Arguing about climate change

Intergenerational justice requires that climate risks to future generations be handled with the same reasonable care deemed acceptable by society in the case of risks to contemporaries. Such general standards of conduct are laid down in tort law, for example. Consequently, the validity of arguments for or against more stringent climate policy can be judged by comparison to the general standards of conduct applying in the case of risk to contemporaries. That this consistency test is able to disqualify certain arguments in the climate debate is illustrated by a further investigation of the debate on the social discount rate, used in cost-benefit analysis of climate policy.