We serve the global community of scholars and practitioners who are researching or working at the intersection of justice and climate change.

A large number of people and organizations are working in this area, but there are limited ways for to find each other and learn from each others work, efforts and insights.

What should climate justice research and practice focus on?

This was the question we put out to the global community in the spring of 2017. We solicited one page briefs that outlined ideas from researchers and practitioners about what kinds of questions and efforts are needed to further develop work anywhere within the intersection of justice and climate change.

Authors of the briefs were asked if their contributions could be shared publicly and here are the results. Feel free to contact the authors if any of the ideas spur ideas about collaboration, and please recognize them by citing them appropriately in any work. We recommend that citations follow this format: Author. 2017. “Title.” Unpublished research proposal presented at the First Climate Justice and Equity Network Workshop. Bonn, Germany, May.

Equity in transformational change and decarbonization pathways

In this session, we will discuss the justice issues that emerge specifically when considering decarbonization pathways and mitigation policies. This includes questions of just transition, technical and ethical challenges of particular pathways, and questions about how to ‘build in’ justice when designing or implementing mitigation policies.

• Øyvind Stokke – Energy Supply in the Arctic and the Fair Share of the Climate Mitigation Burdens
• Olga Alcaraz and Josep Xercavins – GGCC Proposal for a Research Agenda Relevant to Climate Equity and Justice
• Daniel Aldana Cohen – RESERCH BRIEF: Socio-Spatial Carbon Collaborative, or (SC)2
• Kate Dooley – Equitable Approaches to Mitigation in the Land Sector
• Eike Düvel – Duties to Strand Assets and Compensatory Claims
• Fergus Green – Research Brief: Justice and Fairness in the Transition to a Zero Carbon Economy
• Kirsten Jenkins – Energy Justice Policy Brief
• Martin Kowarsch and Dominic Lenzi – Climate Ethics in Policy Assessments: A Pathway Approach
• Christopher Lyon – Clear-Eyed Equity: Setting a Climate Equity and Justice Research Agenda
• Mark Budolfson, Francis Dennig, Maddalena Ferranna, Marc Fleubaey, Noah Scovronick, Robert Socolow, Dean Spears, and Fabian Wagner – Princeton Climate Futures Initiative (CFI)
• Joshua Wells – Research Brief: Governing Stratospheric Sulphur Aerosol Injection (SSI) Technology
• Megan Blomfield – Proposed Research Agenda: Natural Resource Justice in Mitigation

Equity under the UNFCCC and in global institutions

This session focuses on the challenge of structuring institutions capable of facilitating justice while addressing climate policy needs. The briefs included to kick-start this session include focus on design proposals, critiques or considerations of specific institutions within and beyond the UNFCCC.

• Christian Baatz – Research Agenda
• Carola Betzold and Paula Castro – Coalition Dynamics in Climate Negotiations: Levelling the Playing Field for Small States?
• Kim Bouwer – Research Agenda Proposal: Fair and Equitable Benefit Sharing in Climate Finance
• Dominic Roser – Proposal for Research Agenda
• Benoit Mayer – Seeking Climate Justice in Customary International Law
• Patricia Galvão Ferreira – Research Agenda
• Jonathan Barnes – How Key Concepts Such as Justice and Equity are Negotiated and Incorporated by Actors during Stakeholder Engagement: Critical Test Case in a Multilateral Context by Analysis of Multiple Examples during the Green Climate Fund (GFC) Project Development Process
• Bård Lahn – International Equity and National Climate Policy Ambition after Paris
• Ina Lehmann – Equity Considerations Related to the Paris Agreement’s Sustainable Development Mechanism
• Colin McQuistan and Marc Van Den Homberg – Technology and Climate Justice: Getting the information Right on Losses and Damages to guide the Warsaw International Mechanism
• Sonja Klinsky – Reparations: A Brief Submitted to the Clear‐Eyed Equity Workshop
• Rosa Manzo – Proposal for a Research Agenda Relevant to Climate Equity and Justice
• Romain Weikmans – The Prospects and Limits of Transparency for increased Fairness and Equity in International Climate Finance
• Christoph Schwarte – Post-Paris Agreement Global Climate Equity Dialogue
• Vegard Toerstad – The Empirical Effects of Procedural Justice Efforts in the UNFCCC
• Joachim Wündisch – Compensating for Losses in Territory and Political Self-Determination

Local justice and equitable adaptation

Many key issues of justice occur at the local level, either within adaptation responses or within locally based land-use or mitigation policies. In this session we focus explicitly on the intersection of justice with climate policies at the local level.

