Intergenerational Climate Change Burden Sharing: An Economics of Climate Stability Research Agenda Proposal

Abstract

The implementation of climate stability accounts for the most challenging contemporary global governance predicament that seems to pit today’s generation against future world inhabitants. In a trade-off of economic growth versus sustainability, a broad-based international coalition could establish climate stability. As a novel angle towards climate justice, this paper proposes to search for a well-balanced climate mitigation and adaptation public policy mix guided by micro- and macroeconomic analysis results, and a new way of funding climate change mitigation and adaptation policies through broad-based climate stability bonds that also involve future enerations that complement taxation and emission trading system solutions. Contemporary climate stability financing strategies are discussed in order to derive recommendations how market economies can be brought to a path consistent with prosperity and sustainability. Finding innovative ways how to finance climate abatement over time coupled with future risk prevention as well as adaptation to higher temperatures appears as an innovative and easily-implementable solution to nudge overlapping generations towards climate justice in the sustainability domain.