Giving Compass' Take:

• Markus Anderljung and Signe Savén share steps that governments can take to increase political representation for future generations, who generally lack a voice in policies that will impact them. 

• How can governments act on these suggestions? 

• Read an argument against prioritizing future generations. 

Future generations don’t make it to the voting station. Because of this, their interests are poorly represented in current political systems. This post summarizes some work we have done in EA Sweden to better represent future generations in the Swedish political system. The idea is to find ways in which the political system can be tweaked or affected to better take the interests of future generations into account. This can be done by things such as: making adjustments to the legislative process, setting up an Ombudsman for future generations, giving rights to future generations or having a Minister for the future in government.

The initiatives we propose are presented below, each followed by a brief explanation. The recommendation is not that one initiative be implemented before the next one is started. Rather, we would expect that several recommendations be pursued in parallel.

  1. Ensure that there are sufficient means to implement and achieve the Climate Act and Agenda 2030 (the Sustainable Development Goals).
  2. Establish an Ombudsman for future generations.
  3. Create a cross-political network for future generations in the Swedish Parliament.
  4. Increase the focus on future issues throughout the legislative process.
  5. Support from civil society.

Read the full article about representaion for future generations by Markus Anderljung and Signe Savén at Effective Altruism Forum.