The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Decisions taken today on climate, debt, infrastructure, technology and natural capital fix conditions for people not yet born, who have no vote and no voice in the process. Future generations governance asks how institutions can represent long-term public value: through statutory duties, commissioners, parliamentary committees, appraisal rules and international commitments. This page sets out how such arrangements work, where they fail, and who holds the decisions they are meant to inform.
GRF · Established · service level R0
Future generations governance asks how institutions can represent people not yet born, whose conditions are fixed by today's decisions on climate, debt, infrastructure, technology and natural capital. Tools include statutory long-term duties, commissioners and parliamentary committees, discount rates in public appraisal and protection against irreversible loss.
For future generations, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water with place names and borders from NASA GIBS, framed on the Arctic; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For future generations, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, night lights and flood water with place names and borders from NASA GIBS, framed on the Arctic; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Long-term public value and stewardship. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Electoral cycles, annual budgets, quarterly reporting and the discounting of distant costs all weigh the present over the future. Without an institution charged with the long term, its interests lose by default.
Some jurisdictions place a legal duty on public bodies to consider long-term well-being, backed by a commissioner or ombudsperson. Their influence depends on powers to review, report and receive a response, not on the duty alone.
Cost-benefit appraisal discounts future costs and benefits. The rate chosen, and whether it declines over very long horizons, decides how much weight distant generations receive in public investment and regulation.
Some losses cannot be undone: species, a stable climate, cultural heritage, public trust. Stewardship duties treat these as assets held in trust, which shifts the burden of proof for decisions that would deplete them.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Social discount rate | The rate used in public appraisal to weigh future costs and benefits against present ones. |
| Intergenerational fiscal gap | The difference between projected public spending and revenue over the long term, borne by future taxpayers. |
| Statutory long-term duty | A legal obligation on public bodies to consider the long-term effects of their decisions, as in the Wales Well-being of Future Generations Act. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jurisdictions with statutory long-term duties | count of jurisdictions | annual | Legislative records | OFFICIAL |
| Future generations institutions in operation | count of commissioners, committees and ombudspersons | annual | Institutional records | DECLARED |
| Policy proposals with long-term impact assessment | share of proposals | annual | Regulatory impact assessment registers | OFFICIAL |
| Discount rate schedule in public appraisal guidance | percent per year by horizon | per guidance revision | Treasury appraisal guidance | OFFICIAL |
| Horizon of fiscal sustainability projections | years | per report | Fiscal sustainability reports | OFFICIAL |
| Intergenerational fiscal gap | share of GDP | per report | Long-term fiscal projections | MODELLED |
| Guardian recommendations answered by government | share of recommendations | annual | Guardian institution annual reports | REPORTED |
| Natural capital accounts compiled | physical and monetary units | annual | National accounts under SEEA | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| Future Generations Commissioner for Wales reports | Statutory Future Generations Reports and reviews of public bodies under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act | Open Government Licence |
| Committee for the Future, Parliament of Finland | Parliamentary reports, hearings and responses to the Government Report on the Future | Public parliamentary records |
| UN Declaration on Future Generations | Principles and commitments adopted with the Pact for the Future | United Nations terms of use |
| HM Treasury Green Book and supplementary guidance | Appraisal method, including the declining long-term discount rate schedule | Open Government Licence |
| National fiscal council long-term sustainability reports | Long-horizon projections of public finances under ageing and other pressures | Public records, terms per council |
| UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) | Statistical standard and country accounts for natural capital and ecosystem services | United Nations terms of use |
| Maastricht Principles on the Human Rights of Future Generations | Expert statement of legal principles on obligations owed to future generations | Open publication |
Foresight Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Parliaments and their committees for the future | Whether to legislate long-term duties or create a guardian institution, and with what powers | Comparative evidence on existing institutions, their mandates, powers and records of influence |
| Finance ministries and treasuries | Which discount rate schedule and horizon to use for long-lived public investment and regulation | Appraisal choices set out with their ethical and empirical bases and their effect on distant costs |
| Cabinet offices and centre-of-government units | How long-term impact assessment enters policy and budget processes | Assessment practice in other governments and the conditions under which it changed decisions |
| Supreme audit institutions and fiscal councils | Whether long-term risks and liabilities are reported and accounted for | Long-horizon fiscal projections, natural capital accounts and their gaps |
Present bias is a well-documented feature of individual and institutional decision-making: near-term costs and benefits loom larger than distant ones. Electoral and budget cycles reinforce it. The result can be underinvestment in prevention, infrastructure maintenance, research and environmental protection, whose benefits arrive later.
Institutions have responded in several ways. Some jurisdictions have created statutory commissioners or committees for future generations, or legislation requiring public bodies to consider long-term well-being. At the United Nations, the Declaration on Future Generations adopted in 2024 sets out principles for considering their interests. Economists continue to debate how to discount future costs and benefits, a choice that strongly affects long-term policy. Irreversible changes, such as species loss or the depletion of resources that took millennia to form, raise particular concern because later generations cannot undo them.
Methods for valuing long-term effects, including discounting choices, drawing on decision analysis under uncertainty.
Comparative study of bodies that represent future generations and their influence.
Structured engagement between generations on long-term priorities.
Future preferences are unknown, ethical frameworks differ, and institutions for the long term can be weakened or repealed.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.