Intergenerational Equity Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Intergenerational Equity ( IE) broadly refers to theories, principles, laws, and economic models concerned with the issue of equity and fairness to future generations. IE emphasizes that future generations have a right to at least the same general level of ecological, cultural, and economic resources enjoyed by preceding generations. Many argue that IE is the central idea behind demands for sustainable development: ensuring a clean environment with adequate resources so that future generations have the capacity to lead meaningful lives. Thus, IE is relevant to issues such as the conservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity, the maintenance of ecological health, and equal access rights to the product of past generations.

Researchers have pointed out that most previous generations were considerably poorer and had lower living standards, yet left considerable infrastructure and probably saved more in relative terms. However, over the past century there have been significant increases in population growth and affluent consumption, along with the development of resource-intensive and potentially destructive technologies. The combined effect has been a fantastic rise in human resource consumption and waste generation (as well as a decrease in saving), raising concern about the implications of continued growth for ecosystem health. This concern, and subsequent ecological research, led to debates over the “limits to growth” of modern economies. These debates called into question the assumption of infinite economic growth, and forced recognition of resource limits and the irreversible modification of ecosystems essential to human welfare. One of the many concepts that emerged out of the debates was IE.

Following the publication of Our Common Future, many environmentalists seized upon the concept of IE, arguing that it is fundamental to building a sustainable society. A popular quote argues for “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Integrating IE into policy discussions increases the time horizon when considering social and ecological impacts and can therefore profoundly influence the path of technological development and social organization.

Regarding energy production, for instance, governments would shift decisively away from excessive use of nonrenewable resources, such as coal, oil, and nuclear, and focus instead on expanding the potential for solar, wind, tidal, and other renewable energy sources. In this case, IE necessitates reducing nonrenewable energy sources because of potential adverse future effects, such as irreversible changes to the global climate and the harsh reality of millions of years of radioactive waste storage. For environmentalists, as well as ecological economists, IE is an ethical issue informed by scientific consensus.

Proponents of IE have strongly criticized the conventional economic practice of “discounting” because it is seen as a major obstacle to incorporating sustainability principles into economic decisions. For economists, discounting provides an objective, though clearly contentious, approach to the problem of valuing future resource flows. Under certain key assumptions, such as the substitutability of money for any resource, a short-term time horizon, net present value (NPV), and steady, continued growth in the economy, a case can be made for individual discounting. One practical argument for discounting is that people do it “naturally” as a result of time preference. For example, there is typically little concern about events that will happen long after a person dies and access to certain goods now, even with interest, are worth less in the future.

Difficulties arise when individual, short-term discounting is distinguished from social discounting, defined by Herman E. Daly and Joshua C. Farley as “a rate of conversion of future value to present value that reflects society’s collective judgment, as opposed to an individualistic judgment, such as the market rate of interest.” While most economists agree with the latter distinction and have attempted to construct alternative models, recent ecological work (e.g., ecological footprints) implies that critical assumptions of the “objective” social discounting approach must be jettisoned completely. This comes with recognition of finite growth, limited substitutability via technology, decreasing opportunities for productive investment, and “profitable” investments today resulting in future ecological costs.

Some have expressed concern over the efficacy of IE in the context of alarming poverty growth, or intragenerational inequity. Recent developments around the issue of global climate change bring this criticism into sharp relief. On December 7, 2005, Inuits submitted a nonlegally binding petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urging that the United States-as the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses-cooperate on the Kyoto protocol. This came after a four-year, 15-country study undertaken by 300 scientists warned that the Artic is especially vulnerable to warming and mammalian extinctions, threatening not only the integrity of ecosystems but the very existence of Inuit in the Arctic. The debate raises critical questions about the role of IE in international law and global governance.

Since at least 1988, proponents have argued for the integration of IE into international law, highlighting the temporal aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While a limited “intertemporal” doctrine (connecting past to present) already exists, IE proponents are seeking to strengthen and broaden this doctrine to include the relation between present and future generations. Given the fact that people in poverty, by definition, have less access to sustainable resources and are disproportionately impacted by ecological imbalances, these efforts recognize the critical importance of an intragenerational dimension in crafting new law. That there has been little progress applying IE in international law, especially regarding issues like global climate change, is unsurprising considering that powerful nations consume most of the world’s resources.

Bibliography:

Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen, “Human Development and Economic Sustainability,” World Development (v.28/12, 2000);
Daniel D. Chiras, Environmental Science: Creating a Sustainable Future (Jones and Bartlett, 2004);
Herman E. Daly and Joshua C. Farley, Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (Island Press, 2004);
John Pezzey and Michael A. Toman, , The Economics of Sustainability (Ashgate-Dartmouth, 2002); Catherine Redgwell, Intergenerational Trusts and Environmental Protection (Juris, 1999);
Prue Taylor, An Ecological Approach to International Law: Responding to Challenges of Climate Change (Routledge, 1998);
Edith Brown Weiss, In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity (United Nations University, 1988);
World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford University Press, 1987).