Growth, Climate Change and Intergenerational Valuation

The problem of intergenerational equity assumes solving a conflict between present and future needs. The utilitarian approach, the economists’ habitual yardstick, found eventually its temporal neutrality obsolete and gave way to arguments accepting rational significance in dealing with differences in timing (or location). A social discount rate serves to devise practical arrangements which will correct defects in one part of the system – future generations – without causing more serious harm in other parts – present generations. If the economic (monetary) importance can be equated by updating at a discount rate, the broader context of the climate change challenge demands a “negotiated” equivalence regarding the reciprocal nature of utility and harm in intertemporal valuations, mediated by moral deliberation. Against this background, we deconstruct the rationale behind several competing expressions of sustainable growth pathways – green growth, a-growth, degrowth – with the help of a three-pronged conceptual framework: (1) the means and objectives of our action; (2) the existence of a conflict as to what is good to do; and, finally, (3) the institutional solution for legitimizing our choices Our analysis leads to the conclusion that the compounding agenda of Nature – Market – Society relations asks for an integrative resolution that would most probably emerge from adding a cultural accent to current disciplinary or technological breakthroughs.