The just transition concept has emerged, permeated climate negotiations, and influenced the mitigation and adaptation debates.
5.1. Origins and evolution of the just transition concept
The concept originated from the US labour movement and was codified by the International Labour Organization (ILO) 2015 ‘Guidelines for a Just Transition.’ Its inclusion in the Sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP16) agreement in Cancun signalled its entry to the international climate policy arena.[1] The concept was more formally adopted five years later in the Paris Agreement preamble, which acknowledged the need to fairly transition workers in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.[2]
Despite the ILO Guidelines’ broad focus on social protection, skills development, and social dialogue, just transition narratives within the climate agenda have tended to narrowly focus on protecting jobs and leaving no one behind within decarbonising sectors of the economy – oil, coal, and gas.[3] The just transition concept, thus, has been largely concerned with mitigation and energy rather than adaptation. While wider understandings are emerging, such as just urban, just food system transitions, and just rural transitions, compared with the just energy transition concept, these are ‘still evolving concepts, with different levels of engagement.’[4]
Recent developments, such as the JTWP’s creation at COP27 (see below) prompted the important process of deepening the just transition process. Despite this shift and the provisions of Paris Agreement Article 9.4, emphasising a balance between mitigation and adaptation finance, most climate finance to date has, nonetheless, been directed toward mitigation while further relegating adaptation (Figure 4).[5]
Figure 1. Developed countries’ public finance commitments to developing countries by thematic area in 2019–2023
Source: United Nations Environment Programme, 2025[6]
For example, in 2023, mitigation financing reached USD 1.78 trillion, yet only USD 65 billion was allocated to adaptation, with most financing for both coming from the private sector or being debt-based.[7] Additionally, the predominant focus on energy in just transitions led to the establishment of Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) at COP26 in Glasgow. These focused on financing energy rather than ‘whole-of-society’ transitions.
JETPs may mobilise finance for energy transitions that would not otherwise exist, yet they have major limitations. The majority of JETP finance is loan-based, with grants comprising only a small share of total funding – 5% for South Africa, 3% for Indonesia, and 4% for Vietnam. Also, only a marginal share of JETP financing is explicitly directed to justice-related projects, raising concerns that the partnerships’ justice components lack substance.[8]
Mitigation clearly captures most funding, yet there is growing recognition that adaptation must be a key component of any just transition.[9] As with the energy transition, adaptation measures can have unequal and unjust outcomes because adaptation is not a neutral process; political and normative choices shape whose risks are prioritised, whose livelihoods are protected, and whose futures are safeguarded.[10] It is also inherently broad and complex, spanning many development and social sectors. This raises a critical question: How does adaptation fit within the dominant just transition agenda and narrative?
Adaptation is increasingly recognised and linked to the just transition framework in international climate governance. For example, the JTWP, established at COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt) decision 1/CMA.4, aligns with the Paris Agreement goals, covering mitigation, adaptation, and finance pathways. The decision emphasises the importance of energy, socioeconomic, workforce, and other dimensions, based on nationally determined priorities, in facilitating just and equitable transitions.[11]
Subsequent JTWP decisions, such as 3/CMA.5 and 2/CMA.7, have further recognised that just transition pathways are relevant to, and contribute to, more equitable outcomes for adaptation. They also require ‘whole-of-society’ and ‘whole-of-economy’ approaches.[12] Despite evident progress, negotiations under the JTWP have been deeply contested, reflecting long-standing tensions between Global North and Global South actors over the pathways’ scope and meaning. Researchers highlight how Global South efforts to advance a holistic, ‘whole systems’ approach encompassing adaptation, equity, means of implementation, and broader justice dimensions (i.e. recognitional, procedural, distributive, and restorative) have been repeatedly watered down.[13] Instead, the Group of Twenty (G20) countries have pushed through reductionist framings centred on labour and energy transitions, with only more recent COP outcomes securing greater recognition of broader justice elements.[14]
5.2. Expanding just transition research and narratives to a whole-of-society approach
Recent studies have started to address the intersection of sustainability transitions and the wider global political economy, but further examination is needed to understand how diverging adaptation priorities and livelihood considerations influence policy outcomes.[15] Additionally, despite the rise of the just transition paradigm in global discourse and international climate governance, researchers argue that most research remains heavily skewed toward the industrialised economies of the developed world and often sidelines the distinct transition challenges of the Global South, especially Africa.[16] Africa, therefore, needs a different understanding of just transitions, which considers the continent’s structural realities, including its dependence on extractive industries, economic fragility, high levels of inequality, limited fiscal space, and vulnerability to climate impacts.[17] Just transitions on the continent also should carefully consider Africa’s high levels of unemployment and the highly informal (precarious) nature of most of the labour force. [18]
