Action for Intergenerational Climate Justice in the Anthropocene: Assemblies, Carbon Budgets and Legal Options

One striking feature of young people’s contemporary climate politics is how it highlights the question of intergenerational justice that encompasses the interests of young people alive today and those yet to be born. Acknowledging a tradition including Fanon, Friere, Ranciere and Touraine which point to the inter-connections between theory, research practices and aspirations for social change, raises questions for people researching climate politics and young people about what role they might play in promoting climate justice.

In this paper we identify and assess some promising policy and legal strategies for social change that promote intergenerational climate justice. We begin by exploring what intergenerational justice looks like, and why intergenerational justice matters in the context of climate change if we are to come close to realising justice in the Anthropocene. We then provide an account of how some scholars have defined the subjects of intergenerational climate justice, and we attempt to develop these accounts. In doing this we also draw on theories of intersectionality and recognition.

Finally, we identify and assess the policy instruments and legal strategies that can be, and in some cases are already being used to advance intergenerational climate justice. This involves focusing on three interventions: multigenerational and generation-specific climate assemblies, models of carbon budget taxation, and climate litigation based on the principle that governments have a ‘duty of care’ to children and young people.

We argue that together, these policy and legal interventions can help specify and realise the promise of intergenerational climate justice.