Page 173 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Ethics and environment

Francesco La Camera
General Director for Sustainable Development, Environmental Damage and
Relations with EU and International Organizations of the Ministry of the
Environment and Protection of Landy and Sea

Why are we discussing ethics and the environment? Probably because
there is a widespread perception that an overview of the relationship between
the environment and the socio-economic system highlights a set of values that
still has not found an adequate affirmation in our society.

I will start my considerations from the Paris Agreement on Climate
Change. The president of the Conference of the Parts of the Framework
Convention on Climate Change (COP 21), the French Minister Fabius, having
banged the gavel that sanctioned the adoption of the Agreement, has conclu-
ded that the agreement reached was a differentiated, fair, lasting, dynamic,
balanced and legally binding agreement.

I will concentrate on one of these attributes: a fair agreement. I will say at
the outset that it is an historical agreement approved by 195 nations that have
committed themselves to reduce emissions and adjust their productive systems
to the ongoing Climate Change, overcoming the old division between develo-
ped countries and developing countries. Therefore the whole of the internatio-
nal community has committed to fight Climate Change, each country according
to its own ability and its own means. 175 Countries in recent days have signed
this Agreement in New York, in a solemn ceremony at the UN. 15 countries
have already ratified it.

The definition of “fair” is different according to the point of view from
which we look at the relationship between the economic system and the envi-
ronmental system and how this relationship is interpreted. Let’s consider first
the point of view of traditional economy and then of ecologic economy.

In traditional economy, the one that is predominantly studied in our uni-
versities, and on whose tests the present ruling class of this country was edu-
cated, the relationship between the two systems can be summarised thus: eco-

171