The climate instability created by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases is fundamentally an issue of intergenerational equity, or more accurately, its violation. Each year, we emit more greenhouse gases that the planet can sequester through trees, the oceans and weathering of rocks. In effect, we are inheriting a low carbon planet operating in a relatively stable climactic zone and passing on to our children a planet with increasing carbon levels and an economic system that continues this inequity. Most crucially, even if we miraculously stop emitting carbon, the elevated levels will take centuries to be eliminated. This ongoing violation of intergenerational equity is widely recognized as a crucial reason for dealing with our greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, most efforts so far in dealing with the problem fail to properly implement intergenerational equity.
Some issues with current approaches
For example, the Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends (the “Statement”) is possibly the most widely supported statement ever issued by economists. In essence, the Statement recommends the imposition of a carbon tax as the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions, and the “revenue” returned to citizens through equal lump-sum rebates. The political logic is clear – given the inequity of consumption, most individuals would be net recipients under this scheme, and therefore should support increasing the carbon tax rates. Higher carbon prices would lead to greater efficiency of use as well as the development of substitute energy sources and eventually we will stop emitting greenhouse gases. And since the poor would benefit more, inequality would also reduce. What’s not to like?
There are multiple problems. It is assumed that carbon prices can be raised high enough and quickly enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to stay within the 1.5 or 2.0 degree limits. Higher efficiency of use can increase the overall consumption – Jevons Paradox. Increasing carbon taxes reduces the value of unextracted fossil fuels, incentivizing accelerated extraction – Sinn’s Green Paradox. It is assumed that alternative energy sources can indeed be developed in time – scientists point out that prior energy transitions (e.g., firewood to coal, coal to oil) have taken multiple decades to make a substantial impact in the composition of energy sources. More fundamentally, it is not obvious that any alternative energy use at scale can be developed without creating its new problems. The Statement also ignores the fact that climate instability impacts the planet and the global south more – while it reduces inequality within the US, it does not change inequality among nations.
Finally, even if this works as intended, greenhouse gas levels would be elevated for centuries, with its associated climate instability. The assumption here is that the future will be richer, but the recent experiences of Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine all tell us that the future can be worse off. If the future is not richer, then intergenerational equity would be violated as would have not passed on to our future generations as much as we inherited.
How should we approach climate?
We believe that in order to properly deal with climate, we need to consider alternative approaches, keeping implementing intergenerational equity front and center. Some features could include:
- There is an absolute amount of greenhouse gas emissions that would keep us within the 1.5 / 2.0 degrees limit. The ability to emit greenhouse gases is a resource to which future generations also have an equal right. We should therefore consider capping the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
- Allocation of the cap should be equitable across the people alive on the planet (not favour current high consumption individuals), as well as across generations (not favour present generations).
- Even if we do manage to cap emissions to stay within the limit, future generations will inherit a more unstable climate. How would the present adequately compensate the future?
The Cap & Share Climate Alliance (CASCA)
We have been exploring various alternatives, none of which so far deal with all the issues. In order to explore how intergenerational equity can be implemented with climate, we have founded the Cap and Share Climate Alliance (CASCA) along with six other organisations – Feasta, Equal Right, D. R. Congo Climate Change Network, Autonomy, Global Redistribution Advocates and the Abel Musumali Foundation.
CASCA notes that a number of specific proposals for cap and share exist, which all share certain key features:
- A carbon cap on the extraction and/or importation of fossil fuels that reduces briskly towards zero
- No offsets: tree-planting and other beneficial activities are as well as, not instead of, limiting fossil fuel
- A carbon charge applied to companies that extract or import fossil fuels
- Cash dividends that are paid out directly to people
- Further mechanisms that address climate justice, global justice and intergenerational justice
- Citizen oversight: a meaningful management role for the people of the world
In addition, we believe that any system should consider the following additional features
- Exploration and development of new sources of fossil fuels must stop immediately
- From an extraction perspective, the carbon cap should be allocated towards those who have not extracted so far, and away from historical extractors
- From a consumption perspective, the carbon cap should be allocated equitably across generations and within the present generation
- The management of the cap is easier if done at the point of extraction rather than consumption. The advantage of capping extraction is that the use of fossil fuels for plastics, fertilizers, pesticides and petrochemicals in general would also be capped. The waste from these uses are creating their own violations of intergenerational equity.
- Charges from allocating the carbon cap must be first saved in a global future generations fund
- The global future generations fund should be invested in the energy transition
- The income from the global future generations fund could be paid out as a commons dividend, equally to all as a right of ownership. Even after the energy transition is complete, future generations would still inherit the fund and benefit from its income, which would help mitigate the consequences of the climate instability.
Finally, we recognized that this still does not satisfactorily deal with Sinn’s Green Paradox. We can see its impact in the highly immoral decisions of Norway, the UK and other countries to continue exploration for new deposits of fossil fuels.