulate sustainability and unethical environmental behaviour actively and fully.
The most effective codes of professional ethics provide a common set of standards and guide best practice which protect the individual professional, their employer and clients or patients. Principles of ‘doing no harm’ and supporting ‘justice’ are established. Medical codes of ethics and related oversight bodies, although not perfect, could provide a useful template and principles for the fossil fuel industry professional bodies as they are underpinned by commitments to do no harm. Protecting the global climate through sustainable actions should automatically be built into the codes.
The International Association for Impact Assessment Code refers to “a just and sustainable world for people and the environment’ and the rights and interests of future [8]. This vision needs to be captured and expanded in revised codes and guidance to better support all professional groups who decline to work on new climate-damaging fossil fuel projects or extend existing ones. New or improved codes would therefore offer enhanced degrees of protection to the professionals working in the industry, provide an upstream approach to preventing further public health damage from fossil fuels and, at the same time, send a powerful message to politicians, industry and the public about addressing climate change threats.
Working for or with the fossil fuel industries on new developments can no longer be ethically justified in the light of global climate change and the great public health and sustainability damage the industries bring.
Dear Editor
The existential climate crisis indicates new fossil fuel projects cannot be scientifically or ethically justified. Action is therefore required by professionals well beyond the health field [1]. The IPPC wants urgent ‘near term’ climate actions, and governance and policy changes. Researchers too have highlighted how a lack of moral guidance and ethics for the oil industry has damaged policy, governance and professional engagement with sustainable approaches to the climate crisis [2,3].
The ethical position requires little explanation or justification. The global effects of continuing to produce carbon are obvious in terms of human morbidity and mortality that health professionals increasingly address. The environmental damage from fires, floods and droughts is clearly visible. Tackling climate change upstream by stopping new fossil fuel industry developments is now critical to public health.
Recently a group of mainly English lawyers pledged not to act for the fossil fuel industry in defiance of their existing professional body rules. One lawyer observed the law ‘worked for the industry’ but they based their pledge on the climate science [4]. Individual professionals, however, still working for or with the fossil fuel industries like environmental impact assessors, engineers, chemists, geologists, planners, economists, and bankers continue to support new oil and gas developments for various reasons. There are those who fear reprisals if they to refuse to work on new or expanded existing oil and gas projects. Others indicate their work will mitigate the most damaging climate effect developments and do not explain how this can be achieved in an immediate global crisis. Yet others indicate they simply obey orders, accept developments are legal and display ‘wilful ignorance’ of the known climate change effects. The fact is no new developments can happen without them.
Strong professional ethical codes could influence, guide and possibly protect these professionals if they declined to work on new proposals: a difficult and challenging decision to make. Such codes could be overseen by an independent regulatory body. Currently , the codes touch on ethical issues but may infrequently mention climate and public health. They usually ‘suggest,’ sometimes ‘advise,’ sometimes ‘recommend’ actions by members. They rarely ‘require” members to act ‘sustainably’ and protect the public, the environment, and future generations. Different codes exist too for each professions such as the Royal Academy of Engineering, the UK Society for the Environment, and the Royal Town Planning Institute [5,6,7]. None appear to monitor and regulate sustainability and unethical environmental behaviour actively and fully.
The most effective codes of professional ethics provide a common set of standards and guide best practice which protect the individual professional, their employer and clients or patients. Principles of ‘doing no harm’ and supporting ‘justice’ are established. Medical codes of ethics and related oversight bodies, although not perfect, could provide a useful template and principles for the fossil fuel industry professional bodies as they are underpinned by commitments to do no harm. Protecting the global climate through sustainable actions should automatically be built into the codes.
The International Association for Impact Assessment Code refers to “a just and sustainable world for people and the environment’ and the rights and interests of future [8]. This vision needs to be captured and expanded in revised codes and guidance to better support all professional groups who decline to work on new climate-damaging fossil fuel projects or extend existing ones. New or improved codes would therefore offer enhanced degrees of protection to the professionals working in the industry, provide an upstream approach to preventing further public health damage from fossil fuels and, at the same time, send a powerful message to politicians, industry and the public about addressing climate change threats.
(1) Limb M. Climate change: Window to act is closing rapidly, warn scientists BMJ 2023; 380 :p674. doi:10.1136/bmj.p674https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p851?utm_source=etoc&utm_medium=emai...
(2) Grasso M (2020) Towards a broader climate ethics: Confronting the oil industry with morally relevant facts. Energy Research & Social Science. Vol 62, 101383, ISSN 2214-6296 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101383.
(3) Watterson A, Dinan W. Lagging and Flagging: Air Pollution, Shale Gas Exploration and the Interaction of Policy, Science, Ethics and Environmental Justice in England. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jun 17;17(12):4320. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17124320.
(4) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/exxonmobil-lobbyists-oil...
(5) https://www.engc.org.uk/standards-guidance/guidance/statement-of-ethical...
(6) https://socenv.org.uk/page/CodeofConduct
(7) https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/1966/ethics-update-2017.pdf
(8) https://www.iaia.org/pdf/Code-of-Ethics.pdf
Competing interests: No competing interests