Climate Change and the Social Contract: Intra- and Inter-generational

In this chapter I analyse the question whether the distributive problem relating to climate burden (and more generally to climate action) can find a place within social contract theory. More specifically, I wonder whether the premise of mutual benefit in cooperation applies to the contingencies of a global and intergenerational climate agreement which, in line with what scientists are calling for, can keep earth within minimum limits of sustainability. In doing so, I explain why both a global and an intergenerational asymmetry, of power and vulnerability, render the distribution of the carbon budget and the allocation of adaptation costs an intricate tragedy of the commons. I therefore illustrate different theoretical solutions through which maintaining the assumption of mutual advantage among the parties of a climate agreement, in the face of the two asymmetries. I conclude by holding that the global asymmetry can be accommodated within the so-called “objective circumstances of justice” through an extended understanding of climate vulnerability, relating not simply to the local and natural consequences of climate change but also to its global and social spillovers. At the same time, if we do not act now, the intergenerational asymmetry will lose relevance, as time goes by and the climate crisis worsens, compared to the global asymmetry, because the time term of the negative effects of climate change (both natural and social) will get progressively reduced.