Responsibility to future generations: A strategy for combatting climate change across political divides

Abstract

Individuals and governments often fail to take action to address climate change owing largely to widespread politicization of the issue and related discourse. In response to recent appeals for non-partisan approaches to pro-environmentalism, we propose that highlighting one's responsibility to future generations (RFG) could offer promise across the political spectrum. We argue that RFG may be effective because it is widely endorsed, uncorrelated with demographic indicators and less tied to political ideology compared to other forms of responsibility, such as personal responsibility for climate change mitigation. Across six main and seven supplementary studies (N = 161,633), we provide evidence for these claims. RFG is not only widely endorsed across countries and demographic groups but it also significantly predicts various measures of pro-environmental behaviour, both in correlational and pre-registered experimental contexts. These findings confirm established effects, reconcile inconsistencies and suggest prioritizing intergenerational responsibility may effectively reshape climate change narratives for the most resistant parties.