• Mohan Kumar Bera – Risk Perceptions and Actions to Reduce the Impacts of Floods in the Czech Republic
• Atajilte Beyene – Inclusiveness of Climate-Change Mitigation Projects: The Case of Large-Scale Irrigation Schemes and Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia
• Camille Gaskin Reyes – Policy Brief – Climate Change and Equity
• Tim Forsyth – Justice and Inclusivity in Assessing Climate Impacts
• Joyce Coffee – So Where Do Justice and Infrastructure Spend Meet?
• Gareth A. S. Edwards and Sara Fuller – From the “Ethics of Climate Change” to the “Politics of Climate Justice”
• Rebecca Herst, David W. Cash, Paul Kirshen, and Linda Sprague Martinez – Research Brief for Research Clear-Eyed Equity: Setting a Climate Equity and Justice Research Agenda
• Keith Hyams – Justice and Equity in Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction
• Rana Izci Connelly – No More Gozleme with Fresh Herbs? Gender, Food and Climate Change
• Duván Hernán Meneses and Sonia Hita Cañadas – Arraigo: Urban Citizens Competing Institutions for Spatial Justice to Confront Climate Risks
• Michael Mikulewicz – The Politics of Local Climate Justice
• Robert Mizo – Climate Change and Tribal Communities in India
• Jessica Omukuti – Climate Justice in Adaptation: The Role of Equity
• Toyin Oshaniwa – Climate Justice, Social Innovation and Community Development in Africa
• Annalisa Savaresi – Sharing the Benefits and Burdens of the Energy Transition: Learning Lessons from Community Renewables
• Ethemcan Turhan – More than Summit-Hopping: Local Transformative Responses for Climate Justice

Equity paradigms in the context of climate change

Some have suggested that movements towards justice require overarching shifts that extend beyond specific institutions, jurisdictions or scales. Broad paradigms about justice generally, or about what “the problem is”, shape how people have come to think about what climate justice is and what it requires. What paradigms offer potential improvements for achieving justice in the context of climate change? What would this look like and how do we get there?

• Tom Athanasiou – Equity, Softpedaling, Backlash, Ambition – an Unvarnished View
• David Ciplet – Adaptation, Inequality and the World System: A Research Agenda
• Nicole Detraz – Vulnerable Victims or Stalwart Saviors: Debating Women and Climate Change
• Aarti Gupta – Evolving practices of climate governance: redefining and sidelining equity?
• Christian Holz – Conducting and Scrutinizing Quantified Equity Analyses – A Possible Research Agenda
• Julia K. Steinberger, Elke Pirgmaier, William F. Lamb, Helga Weisz, Daniel Bailey, Stephen Hall, Lina Brand Correa, Doris Fuchs, Sylvia Lorek, Peter Paul Pichler, Timmons Roberts and Marlyne Sahakian – Prioritising Well-Being on a Finite Planet: A Research Manifesto
• José Pablo Prado Córdova – Climate Injustice and the Making of the Subject through Peripheral Lenses
• Liang Emlyn Yang – Research Brief for the Bonn Equity and Climate Workshop

Social, political, and cultural responses to climate justice

The politics of justice, as well as broader social and cultural ideas and claims about justice have become central in developing effective and just climate policies and institutions, and in contributing to broader processes of social change. This session will examine existing knowledge and frameworks for understanding how such processes work in the climate context to either promote or impede justice concerns.

• John Foran – There is Really Only One Way to Come to Grips with the Climate Crisis: Proposal for a Research Agenda on the Global Climate Justice Movement
• Bennet Francis – Research Brief
• Jamie Draper – Research Brief: Climate Change, Migration and Justice
• Marc D. Davidson – Is Intergenerational Equity the Right Approach to Climate Change?
• Alsiddig Abdelsadig Faragallah – Curriculum of Climate and Weather
• Marco Grasso and Katia Vladimirova – Moral Duties of Carbon Majors: Implications for Global Climate Policy
• Refia Kadayifci – Can Anti-Discrimination Law be Useful in Climate Litigation?
• Alex McLaughlin – Climate Change and Distributive Justice: Scope, Integrationism and the Deferral of Costs
• Lydia Messling – Climate Science and Policy Advocacy: Values, Practices, and Strategies for Success
• Mathieu Munsch – Research Brief: Setting a Climate Justice and Equity Research Agenda
• Callum Nolan – Research Brief: Corporate Social Responsibility and Climate Justice
• Liam Phelan and Matt Lumb – Climate Justice and Education Equity
• D. A. Harris – Climate Change Denial – How Can We Stop Challenges to the Scientific Consensus?
• Timmons Roberts, Robert Brulle, and David Ciplet – Understanding and Confronting the Fossil-Fueled Anti-Climate-Equity Network
• Danny Waite – Research Brief: Multilateral Blocs in Global Climate Change Negotiations
• Patricia Widener – Climate Equity & Justice: Global Citizen, Corporate Oil & Regional Migration