For adaptation, labour and ‘workers’ extend beyond the fossil fuel employment sectors typically associated with the just transition discourse. Both climate impacts and adaptation responses directly shape the livelihoods and labour conditions of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, informal urban workers and food traders, frontline healthcare and emergency response personnel, and women undertaking disproportionate and unpaid adaptation and care labour.[19]
Emerging research recognises these groups not only as climate-vulnerable populations but also as central actors performing adaptation labour itself, including through unpaid, informal, voluntary, and socially reproductive forms of work.[20] However, adaptation as ‘work’ or labour is rarely recognised in scholarship or climate policy.[21] Johnson and others defined adaptation labour as ‘everyday productive and socially reproductive strategies to bear the actual or expected impacts of climate change, including human actions to build or repair environments, infrastructures, or production systems.’[22] This includes activities such as forest management, mangrove planting, agricultural production and food distribution, flood works, community planning and training exercises, and household relocation, and their adoption.[23]
Beyond labour- and energy-centred approaches, emerging scholarship advances a more holistic, ‘whole-systems’ framing of just transition that recognises multiple, interconnected dimensions of justice, the non-linearity of transitions, and the intersection of political, economic, technological, and cultural drivers.[24] This approach adopts an explicitly transformational agenda that aligns with the Global South’s calls within the UNFCCC for a whole-of-society approach to the JTWP.
Expanding just transition research to more fully incorporate and investigate adaptation-related priorities, livelihoods, and labour realities in the Global South is, therefore, essential for crafting climate strategies that are equitable, context-sensitive, and attuned to structural vulnerabilities. A just transition lens on adaptation would critically shape how investments flow and labour capacities are supported across key adaptation sectors, including climate proofing infrastructure, agriculture and food systems, healthcare, water systems, urban and settlements planning, and disaster response. A JTfA, thus, should be viewed as complementary to, not competing with, mitigation-focused transitions, requiring attention to how the benefits and burdens of unavoidable climate impacts and adaptation action are distributed in socially just and politically legitimate ways.
5.3. Justice dimensions
Evidence also shows that adaptation interventions lacking justice and equity considerations can deepen existing inequalities or create new ones, resulting in maladaptation.[25] Moreover, considering the scant funding allocated to justice-related projects in current JETP financing, it is critical to explore how equity and justice intersect with adaptation to ensure these nuances are embedded in future just transition narratives, research, policy processes, and finance.
Adaptation research is often critiqued for invoking justice and equity without analytical clarity. Therefore, we adopt the following working definitions as starting points in this report.[26]
- Justice is the recognition, redress, and restructuring of historical and systemic inequalities. It addresses past harms, present asymmetries, and future risks to enable fair, inclusive, and dignified adaptation.[27]
- Equity is the fair distribution of power, resources, and opportunities in adaptation. It is aligned with differentiated needs, vulnerabilities, and responsibilities.[28]
The 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report indicates three justice dimensions as pivotal to enabling effective and successful adaptation, which we examine and use throughout this report.
- Recognitional – e.g. fair consideration and recognition of diverse views, cultures, and perspectives
- Procedural – who decides and participates in decision making
- Distributive – distribution of burdens and benefits[29]
We integrate restorative justice (restoring dignity and agency) as a fourth dimension to showcase how adaptation policy and planning can be used to correct existing and historical injustices.[30] These four dimensions are all necessary for understanding a just transition as a holistic, whole-systems approach.[31] We use these dimensions as a starting point from which to elaborate on justice’s implications for climate adaptation. Understandings of justice as they apply to adaptation are, however, extended and reinterpreted by African Indigenous versions of justice, including environmental justice.
5.3.1. Recognitional justice
Recognitional justice emphasises acknowledging and addressing the unequal power structures that shape climate impacts.[32] It underscores the need to acknowledge diverse vulnerabilities across race, gender, socio-economic status, disability, and age. It is a prerequisite for procedural and distributive justice, because failing to acknowledge historical and social inequalities risks perpetuating exclusion, marginalisation, and vulnerability in adaptation processes.[33]
Cognitive justice is a key component of recognitional justice. It ensures that all knowledge systems are recognised and included in decision making. It aims to broaden what counts as valuable knowledge to challenge the current paradigm that sees the majority of people in the developing world ‘degraded to the status of consumers of knowledge generated in other contexts, and denied their rights as creators of knowledge.’[34] Fair knowledge production and questioning whose knowledge is valued are key features of cognitive justice.
