New Rights and the Denial of Climate Change. Ethical challenges in the face of the social and ecological crisis

Desafíos éticos ante la crisis socioambiental

Abstract

This article critically reflects on the ethical dimension of the contemporary climate crisis, examining how phenomena such as climate denialism, climate delay and the rise of the new rights configure a political scenario that disregards the scientific and ethical consensus on climate change. In this framework, we examine how certain current policy discourses, characterised by the exaltation of individual freedom at the expense of the common good, undermine the possibility of a shared environmental ethic.

Based on an interdisciplinary and reflexive approach, the article proposes a revision of the notion of ethical responsibility in relation to action (or inaction) in the face of the socio-ecological crisis. Along with climate denialism, the concept of climate delay is included as a form of deliberate inaction, rhetorically justified under economic or ideological assumptions, which reinforces power structures that perpetuate environmental degradation.

As a case study, the current presidency of Javier Milei in Argentina is analysed as a paradigmatic expression of the denialist discourse and the dismantling of environmental policies, placing this phenomenon within the broader framework of the advance of radicalized right-wingers in Latin America. The article shows how these positions reconfigure the links between ethics, politics and the environment, and raises the need to rethink ethical engagement from an ecological, critical and situated perspective.

The text concludes with an invitation to reactivate an ethical conscience that overcomes individualism and faces socio-ecological challenges with collective responsibility, understanding that the climate crisis is not only a technical or scientific problem, but highlighting its ethical-political dimension.