To realize the climate transition and other large societal transitions in a fair way, expectations should be considered. However, the literature has only focused on the claims that already existing expectations bring about, without indicating which rights there are to be actively provided with expectations. This article addresses this gap by investigating the rights of private agents, individuals and companies, to be informed about future climate regulations. It argues that private agents have an interest in being informed because this enables (...) them to make and execute plans. Its value depends on how general the relevant regulations are and the costs of processing the information and responding to it. This interest grounds duties on the part of governments to provide information about the general directions of future policies because of their capacities to inform about the regulations they will introduce and their special responsibilities towards the agents over whom they exercise a right to rule. When future regulations are uncertain, they should provide information about the likelihood of the possible scenarios and the circumstances on which this depends and introduce an element of stability in future policies, which should be balanced with the value of flexibility. (shrink)

To avoid the disastrous effects of climate change, a rapid and drastic transition toward a low-carbon society and economy is required. This transition imposes significant transitional losses on some agents given the benefits they can no longer realize. In economic terms, it leads to the stranding of their assets. This article investigates whether fossil fuel owners could refer to their expectations about the benefits of producing their reserves to justify transitional measures such as exemptions from new rules or financial compensations. (...) It criticizes forward-looking views on the normative relevance of expectations and defends a backward-looking view, which justifies limited claims. It contends that states that are responsible for creating false expectations about regulatory stability should provide compensations to fossil fuel companies for the costs of relying on those expectations. States can be held responsible if they caused this expectation-related harm in a foreseeable and avoidable way, which is only the case if the expectation is reasonable and if they were not put under pressure by the lobbying activities of the fossil fuel industry. (shrink)

While the energy transition is needed more than ever, for some agents it brings significant losses. This article investigates whether fossil fuel owners could refer to promises to avoid having their assets stranded. It explains how authors, in the context of just transitions, have argued for the normative relevance of Rawlsian legitimate expectations, which refer to promissory entitlements. However, it argues that the normative relevance of promises towards fossil fuel owners is limited, because there are only few promises about what (...) will be permissible in the future and because these promises should be just before they can lead to entitlements. (shrink)