Cotton, Matthew

English

This presentation concerns the issue of intergenerational justice in UK radioactive waste management policy, providing an overview of the relevant concepts and the need for a pragmatic integrated empirical ethics approach to provide ethical tools for decision-makers

Teeside University's Research Repository

Engaging with intergenerational justice in radioactive waste managementProf Matthew CottonTeesside UniversitySchool of Social Sciences, Humanities and LawNuclear Waste Services Research Support OfficeSocial Science Topic Day31st March 2022University of ManchesterRadioactive waste and future generations• The geological disposal facility concept requires thinking across ‘deep time’ –longer than any previous human civilization• Communication of risk messaging into the future• Stewardship of wastes with host communities• Connection between contemporary (and historic benefits) and current and future harms• Balancing current and future needs under conditions of scarcityImage:  RWMIntergenerational equity• Non-reciprocity• The ‘non-identity’ problem• Post-Brundtland Sustainable Development• Rights, or welfare• Distributional justice• Discounting• Temporal horizons – familial and kinship, ancestral, or deep timeImage: Anna PariniRadioactive waste policy• Working With Communities policy framework• Designed to ensure no harmful quantities of radioactivity ever reach the surface environment• National geological screening exercise undertaken by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM)• Updated planning and regulatory matters for implementing geological disposal• Policy and process for working with communities in order to find a location to develop a GDF 1. Initial discussions and forming a Working Group 2. Community Partnership3. Community Partnership Agreement 4. Right of Withdrawal5. Test of Public SupportIntegrated empirical ethics• Need for policy and planning focused ethical tools• Provide social intelligence to (for example) local authority-led working groups, to NWS in the production of engagement materials, to aid community partnership working or decision-making following a test of public support.• Future generational interests can sometimes remain ‘voiceless’ without some form of institutionalised proxy representation during participatory engagement processes• Visualisation and imagination of future generational needs and interestsThe postdoctoral fellowship1. Systematic review • Thematic synthesis analysis of intergenerational justice literature (social policy, environmental management, economics, applied ethics)2. Visualising future generations• Using ‘elicitation devices’ including VR of GDF to imagine future generational interests. • Social representations – the anchoring and objectification of future generations3. Backcasting radioactive waste management futures• Q-method, interviews, comparative qualitative analysis4. Synthesis, policy engagement and participatory tool development• An engagement toolkit (inc. handbook) for using the research in the Working With Communities framworkm.cotton@tees.ac.ukAny questions?

Engaging with intergenerational justice in radioactive waste management

https://research.tees.ac.uk/files/36384438/Intergenerational_equity_RWM_RSO_presentation.pdf

Engaging with intergenerational justice in radioactive waste management

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Teeside University's Research Repository

Teeside University's Research Repository