Climate change, rights of future generations and intergenerational equity: an in-expert exploration of a dark and cloudy path

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irving Mintzer ◽  
David Michel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Intergenerational Equity ◽  
Future Generations

Climate Change and Reversed Intergenerational Equity: the Problem of Costs Now, for Benefits Later

Climate Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 266-281
Author(s):  
Gareth Davies
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Intergenerational Equity ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Policy Problem ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Policy Challenge ◽  
Mitigation Costs ◽  
The Cost

Abstract Climate change is often seen as an issue of intergenerational equity—consumption now creates costs for future generations. However, radical mitigation now would reverse the problem, creating immediate costs for current generations, while the benefits would be primarily for future ones. This is a policy problem, as persuading those living now to bear the cost of changes whose benefits will mostly accrue after their deaths is politically difficult. The policy challenge is then how to temporally match costs to benefits, either by deferring mitigation costs, or by speeding up climatic benefits. Geoengineering may provide some help here, as it might enable climate change to be slowed more immediately, at a lower upfront cost, and allow a greater share of the mitigation and adaptation burden to be passed on to those in the future who will benefit most.

Tales of the Apocalypse: The Child’s Right to a Secure Climate

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 553-568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne McGillivray
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
The State ◽  
Intergenerational Equity ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right

All rights of children equate with the right to a life-sustaining biosphere. Climate change disproportionately harms children and profoundly threatens their future. Dystopian futures portrayed in cli-fi films illustrate the dangers but also may contribute to paralysis in the face of rapidly increasing global warming. Intergenerational equity frames our duty to future generations. A child-led lawsuit, if successful, will hold the state to its duty to safeguard natural resources. A new corporate paradigm is essential. Central to all strategies is hearing the child.

Intergenerational Justice in Sustainable Development Treaty Implementation

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Intergenerational Equity ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Intergenerational Justice ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Treaty Implementation

Economic, technological, social and environmental transformations are affecting all humanity, and decisions taken today will impact the quality of life for all future generations. This volume surveys current commitments to sustainable development, analysing innovative policies, practices and procedures to promote respect for intergenerational justice. Expert contributors provide serious scholarly and practical discussions of the theoretical, institutional, and legal considerations inherent in intergenerational justice at local, national, regional and global scales. They investigate treaty commitments related to intergenerational equity, explore linkages between regimes, and offer insights from diverse experiences of national future generations' institutions. This volume should be read by lawyers, academics, policy-makers, business and civil society leaders interested in the economy, society, the environment, sustainable development, climate change, and other law, policy and practices impacting all generations.

Configurations to Superior Environmental Innovation Strategy: A Both–And Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 108602662110316
Author(s):  
Tiziana Russo-Spena ◽  
Nadia Di Paola ◽  
Aidan O’Driscoll
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Innovation Strategy ◽  
Environmental Innovation ◽  
Data Set

An effective climate change action involves the critical role that companies must play in assuring the long-term human and social well-being of future generations. In our study, we offer a more holistic, inclusive, both–and approach to the challenge of environmental innovation (EI) that uses a novel methodology to identify relevant configurations for firms engaging in a superior EI strategy. A conceptual framework is proposed that identifies six sets of driving characteristics of EI and two sets of beneficial outcomes, all inherently tensional. Our analysis utilizes a complementary rather than an oppositional point of view. A data set of 65 companies in the ICT value chain is analyzed via fuzzy-set comparative analysis (fsQCA) and a post-QCA procedure. The results reveal that achieving a superior EI strategy is possible in several scenarios. Specifically, after close examination, two main configuration groups emerge, referred to as technological environmental innovators and organizational environmental innovators.

A “Natural” Proposal for Addressing Climate Change

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Radiant Heat ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Long Time

One of the fundamental challenges of climate change is that we contribute to it increment by increment, and experience it increment by increment after a considerable time lag. As a consequence, it is very difficult to see what we are doing to ourselves, to future generations, and to the living planet as a whole. There are monumental ethical issues involved, but they are obscured by the incremental nature of the process and the long time frame before reaching the concentration of greenhouse gases and the ensuing accumulation of radiant heat—and consequent climate change—that ensues.

scholarly journals Obama Highlights Climate Change and Infrastructure Needs

Eos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy Showstack
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Generations

“No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” the president said.

scholarly journals Financing Low-Carbon Transitions through Carbon Pricing and Green Bonds

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Heine ◽  
Willi Semmler ◽  
Mariana Mazzucato ◽  
João Paulo Braga ◽  
Michael Flaherty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Option ◽  
Phase Changes ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Carbon Pricing ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation

Summary: To finance the transition to low-carbon economies required to mitigate climate change, countries are increasingly using a combination of carbon pricing and green bonds. This paper studies the reasoning behind such policy mixes and the economic interaction effects that result from these different policy instruments. We model these interactions using an intertemporal model, related to Sachs (2015), which proposes a burden sharing between current and future generations. The issuance of green bonds helps to enable immediate investment in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the bonds would be repaid by future generations in such a way that those who benefit from reduced future environmental damage share in the burden of financing mitigation efforts undertaken today. We examine the effects of combining green bonds and carbon pricing in a three-phase model. We are using a numerical solution procedure which allows for finite-horizon solutions and phase changes. We show that green bonds perform better when they are combined with carbon pricing. Our proposed policy option appears to be politically more feasible than a green transition based only on carbon pricing and is more prudent for debt sustainability than a green transition that relies overly on green bonds.

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