Our team, the Youth Task Force, is an interdisciplinary group of young leaders from across Canada supported by the ISO Environmental Management Technical Committee (ISO/TC 207), the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), and the Young Politicians of Canada. Together, we aim to propose a framework for incorporating intergenerational equity principles into environmental policy, by utilizing principles from the Net Zero guidelines and ISO 14008 - Monetary valuation of environmental impacts and related environmental aspects. At the heart of our work is the question: How can we distribute the burdens of climate change across generations in a way that is just and fair? How can we quantify an equal distribution?

How can we ensure that the energy transition is not only fair for those living today but also for future generations? What defines fairness—or, perhaps more precisely, equity—in this context? A common argument against climate spending is that it is prohibitively expensive and that funds could be better allocated elsewhere. But can this claim be substantiated? What are the long-term and immediate economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of investing in climate action?

Our works aims to refine a methodology for incorporating direct, indirect, and tipping point costs into future climate investment projections. We aim to showcase how young leaders can be at the forefront of environmental policy by building a framework for incorporating intergenerational equity principles into environmental policy through modelling exercises. A glossary of all technical, climate-related, and equity terminology is provided for accessibility. 

The overarching goal is to create intergenerationally equitable pathways that distribute the costs and burdens of climate transitions fairly while maintaining a consistent quality of life (QOL) across generations. 

Environmental burdens have been measured both spatially and temporally.  It is our objective to fill this research gap by quantifying the temporally disconnected environmental burdens to propose a policy framework that distributes burdens equally across generations. One way to ensure an equitable energy transition and climate change burdens is to ensure QOL equity across generations. This will require identifying the current legal framework for intergenerational equity (in Canada or more generally in other commonwealth countries), how far it has gotten, and determining the roadblocks.

Temporally we need to balance burdens across generations. These burdens exist financially, environmentally, and health-related. Our framework will propose the idea of spending money across time and how benefits/costs may vary depending on time of investment  

This model can be used for future investment projections, such as, renewable energy for a just transition - an example that will be expanded on through our soon to be published paper.