The end of intergenerational justice

The Western narrative of progress has for some time been in danger of reaching its end — nowhere more so than in the realm of intergenerational justice. Since the Enlightenment and industrialization, one thing seemed certain in Europe: children would one day be better off than their parents. The same appeared to hold true for traditional environmental problems such as air and water quality: as prosperity grew, ecological issues would gradually be resolved. Even the global mega-challenges of climate change, species extinction, and dwindling resources initially did little to shake this faith in progress. One might have said: politics and society are responding too slowly, but at least the direction was roughly right.

That situation is now reversing at an almost alarming speed. Pensions, conscription, special debt funds, climate change, species extinction: taken together, the burdens being placed on the younger generation are massive, while those who caused both the climate and biodiversity catastrophe and the current security crisis, through, for example, decades of naïve policy toward Russia, manage to keep most of those burdens at arm's length.

The prime example this week: the pension debate, in which the older generation — represented by the parties it predominantly votes for — is once again trying to help itself to more, through mothers' pensions, active retirement incentives, and a pension floor guarantee. And it is doing so at the expense of younger contributors, who can no longer expect a comparable pension themselves.

The expanded borrowing powers granted to the government for infrastructure and rearmament following the 2025 constitutional amendment are making the intergenerational imbalance worse still. It will be younger people who have to repay these debts later, while the fresh money benefits the older generation here and now. The new federal budget resembles a sorting yard, and the special fund ostensibly earmarked for investment is partly covering what amounts to consumption spending.

The geopolitical situation raises even higher stakes. It is not merely a matter of an older generation having slept through a problem and now rushing to solve it with large loans that younger people will have to repay. The failure to take the Russian threat seriously may also make the return of military conscription unavoidable. At that point, we are no longer talking about money alone, but, even if rearmament serves primarily as deterrence, potentially about life and death.

The climate situation is equally grim. Climate change is itself one of the greatest risks for violent conflict and large-scale catastrophe in the 21st century. Just this past July, the International Court of Justice interpreted the Paris Climate Agreement and human rights law to require that global warming be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius to prevent at least the worst outcomes. As recent calculations using the latest climate data have shown, 1.5 degrees effectively means that Germany has already exhausted its carbon budget. Yet neither the federal government nor the European Commission is talking about a rapid transition away from fossil fuels — instead, the discussion centers on new gas power plants and pushing back the deadline for phasing out combustion-engine cars.

When it comes to species extinction, the planetary boundaries — the thresholds for the safe continuation of human existence — have been exceeded even more dramatically than in the case of climate. And without a reasonably intact natural world, with pollinating insects, fertile soils, and groundwater purification, we cannot sustain human life in the long run. Yet the federal government and the EU are now seeking, under the banner of supposed deregulation, to roll back nature conservation law that was already too weak. At the same time, the EU is increasingly exempting farmers from environmental requirements, despite the fact that conventional agriculture is a central driver of biodiversity loss.

It is scientifically undisputed that effective climate and nature protection is not only vital but would save the national economy enormous costs. And yet everything is simply loaded onto the shoulders of the young, while the older generation escapes unscathed? Liberal democracy has, since its inception, rested on its ability to convincingly convey to as many people as possible that the system works in their interest. When unavoidable compromises fall ever more drastically at the expense of the future, it amounts to a gift to populists on both the right and the left.

This entire trajectory also contradicts the 2021 ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on climate change. We fought to establish in law that policy must protect freedom across generations. The court held that burdens may not be shifted one-sidedly onto the future, and that measures must be taken today to prevent policy from simply letting developments run their course and then leaving today's young people to face brutal consequences later — at least where those developments risk being irreversible.

Refusing to cause anyone discomfort today, while hitting young people all the harder in the future, is therefore not merely a political sleight of hand. It violates fundamental rights. Concrete constitutional rules are also being broken: the expanded borrowing powers introduced this spring explicitly target additional investment — yet the new federal budget only partially delivers on that commitment.

In times when rational arguments increasingly fail to penetrate public debate, and when demographics cement a politics that favors the old, the path to the Federal Constitutional Court may be the only option left. Monetary distribution questions are, of course, primarily a task for parliaments and governments. If one dislikes a policy, one can vote for different parties or become more politically active. Constitutional courts oversee only an outer framework. But as the examples of climate change, species extinction, and conscription show, what is at stake here goes far beyond money. Moreover, many younger people cannot yet vote and are not yet adequately represented in politics. That is precisely why constitutional courts matter so much when it comes to intergenerational justice. But a youth movement that demands this — politically and legally — is also needed.

This article is also published on Die Zeit, in German. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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