Cognitive justice is not just a matter of fairness, however, as ‘it is also a pragmatic necessity for achieving truly sustainable and equitable futures.’[35] For example, climate change impacts are increasingly exposing the limits of relying on single knowledge systems to understand and respond to complex socio-ecological changes with implications for adaptation responses. As climate impacts deepen, Western scientific knowledge and modelling, despite its advances, still contains uncertainties and ‘known unknowns,’ such as when tipping points will be reached and what their impact will be, especially at the local level. These uncertainties show why adaptation should draw on diverse forms of knowledge (i.e. epistemic generosity), including ILK, to complement scientific understandings of climate risk and adaptation.[36] Thus, the justice element is imperative because it implies that pre-existing biases toward Western epistemologies (linked to colonial legacies, economic power, and cultural biases) must be dismantled.[37]
More recent justice research has expanded questions of justice beyond a narrow focus on human societies to include non-human beings, ecosystems, future generations, and broader spatial and historical relationships within moral and political communities.[38] For example, for the Indigenous hunter-gatherer Ogiek people of northern Kenya, the Mau Forest is a socio-ecological and spiritual system in which human wellbeing, cultural identity, and ecological integrity are fundamentally interconnected. The Ogiek’s customary governance systems, spiritual practices, and ecological knowledge are grounded in reciprocal relationships with the forest, emphasising collective stewardship, sustainability, and interdependence of human and non-human life.[39]
These expanded perspectives challenge Western legal and philosophical traditions that treat nature primarily as property or a resource, and they show the relevance of Indigenous worldviews that understand humans, ecosystems, and spiritual life as deeply interconnected. In this sense, recognitional justice is not only about acknowledging social difference; it is also about recognising how historic injustices shape current opportunities and vulnerabilities (overlapping with restorative justice), while valuing plural ontologies, knowledge systems, and responsibilities to future generations, distant communities, and the natural world.[40]
5.3.2. Procedural justice
Procedural justice examines the fairness of climate adaptation decision-making processes. Some researchers have stressed that inclusive, transparent, and accountable governance is essential for ensuring that adaptation policies equitably represent affected communities.[41] This approach requires considering who has access to decision-making, whose perspectives are included, and whose needs are prioritised. Rawls’ framework of justice, which integrates procedural and distributive justice, provides a foundation for structuring fair adaptation policies.[42]
Along similar lines, the IPCC, the leading climate change science authority, has been criticised for organisational and functional biases that directly undermine procedural justice.[43] These biases include a ‘geographical bias favouring experts from the Global North, a gender bias favouring men, a disciplinary bias favouring natural sciences over humanities and social sciences, and an epistemological bias that prioritises Western science over Indigenous approaches to science and Indigenous science.’[44]
More recent studies have also shown growth in the content on, and references to, Indigenous Peoples and colonialism between the IPCC Fifth and Sixth Assessment Reports, suggesting progress in overcoming biases. However, the latter still shows inconsistencies in meaningfully including Indigenous perspectives, voices, and experiences, and a reductionist approach, which reinforces ‘harmful stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Knowledge Systems.’[45] Thus, biases still influence or restrict who can access decision-making platforms and whose perspectives are genuinely integrated and prioritised in global climate assessments. This, in turn, limits the fairness and inclusivity essential to just governance.
5.3.3. Distributive justice
Distributive justice concerns fair allocation of climate adaptation’s benefits and burdens across society.[46] Equity, a central tenet of distributive justice, mandates that resources, opportunities, and protection from climate risks be distributed impartially, irrespective of individuals’ identities or backgrounds. However, adaptation benefits and costs often vary markedly between the local and national scales.[47]
Concrete distributive justice failures are evident in food systems, where inequities manifest in unequal access to food, resulting in food insecurity, environmental harms associated with food production, and exploitative labour conditions affecting agricultural workers.[48] A distributive justice lens shows that these patterns reflect the tendency of food system burdens and benefits concentrating unequally across populations and geographies.[49] However, not all uneven distributions amount to injustice.[50] Natural disparities – such as soil fertility or access to water – are not, in themselves, justice issues unless historical legacies or human decisions exacerbate or unfairly institutionalise their effects. For example, agricultural policy that disproportionately channels investment toward already advantaged regions can politicise environmental conditions and lead to unjust outcomes.
