This paper explores the consequences of an equal opportunities conception of justice for the allocation of resources across generations. Equal opportunities are a “compromise” between utilitarianism (which ignores responsibilities and only focuses on outcomes) and resource egalitarianism (which ignores the different values resources may have for different individuals). The paper explores two paradigm cases. The distribution of an exhaustible resource (such as fossil fuels) and the distribution of greenhouse gas emission permits. Fossil fuel consumption creates opportunities for welfare but, perhaps, at the expense of future opportunities ¬ and the same is true for emissions. As the two are connected, there is a potential double burden on the future. Whether and to what extent there is a real burden on the future depends however on a society’s path of development that is driven by the amount and kind of investments.
The paper offers a brief survey of the most recent sustainability debate in economics and develops an axiomatic approach to intergenerational resource distribution. This approach draws on analogies between intergenerational sharing and the river sharing problem where water resources can be passed on to downstream users but never from downstream to upstream.
