ABSTRACT
The principles discussed in the three foregoing chapters have a “historical” orientation: They answer the third key question of climate ethics with reference to the past and they determine the just distribution of the costs of tackling climate change within the present generation in terms of past emissions. They can be understood as attempts to “bequeath” moral duties and claims across generations. The assumption is that because certain things were (not) the case in the past, other things should (not) be the case in the present. As we have seen, however, this intergenerational “inheritance” of moral claims and duties is not convincing. This is reason enough to look for an “ahistorical” answer to the third key question of climate ethics that makes fair burden-sharing depend exclusively on aspects of the present.
