Can one coherently want to protect the climate and prioritize the worse-off at the same time? Climate impacts will be mostly in the future, when the economy is wealthier. Therefore, should future generations pay for adaptation or should the present generation mitigate for the sake of its richer descendants? In this talk I examine three ways in which inequalities bear on climate policy: 1. How does the distribution of climate impacts and mitigation/adaptation costs matter for the social cost of carbon? 2. Should carbon pricing be uniform or differentiated across development levels? 3. What are the relevant burden-sharing options?

Marc Fleurbaey is Robert E. Kuenne professor at Princeton University (Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and Center for Human Values). He is the author of Beyond GDP (with Didier Blanchet, CUP 2013), A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare (with François Maniquet, CUP 2011), and Fairness, Responsibility and Welfare (OUP, 2008). He was a coordinating lead author for the IPCC 5th Report, and one of the initiators of the International Panel on Social Progress (and lead author of its Manifesto for Social Progress, CUP 2018).