“Leave No One Behind in a Zero Carbon Future:” Theorizing a Just Transition

• In Event: Possibilities for Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Abstract

Climate justice has become a significant research area in political theory, with a growing literature developing equitable principles for distributing the mitigation, adaptation, and compensation burdens of climate change. However, a growing discourse within both the labor and environmental movements frames climate justice less around ideal end-states but in terms of the means by which the necessary transition to carbon-free societies and economies should occur. This “just transition” discourse, which argues for bridging economic and ecological justice through decarbonization efforts that empower workers and vulnerable communities while providing social protection and compensation for displaced workers, provides a necessary corrective and valuable supplement to theories of climate justice. Through a discourse analysis and theoretical reconstruction of the just transition discourse, as articulated by actors and activists in the labor and climate justice movements, this paper seeks to both provide analytic clarity for the meaning of justice in this discourse while complicating and reorienting existing debates over climate justice. More specifically, integrating the idea of a just transition into climate justice theory advances climate justice theory in three ways. First, it broadens the scope of climate justice theory beyond distributive concerns to include precognitive and procedural justice. Second, it moves from a static to a dynamic conception of justice, by attending to the specific political, policy, and industrial processes of decarbonization. Third, it foregrounds politics over ideal theory, by emphasizing not only that achieving climate justice requires political mobilization and negotiating between diverse coalitions, but also that political action inevitably generates remainders and dislocations that demand their own just response. In addition to contributing to the development of non-ideal climate justice theory, this paper also accentuates the implications climate change raises for democratic theory, both in terms what effects climate change will have on democratic publics and citizenries as well as the potential for democratic mobilization around climate justice.

Author

• Michael Christopher Sardo, Occidental College