Another key concept, especially relevant in emergency situations, is the principle of remedial responsibility. This concept posits that those with the capacity to assist should do so, irrespective of their contribution to the crisis.[51] The concept resonates with one interpretation of the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) principle outlined in the UNFCCC international treaty framework commonly advanced by developing countries. Under this interpretation, developed countries (Annex I) bear greater obligation to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries (Annex II) because of both their historical contribution to climate change and greater economic and technological capabilities.[52] However, since the Copenhagen Accord and the Paris Agreement’s reformulation of CBDR-RC ‘in light of national circumstances,’ alternative interpretations, mostly advanced by developed countries, have increasingly emphasised present capabilities and evolving national circumstances. Ongoing contention over how historical responsibilities should be allocated has resulted.[53]
A distributive justice perspective provides a moral and legal framework that supports differentiated obligations and developed countries’ provision of finance, technology, and capacity-building support to developing countries. It reflects disparities in historical responsibility, capabilities, and vulnerability, and is consistent with Articles 9, 10, and 11 of the Paris Agreement.[54]
5.3.4. Restorative justice
Restorative justice remains comparatively underdeveloped within climate adaptation discourse. The concept began in criminal justice, focusing on repairing harm and restoring dignity and relationships, rather than applying punishment and retribution.[55] For adaptation, this approach requires acknowledging how historical injustices, colonialism, and unequal contributions to climate change have shaped present patterns of vulnerability and adaptive capacity.
Two core positions emerge in the literature. First, reparations are viewed as a form of moral repair that requires acknowledging historical harm, accepting responsibility, and rebuilding trust between those most responsible for climate change and those most affected by it (Box 1).[56] Notions of fairness or justice cannot be ‘abstracted from history.’[57] From this perspective, adaptation responses that fail to confront what has historically driven vulnerability, risk reproducing injustice, even where technical or financial support is provided.
Second, caution against reducing reparations to abstract moral gestures or symbolic recognition is equally important. Fanon rejected the notion of ‘moral reparations’ as hollow, arguing instead for tangible ‘material and technical aid’ as rightful redress for the economic, environmental, and human exploitation of colonialism. To make a new world of justice for all ‘demands that we distribute the costs of making the just world toward those corporations, governments, and people that have inherited the moral liabilities of the worldmaking that preceded us.’[58] Thus, restorative justice requires tangible measures to address unequal vulnerabilities and capacities, not only acknowledgement of historical harm.
Within adaptation discourse, restorative justice is increasingly understood as both a process of historical redress and a means of addressing contemporary climate inequalities. Adaptation researchers have focussed on vital measures to repair climate-related injustices.[59] Robinson and Carlson argued that restorative justice in climate contexts requires confronting the lived experiences of dispossession – loss of land, culture, identity, and future – and repairing the moral relationships that centuries of colonial and post-colonial exploitation have fractured.[60] Building on this perspective, Juhola and others identified several adaptation-specific dimensions of restorative justice: compensating for unequal climate impacts, remedying maladaptation that reinforces existing vulnerabilities and inequalities or creates new ones, and redistributing adaptation finance and resources to address access.[61] In African contexts, restorative justice for adaptation could include securing land tenure for communities dispossessed through colonialism or ‘land grabs’ (see chapter 6), compensating communities, and adaptation labourers disproportionately affected by climate impacts (see section 5.2), and directing adaptation finance, technology, and capacity building toward historically marginalised groups (see chapters 7 and 8).[62]
| Box 1. From colonial extraction to climate vulnerability: Lessons from Cameroon Colonial interventions, especially German plantation models, reshaped Cameroon’s agricultural production by displacing traditional food crops with monoculture ones (e.g. tobacco, cocoa, bananas, oil palms), undermining local agroecological knowledge and traditional food systems, and degrading the ecosystem.[63] Cameroon’s transformation into a ‘commercial and plantation colony’ also entrenched long-term economic dependence on climate-sensitive export commodities such as coffee and cotton. These structural shifts generated enduring vulnerabilities: economies exposed to climate shocks, marginalised rural populations, and degraded ecosystems ill-equipped to buffer increasingly erratic weather patterns.[64] Technocratic adaptation measures alone are insufficient in such contexts. Building long-term resilience requires addressing historical drivers of vulnerability. |
Additionally, in this context, the UN General Assembly formally recognised the transatlantic slave trade as the ‘gravest crime against humanity,’ in a landmark decision in March 2026. Ghana led the resolution, which recognises:
the profound and lasting impacts of the abhorrent regimes of slavery and colonialism and the persistence of racial discrimination and neo-colonialism on Africans and people of African descent and how this continues to cause immense suffering, cultural disruption, economic exploitation, emotional trauma and unending discrimination endured by Africans.
It calls on member states to:
engage in inclusive, good-faith dialogue on reparatory justice, including a full, and formal apology, measures of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, guarantees of non-repetition, and changes to laws, programmes and services to address racism and systemic discrimination.[65]
This resolution marks a pivotal step in advancing restorative justice for Africa, and it provides a clear entry point for linking historical redress to modern-day climate action. More specifically, it strengthens the case for aligning reparations with the continent’s adaptation needs, given the well-established links between the slave trade, colonial exploitation, and the structural drivers of climate vulnerabilities across the continent.
In African contexts, Indigenous justice systems offer essential perspectives that complement and expand conventional justice frameworks. For example, African philosophical traditions such as communitarianism and Ubuntuism emphasise community well-being over individual entitlement. They highlight interconnectedness and collective responsibility between people, nature, and the cosmos.[66] From this perspective, justice is a shared duty for sustaining social harmony, and not a transactional or individualised claim. Some researchers extend this perspective and demonstrate that African restorative justice systems prioritise reconciliation, restoring social cohesion and reintegrating offenders into the community. These practices may offer transformative pathways for climate justice rooted in relational and procedural ethics.[67] Linking these philosophical traditions to the Cameroon case (Box 1) shows the need for community-wide historical redress versus narrow technocratic adaptation measures that address individual problems yet fail to properly consider communities’ deeply interconnected holistic needs.
5.4. Chapter summary
Table 2 summarises the core elements and guiding questions associated with the four dimensions of justice explored here. These dimensions collectively emphasise that adaptation is a deeply political process shaped by power, representation, resource allocation, and historical responsibility, and not only a technical or environmental challenge.
Table 1. Key components and questions related to the four justice dimensions
| Justice dimension | Core elements | Key questions |
| Recognitional justice | Unequal power structuresIntersectional vulnerabilities (age, gender, race, etc.)Epistemic/knowledge justiceSpatial/intragenerational justiceTemporal/intergenerational justice | Who has been historically marginalised?Whose knowledge is validated? |
| Procedural justice | Fairness of decision-making processesInclusivityTransparencyAccountability | Who has access and can participate meaningfully?Whose perspectives are included?Whose needs are considered? |
| Distributive justice | Fair allocation of benefits & burdensEqual distribution of resources, opportunities & protectionAligns with UNFCCC CBDR-RC principle | How are adaptation resources distributed?Who benefits?Is allocation based on vulnerability? |
| Restorative justice | Acknowledgement of historical harmAcceptance of accountabilityRebuilding trustRestoring dignity | What entities are held accountable?How are historical injustices acknowledged and remedied?What mechanisms exist for compensation?How are colonial/neocolonial legacies perpetuated? |
Insights from the literature and our interviews revealed that the four justice dimensions are deeply interconnected rather than siloed.[68] Each dimension (see Figure 5) has the capacity in practice to reinforce or undermine the others: who is acknowledged (recognitional) shapes whose knowledge, perspectives, or participation are included in decision-making processes (procedural). That, in turn, affects how resources are allocated and to whom (distributive), and whether historical inequities are addressed through reparative measures (restorative).
Figure 2. Intersection of recognitional, procedural, distributive, and restorative principles of justice
Source: Adapted from De Bruin, 2024, and Dietzel13
These justice lenses must be applied together to ensure adaptation processes and outcomes are inclusive, equitable, and able to address current vulnerabilities and their structural drivers, and to help communities thrive and prosper.
The four justice dimensions explored here provide the foundation for a JTfA, which are applied to climate adaptation, seeking to address not only climate risks, but also the structural inequalities, power imbalances, and historical injustices that shape vulnerability. As such, a JTfA goes beyond technical adaptation measures to address inherently political questions of participation, finance, knowledge, rights, and accountability (see chapter 8). The next section builds on this foundation and examines how historical injustices and global power asymmetries continue to shape Africa’s position within the international system and, in turn, its capacity to respond to climate adaptation needs.
[1] Giorgos Galanis and others, “Defining just transition”, Ecological Economics, vol. 227 (January 2025).
[2] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Paris Agreement; International Labour Organization, Guidelines for a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all (Geneva, 2015). Available at https://www.ilo.org/publications/guidelines-just-transition-towards-environmentally-sustainable-economies; Sinem Hizliok and Annabel Scheer, “What is the just transition and what does it mean for climate action?”, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, 20 February 2024. Available at https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/explainers/what-is-the-just-transition-and-what-does-it-mean-for-climate-action/.
[3] Hizliok and Scheer, “What is the just transition and what does it mean for climate action?”; Minna Kaljonen, Teea Kortetmäki and Theresa Tribaldos, “Introduction to the special issue on just food system transition: tackling inequalities for sustainability”, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, vol. 46 (March 2023); Leigh Johnson and others, “Intervention: the invisible labor of climate change adaptation”, Global Environmental Change, vol. 83 (December 2023).
[4] Monkgogi Otlhogile and Rebekah Shirley, “The evolving just transition: definitions, context, and practical insights for Africa”, Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability, vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2023), p. 4; Kaljonen, Kortetmäki and Tribaldos, “Introduction to the special issue on just food system transition”.
[5] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Paris Agreement.
[6] United Nations Environment Programme, Adaptation Gap Report 2025, p. 47.
[7] Baysa Naran and others, Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2025 (San Francisco, Climate Policy Initiative, 2025), p. 6. Available at https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2000/06/compressed_Global-Landscape-of-Climate-Finance-2025.pdf.
[8] Alexander Csanadi and Daniel Helmeci, “The Just Energy Transition Partnership crossroads”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 20 October 2025. Available at https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/10/the-just-energy-transition-partnership-crossroads.
[9] Laura Kuhl, “Engaging with climate adaptation in transition studies”, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, vol. 41 (December 2021).
[10] Friederike Lager and others, “A just transition for climate change adaptation: towards just resilience and security in a globalising world”, Adaptation Without Borders Policy Brief, No. 2 (Stockholm, Stockholm Environment Institute, 2021). Available at https://weadapt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pb2_rev4_web.pdf.
[11] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, decision 1/CMA.4 Sharm el-Sheikh implementation plan – pathways to just transition (2023). Available at https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2022_10_a01E.pdf.
[12] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, decision 3/CMA.5 United Arab Emirates just transition work programme (2024). Available at https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2023_16a01_adv_.pdf; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, decision 2/CMA.7 United Arab Emirates just transition work programme (2025). Available at https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2025_19_a01.pdf.
[13] Alix Dietzel, “Negotiating just transition at the UNFCCC”, Global Environmental Politics, vol. 25, No. 4 (November 2025), p. 87.
[14] Dietzel, “Negotiating just transition at the UNFCCC”; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Report of the Conference of the Parties to the Paris Agreement on its seventh session, held in Belém from 10 to 22 November 2025.
[15] Flor Avelino, “Power in sustainability transitions: analysing power and (dis)empowerment in transformative change towards sustainability”, Environmental Policy and Governance, vol. 27, No. 6 (November 2017); Jonathan Köhler and others, “An agenda for sustainability transitions research: state of the art and future directions”, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, vol. 31 (June 2019); Eriksen, Nightingale and Eakin, “Reframing adaptation”.
[16] Bipashyee Ghosh and Johan Schot, “Towards a novel regime change framework: studying mobility transitions in public transport regimes in an Indian megacity”, Energy Research & Social Science, vol. 51 (May 2019); Mara J. van Welie and others, “Analysing transition pathways in developing cities: the case of Nairobi’s splintered sanitation regime”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 137 (December 2018).
[17] David Ciplet, J. Timmons Roberts and Mizan R. Khan, Power in a Warming World: The New Global Politics of Climate Change and the Remaking of Environmental Inequality (Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 2015); Aaron Atteridge and Claudia Strambo, “Seven principles to realize a just transition to a low-carbon economy”, SEI Policy Brief (Stockholm, Stockholm Environment Institute, 2020). Available at https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/seven-principles-for-a-just-transition.pdf.
[18] Otlhogile and Shirley, “The evolving just transition”, p. 6.
[19] Xiaoting Hou-Jones and Nicola Sorsby, “The unsung giants of climate and nature investment: insights from an international survey of local climate and nature action by smallholder forest and farm producers”, IIED working paper (London, International Institute for Environment and Development, 2023). Available at https://www.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/2023-11/21976IIED.pdf; Leigh Johnson and others, “Intervention”.
[20] Yamini Yogya and Hallie Eakin, “The labor of adaptation: unacknowledged work and household decisions in Indian climate adaptation projects”, Geoforum, vol. 172 (June 2026).
[21] Kaljonen, Kortetmäki and Tribaldos, “Introduction to the special issue on just food system transition”.
& Johnson and others, “Intervention”.
[22] Johnson and others, “Intervention”, p. 2.
[23] Johnson and others, “Intervention”.
[24] Dietzel, “Negotiating just transition at the UNFCCC”; Simone Abram and others, “Just Transition: A whole-systems approach to decarbonisation”, Climate Policy, vol. 22 (2022).
[25] Walker and others, “Defining and conceptualizing equity and justice in climate adaptation”, p. 87.
[26] Walker and others, “Defining and conceptualizing equity and justice in climate adaptation”.
