Future Generations’ Rights in the Context of Climate Change

This chapter examines whether future generations can be considered rights holders in the context of climate change, exploring the implications of such recognition. First, it analyzes why conventional cost–benefit analysis fails to address intergenerational issues. Then, it analyses John Rawls’s “just savings principle” and Edith Brown Weiss’s concept of intergenerational equity as possible alternatives. Next, the chapter discusses two central philosophical objections: the "non-existence problem," which questions whether non-existent persons can hold rights, and the "non-identity problem," which challenges the idea that present actions can harm future individuals whose existence depends on those actions. To overcome these difficulties, the chapter argues that the rights of future generations should be conceived as collective rights. This approach more accurately reflects how we typically think about our obligations to future generations and provides a better response to those objections.

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