Grounding Climate Action in Ethics and Confronting Disinformation: A Conversation with Kathryn Gwiazdon
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Listen to this episode: Duration: 50 min.
Quick Overview
In this episode, Kathryn Gwiazdon, Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Ethics and Law and Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law’s Ethics Specialist Group, offers an in-depth exploration of the ethical dimensions of climate governance.
Drawing on her contributions to The Routledge Handbook of Applied Climate Ethics, she examines issues such as climate disinformation, democratic integrity, and the pressing ethical imperatives that define our time.
Situated within the broader context of the COP30 call for a Global Ethical Stocktake, this discussion highlights the centrality of ethics in climate action, the enduring relevance of the Earth Charter, and recent landmark judicial decisions that are reshaping state obligations in responding to climate change.
Questions and Topics Addressed in this Episode
1.What is the purpose and the key ideas we can find in the book “The Routledge Handbook of Applied Climate Ethics?”
2. What are the key ideas your articulate in your chapters:
- The Climate Change Disinformation Campaign Attacking the Common Good, Advancing the Self, and Destroying Democracy
- Saving Democracy Denying the Alternate Reality of Climate Denialism
3. What are your thoughts on the COP 30 presidency call for a Climate Action “Global Ethical Stocktake” (GES)?
4. What are your thoughts on the Earth Charter?
5. What are your reflections on the significance of the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights landmark decisions regarding states’ obligations in addressing climate change?
Kathryn Gwiazdon
Grounding Climate Action in Ethics and Confronting Disinformation
Who is Kathryn Gwiazdon?
Kathryn Gwiazdon, is an international lawyer that specializes in state responsibility in global governance and the intersectionality of ethics and the environment with all policy issues. She is the Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Ethics and Law, Chair of the Ethics Specialist Group of the Ethics Specialist Group of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, and Professor of Climate Law and Policy, International Law and Armed Conflict, International Criminal Law, and Decolonizing International Law at Northern Illinois University College of Law. She belongs on board related to environment, public health, and community justice. Her most recent publications include, The Routledge Handbook on Applied Climate Change Ethics (2023), exploring the reasons and implications for state inaction on climate change, with 39 chapters and authors from over 15 nations, as well as Ecological Integrity and International Law: Peace, Public Health, and Global Security (Routledge 2025). She is now co-editing a publication on ecological integrity and the newly advancing concept of “emergency law.”
This podcast is developed by Earth Charter International as part of our work as UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter.
