Elisa Paiusco
Climate Ethicist and Multispecies Justice Researcher
About
I am a climate ethicist and multispecies justice researcher. During my PhD, I investigated carbon dioxide removal as part of climate mitigation scenarios. In my work, I have analysed how these climate solutions may affect Earth beings, including, but going beyond, present generations to incorporate future people as well as Earth others. I am particularly interested in extending climate justice to more-than-humans, and I look forward to collaborating on this topic.
My research interests include—but are not limited to—environmental philosophy, climate justice, and climate policy, with an overarching focus on intersectional feminism. I bring expertise in applied ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of technology, underpinned by training in international law and economics. I am committed to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue to address the complex challenges of climate governance.
I am half Italian and half Filipina, and I was born and raised in the North of Italy. As a first-generation academic, I care deeply about making academia more diverse, inclusive, and decolonising philosophy.
Alongside my academic work, I love film photography and am interested in multimedia ways of engaging with more-than-human perspectives and the relationships between humans and the natural world.
Experience
PhD in Philosophy
University of Twente
I researched climate justice in the context of carbon dioxide removal deployment. I have developed a contextual procedural capabilities approach to evaluate the ethical permissibility of CDR deployment. This framework provides a normative basis for assessing the fair implementation of CDR under conditions of value pluralism and uncertainty. Importantly, the analysis demonstrates that CDR cannot be assessed in isolation from broader questions of justice, including who counts as a subject of justice and how processes of contextual deliberation should be structured.
Visiting Fellowship
University of Sydney · June–August 2024
I collaborated with the Sydney Environment Institute and the Net Zero Institute.
Education
Master of Arts in Applied Ethics
Linköping University, 2021
Bachelor of Arts in PPE
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 2020
Publications
Paiusco, E. (2026a). A capabilities approach to carbon dioxide removal. Ethics, Policy & Environment, 29(1), 80–100.
doi.org/10.1080/21550085.2025.2449797Paiusco, E., & Boem, F. (2026). Against separation: the importance of transdisciplinary collaboration in climate action. Environmental Politics, 35(2), 382–387.
doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2025.2466242Paiusco, E., & Lenzi, D. (2026). Climate Justice and the Extended Capabilities Approach: The Case of ‘Nature-Based’ Carbon Removal. The Monist, 109(2), 188–203.
doi.org/10.1093/monist/onag008Paiusco, E. (2026b). Recognition in climate justice: Lessons from land-based carbon dioxide removal. Environmental Values, 0(0).
doi.org/10.1177/09632719261434791Paiusco, E. (2026). A Capabilitarian Critique of Overshooting and Remedial Carbon Dioxide Removal. (Under review).
Taebi, B., Lenzi, D., Buhr, L., Claassen, K., Gerola, A., Hofbauer, B., Paiusco, E.… & Rijssenbeek, J. (2023). Chapter 4. Climate Engineering and the Future of Justice. In Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies: An Introduction (pp. 83–112). Open Book Publishers.
Awards
2023 Premio al Merito Talento all'Opera Foundation – ECLIRE Seasonal School Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies
