As global temperatures increase, these impacts will become both more widespread and more severe. The policy choices that we make now affect not only how high global temperatures rise, but also how well-equipped future economies and infrastructures are to cope with these changes. Thus, it is clear that the interests of future generations must be central to climate policy and planning. However, while various potential arrangements for the representation of future generations have been suggested and occasionally tried, little literature has focused on the question of how to evaluate these arrangements and proposals. We argue that potential representatives of future generations should satisfy what we call a hypothetical acceptance criterion, which requires that the representative could reasonably be expected to achieve the acceptance of future generations. This overarching criterion in turn gives rise to two derivative criteria. These are, first, epistemic and experiential similarity to future generations and, second, motivation to act on behalf of future generations. We conclude that already climate-affected communities best satisfy these criteria and thus are able to command the hypothetical acceptance of future generations.