[27] Juhola and others, “Connecting climate justice and adaptation planning”.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2022.
[30] Juhola and others, “Connecting climate justice and adaptation planning”.
[31] Dietzel, “Negotiating just transition at the UNFCCC”.
[32] Sara Hughes and Matthew Hoffmann, “Just urban transitions: toward a research agenda”, WIREs Climate Change, vol. 11, No. 3 (May 2020); Eric K Chu and Clare EB Cannon, “Equity, inclusion, and justice as criteria for decision-making on climate adaptation in cities”, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, vol. 51 (August 2021).
[33] Sara Meerow, Pani Pajouhesh and Thaddeus R. Miller, “Social equity in urban resilience planning”, Local Environment, vol. 24, No. 9 (September 2019).
[34] Jane Burt, “Research for the people, by the people: the political practice of cognitive justice and transformative learning in environmental social movements”, Sustainability, vol. 11, No. 20 (October 2019), p. 4.
[35] Sustainability Directory, “Cognitive justice”, 4 February 2026. Available at https://climate.sustainability-directory.com/term/cognitive-justice/.
[36] See, for example, Robert S. Pindyck, “What we know and don’t know about climate change, and implications for policy”, Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, vol. 2 (2021); Renee Cho, “What uncertainties remain in climate science?”, Columbia Climate School, 12 January 2023. Available at https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/01/12/what-uncertainties-remain-in-climate-science/; Ian Shine and Gill Einhorn, “From ‘tipping points’ to ‘sleeper species’: this year’s known unknowns of the climate crisis”, World Economic Forum, 17 December 2024. Available at https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/12/tipping-points-to-sleeper-species-known-unknowns-climate-crisis/; Mark Maslin and Patrick Austin, “Climate models at their limit?”, Nature, vol. 486, No. 7402 (June 2012), p. 183; Zoë Schlanger, “Climate models can’t explain what’s happening to Earth”, The Atlantic, 6 January 2025. Available at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/01/climate-models-earth/681207/.
[37] Sustainability Directory, “Cognitive justice”.
[38] Munamato Chemhuru, “Environmental challenges and the place of African relational environmental ethics of Unhu/Ubuntu”, Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions, vol. 13, No. 3 (December 2024); Workineh Kelbessa, “Intergenerational justice and the environment in Africa”, in Intercultural Philosophy and Environmental Justice between Generations: Indigenous, African, Asian, and Western Perspectives, Hiroshi Abe, Matthias Fritsch and Mario Wenning, eds. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024); Aniek de Bruin and others, “Easier said than defined? Conceptualising justice in food system transitions”, Agriculture and Human Values, vol. 41 (2024); Hannah Coulson and Paul Milbourne, “Food justice for all?: searching for the ‘justice multiple’ in UK food movements”, Agriculture and Human Values, vol. 38, No. 1 (2021); Minna Kaljonen and others, “Justice in transitions: widening considerations of justice in dietary transition”, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, vol. 40 (September 2021).
[39] Mau Forest and others, “Removing an Ogiek from the Forest is like removing a fish from water: a qualitative examination of Ogiek community impacts from forced land eviction for conservation”, PLOS Global Public Health, vol. 5, No. 6 (June 2025); Natural Justice, Ogiek biocultural community protocol, 2nd ed. (2015). Available at https://naturaljustice.org/publication/ogiek-biocultural-community-protocol/.
[40] Stephen Whitfield and others, “A framework for examining justice in food system transformations research”, Nature Food, vol. 2, No. 6 (June 2021); Rutgerd Boelens and others, “Riverhood: political ecologies of socionature commoning and translocal struggles for water justice”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 50, No. 3 (April 2023); Sarah Rogers and Britt Crow‐Miller, “The politics of water: a review of hydropolitical frameworks and their application in China”, WIREs Water, vol. 4, No. 6 (November 2017), p. e1239; Johanna M. Götz and Carl Middleton, “Ontological politics of hydrosocial territories in the Salween River basin, Myanmar/Burma”, Political Geography, vol. 78 (April 2020).
[41] Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice; Joseph Wenta, Jan McDonald and Jeffrey S. McGee, “Enhancing resilience and justice in climate adaptation laws”, Transnational Environmental Law, vol. 8, No. 1 (March 2019); Hanne J. van den Berg and Jesse M. Keenan, “Dynamic vulnerability in the pursuit of just adaptation processes: a Boston case study”, Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 94 (April 2019).
[42] John Rawls, Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1971); Pelling, Adaptation to Climate Change.
