By 2035, duties to future generations will appear in the budget rules of more countries

Prediction: by 2035, more countries than today will write explicit duties to future generations into their budget or planning rules, for example through requirements to assess long-term effects, independent future-impact bodies or limits on passing costs forward.

Reasoning: political cycles reward short-term thinking, while many of the biggest decisions, on debt, infrastructure, climate and technology, have effects lasting generations. Philosophers have argued that justice must extend over time; Rawls, for instance, discussed what each generation owes to the next. When arguments become widely accepted, they tend to be embedded in rules.

Confidence: low to moderate, about 45 percent. Such rules are easy to adopt in name and hard to enforce, which makes counting them difficult.

What would prove us wrong: if no additional country adopts binding rules with real consequences, or if existing ones are scrapped.

How to check: compare national fiscal and planning laws in 2026 and 2035 for explicit, enforceable long-term duties.