Ethical Issues and Governance of Global Carbon Trading

Carbon trading uses market-based means to reduce and control carbon emissions, which is an effective way to promote global climate governance and realize low-carbon globalization. Global carbon trading has profound ethical implications, and shoulders the noble mission of achieving global carbon neutrality, promoting green and sustainable development, and enhancing the awareness of ecological ethics. Due to subjective and objective reasons such as the lack of core value orientation and value consensus in global carbon trading, the alienation of ethical relationship among carbon trading subjects and the deviation of value orientation of the subjects, as well as the internal defects of carbon trading system, there are ethical problems such as insufficient participation of the subjects in the current global carbon trading, irrational allocation of carbon quotas, and prominent risks of abuse in the carbon market. Thus the world is faced with the global ethical dilemmas such as evading carbon responsibility, violating carbon justice and lacking carbon credit. The governance of the ethical issues of global carbon trading should follow the principles of ecological collectivism, common but differentiated responsibilities, distributive justice and the unity of mandatory and conscious trading. Furthermore, it is recommended to establish a globally unified multilateral synergistic and linkage system of carbon trading, improve the relevant laws and regulations of global carbon trading based on international law, and create a global ecological ethical culture of low-carbon development and low-carbon life.