[43] Ritodhi Chakraborty and Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, “From climate adaptation to climate justice: critical reflections on the IPCC and Himalayan climate knowledges”, Climatic Change, vol. 167, No. 3-4 (August 2021), p. 49.
[44] Pasang Yangjee Sherpa, “Relevance of the Sixth IPCC assessment report to Indigenous lived realities”, AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, vol. 21, No. 3 (September 2025), p. 464.
[45] Sherpa, “Relevance of the Sixth IPCC assessment report to Indigenous lived realities”, p. 464.
[46] Chu and Cannon, “Equity, inclusion, and justice as criteria for decision-making on climate adaptation in cities”.
[47] Sarah Colenbrander, David Dodman and Diana Mitlin, “Using climate finance to advance climate justice: the politics and practice of channelling resources to the local level”, Climate Policy, vol. 18, No. 7 (August 2018).
[48] Clement Loo, “Towards a more participative definition of food justice”, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 27, No. 5 (October 2014); Charlotte Glennie and Alison Hope Alkon, “Food justice: cultivating the field”, Environmental Research Letters, vol. 13, No. 7 (July 2018).
[49] Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 2013).
[50] David Miller, Justice for Earthlings: Essays in Political Philosophy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013).
[51] Ivo Wallimann-Helmer and others, “The ethical challenges in the context of climate loss and damage”, in Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Concepts, Methods and Policy Options, Reinhard Mechler and others, eds. (Cham, Springer, 2019), pp. 39–62.
[52] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; Aileen Brechin, “Top-down to bottom-up: a critical analysis of the approach to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities under the Paris Agreement”, St Andrews Law Journal, vol. 5, No. 1 (October 2025); Amrendra Kumar, “Principle of ‘common but differentiated’ responsibility under global climate change legal regime: mapping future pathways from the lens of redistributive justice”, Indian Journal of Law and Justice, vol. 16, No. 1 (2025).
[53] Brechin, “Top-down to bottom-up”; Kumar, “Principle of ‘common but differentiated’ responsibility under global climate change legal regime”.
[54] Kumar, “Principle of ‘common but differentiated’ responsibility under global climate change legal regime”.
[55] Juhola and others, “Connecting climate justice and adaptation planning”.
[56] Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006).
[57] Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Reconsidering Reparations (New York, Oxford University Press, 2022), p. 85.
[58] Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York, Grove Press, 1963), pp. 102 – 105; Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Reconsidering Reparations.
[59] Emily Boyd and others, “Loss and damage from climate change: a new climate justice agenda”, One Earth, vol. 4, No. 10 (October 2021); Juhola and others, “Connecting climate justice and adaptation planning”.
[60] Stacy-ann Robinson and D’Arcy Carlson, “A just alternative to litigation: applying restorative justice to climate-related loss and damage”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 42, No. 6 (May 2021).
[61] Juhola and others, “Connecting climate justice and adaptation planning”.
[62] Adaptation labourers are those workers who shoulder the physical burden of climate change and/or those who build social and environmental resilience in the face of climate change.
[63] Ornella Mfochivé, Clara Rübe and Kai Kuhnhenn, The Damage (Being) Done: The Case for Climate Reparations from Germany to Cameroon (Leipzig, Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie, 2025). Available at https://konzeptwerk-neue-oekonomie.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Reparations_Cameroon_en.pdf.
[64] Ibid.
[65] United Nations General Assembly, “Declaration of the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity”, draft resolution (A/80/L.48), 17 March 2026.
[66] Grivas Muchineripi Kayange, Meaning of Justice in African Philosophy (Cham, Springer, 2023); Chemhuru, “Environmental challenges and the place of African relational environmental ethics of Unhu/Ubuntu”; Kelbessa, “Intergenerational justice and the environment in Africa”.
[67] Peter Maregere, “The (un)finished business of transitional justice in South Africa: ‘the past is in the present’”, doctoral dissertation (Coventry University, 2019); Ade Arga Wahyudi, Marlian Arif Nasution and Paisal Rahmat, “The concept of justice in the perspective of Greece philosophy and its relevance to the development of modern political law”, Journal of Law, Politic and Humanities, vol. 2, No. 3 (May 2022); Ifeanyi A. Chukwudebelu, “Reconciling cultural values with legal principles: traditional African justice systems in contemporary context”, Journal of Legal Subjects, vol. 44 (July 2024), p. 12.
[68] Maregere, “The (un)finished business of transitional justice in South Africa; Wahyudi, Nasution and Rahmat, “The concept of justice in the perspective of Greece philosophy and its relevance to the development of modern political law”; Chukwudebelu, “Reconciling cultural values with legal principles: traditional African justice systems in contemporary context”.