Nuclear deterrence and climate inaction wrong future generations by imposing potential existential harm through climate-related disasters and nuclear winter. While increasingly explored in tandem, key differences in their intergenerational justice dimensions are overlooked. First, the timelines for imposing harm differ. Climate risks cumulate and intensify across generations. In contrast, the longer nuclear weapons are retained, the greater the probability of nuclear war at some point, without it necessarily becoming more probable at any particular point. Nuclear risks are transient, meaning that risks from past choices resolve if catastrophe is avoided. Yet if elevated risk levels persist, the probability of some future generation facing the aftermath of nuclear war cumulates. While the long-term trajectory is grim, the threat appears manageable at each point in time. Second, incentives for immediate versus delayed action to tackle underlying challenges vary. The appeal of fossil fuels is expected to wane, whereas the perceived benefits of nuclear deterrence are likely to endure. Third, the salience of intergenerational implications of nuclear weapons is diminishing, while climate impacts grow tangible. Despite shared moral dilemmas, nuclear-related intergenerational injustice is particularly difficult to recognize and address. Acknowledging this discrepancy matters for how we approach our obligations to posterity.
Policy implications
- While the intergenerational injustices in nuclear deterrence resemble those in climate inaction, they call for distinct approaches. Simply copy-pasting strategies from climate action falls short. Efforts must instead be tailored to the specific context, temporality, and risk trajectory in the nuclear domain—addressing risks that can suddenly escalate into catastrophic outcomes, with future victims who seem remote and hypothetical, unlike climate change, where damage is increasingly observable today.
- Risks from nuclear weapons to future generations do not necessarily escalate, but they cumulate over long periods if the status quo persists. Guardianship approaches—transferring responsibility from one generation to the next without a focused, sustained commitment to disarmament—fail to address intergenerational justice concerns or prevent nuclear war in the long run.
- The incentive structures underlying intergenerational nuclear injustice are deeply tied to ideology and status. Disarmament proponents should take these tenacious incentive structures seriously and focus on ways to replace or reduce their appeal. This could involve promoting research into developments in international relations or security that could render nuclear deterrence obsolete in the future, while simultaneously transitioning to effective conventional defense capabilities.
- Unlike climate change, the long-term risks posed by nuclear weapons lack salience. A renewed communication effort on nuclear winter and its consequences in popular culture and media could reinforce awareness of its effects on future generations and increase the sense of urgency around safeguarding them.
Photo by Wendelin Jacober