LIST OF PANELS

Climate change is one of the preeminent environmental and social/political challenges of our time. Many governments, civil society organizations, and even businesses across the globe are addressing climate change by developing a broad range of “transition” policies. Some of these do address issues of justice, others do not. Theories on justice, largely from social movement, put environmental justice on the agenda. The current emerging notions of climate justice or energy justice draw our attention to (1) the disproportionate burden that vulnerable communities, areas, and/or generations will bear for climate change, and (2) to the burden on communities, areas and generations due to the necessary transitions envisioned, for example in energy, food production and consumption, often toward more circularity or renewables.  

Interesting developments In the US include efforts by the NY Renews Coalition, which won transformative climate legislation in New York that sets aggressive greenhouse gas emissions targets, and requires that 40% of investments in transforming the energy sector go to historically disadvantaged communities, while also establishing the Climate Justice Working Group to give them a seat at the table. This Green New Deal style policy contrasts with more radical reforms proposed in the Red Deal that center indigenous points of view and aim to dismantle capitalism, neo-liberalism, and colonialism and address the injustices of these systems. In Europe debates on the justness of renewable energy policies is receiving attention, often due to increasing societal resistance against policies and measurements to ensure a transition to renewables. Under societal pressure policy makers are urged to better include and take care of the interests of minorities, people with a low income, and others not recognized as potentially disproportionally burdened. Very often the starting point is societal resistance and protest against these policies. We see similar attempts at just transitions globally.

An important question in conceptualizing climate justice, energy justice, environmental justice, is: justice according to whom? What are the normative claims of justice and how are those constructed? What are the particular forms of injustice that are articulated in different contexts and what are the historical trajectories of those claims? What role do academic studies play in constructing insights in justice and injustice in the policy practice? What policy solutions have been developed and how are these animating different participants in discourse coalitions, for example for or against climate action and energy transitions? How are societal groups, communities, citizens framing the problems of climate change in relation to climate justice, or other forms of justice? What is the interpretive work that they’re doing to proposal reforms or radical transformations? What types of counter-framing are they confronting as they attempt to make sense of climate as a problem of justice, and how are they addressing these counter-frames, particularly those that lose their connection to agreed up facts about anthropogenic climate change and espouse climate denial?

This panel on 'justice' in climate change and related transitions calls for papers that take a critical and interpretive approach to the normative theories and empirical studies on environmental, climate, energy, social and spatial justice. We are looking for empirically rich, and theoretically innovative papers that aim to contribute to more democratic sustainability transitions.