Climate Justice is Intergenerational Justice

By Ellen Salter
October 2020

Following the turn of the century, the inextricable link between climate change and justice has gained prominence in academic literature, climate policy, and the media. Whilst there remains no globally unified agreement on the definition of climate justice, it is widely noted that climate justice is two-fold: temporal and spatial. In this article, I focus on temporal nature of climate change and how we can ensure climate policy remains just whereby the effects of climate change are not borne by the same person.

The basic premise for intergenerational justice in the context of climate change is one of proportional morality, fairness, and equity between generations: the past, present, and future. (Digging deeper it is clear that this is fraught with ethical, moral, and political complexities, but in it’s for the purpose of this article we shall adopt this reduced definition).

(c) Markus Spike

(c) Markus Spike

To better understand what this means, or more specifically should mean in practice, the Bali Principles of Climate Justice present an appropriate lens for interrogation. The Bali Principles of Climate Justice were introduced in 2002 at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg and represented a landmark milestone in highlighting “the human side” of climate change in the international conscience. Twenty-seven core principles were introduced covering the holistic nature of climate change impacts - ecological debt, social justice, cultural heritage conservation and greenhouse gas emissions amongst other key themes.

Within the Principles, four key values explicitly relate to intergenerational justice. The following principles represent the role of generational equality and equity regarding climate change and present a useful lens for integration within climate change policy at the international, national, and local level:

Principle 23: Climate Justice affirms the right of youth as equal partners in the movement to address climate change and its associated impacts.
Implementation: Ensure the youth are addressed in stakeholder engagement and community consultation relating to climate change planning.

Principle 24: Climate Justice calls for the education of present and future generations, emphasizes climate, energy, social and environmental issues, while basing itself on real-life experiences and an appreciation of diverse cultural perspectives.
Implementation: Ensure diverse cultural perspectives inform educational policy relating to climate change – whether this is embedded into school curriculums, memorabilia and recognition within the built environment and wider research and policy.

Principle 25: Climate Justice requires that we, as individuals and communities, make personal and consumer choices to consume as little of Mother Earth's resources, conserve our need for energy; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our lifestyles, re-thinking our ethics with relation to the environment and the Mother Earth; while utilizing clean, renewable, low-impact energy; and ensuring the health of the natural world for present and future generations.
Implementation: Ensure that decisions, planning and strategic actions regarding resource production and consumption consider the effects and impacts on the health of our natural environment. Define a risk management approach to mitigate against these and ensure that, as a minimum, the health of our natural environment does not worsen from our resource extraction and exploitation. Even better, adopt technology and solutions to improve the natural environment for future generations accounting for all communities.

Principle 26: Climate Justice affirms the rights of unborn generations to natural resources, a stable climate and a healthy planet.
Implementation: As a minimum, we have a moral duty to ensure that through our current actions we do not violate the basic human rights of human generations through exceeding the threshold of our planetary boundaries (See also Article on Earth Overshoot Day in the Context of the Global Pandemic).

(c) Markus Spike

(c) Markus Spike

The aforementioned list represents just one theoretical lens for embedding intergenerational justice into climate policy. It is important to note the framing and implementation of intergenerational concepts in climate change policy must be considered in line with the purpose of the policy application, the spatial context, and account for socio-economic factors amongst others.

Of course, there are those who hold scepticism about the value of intergenerational justice in climate change policy, fundamentally arguing whether we should do anything at all. In next month’s article, I will explore three arguments against the obligation to account for future generations through relational concepts of justice, the non-identify problem, and the ignorance of the future.

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