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With climate change increasingly threatening people in uneven and disproportional ways, community-based solutions and interventions have become critical to ensure equitable, just, and inclusive climate action in cities. This paper examines community-based climate action in San Francisco (USA) through the lens of climate justice and intersectionality. Through a qualitative analysis of community-based organisations (CBOs) and their justice-oriented adaptation and mitigation efforts, our research examines the contributing factors and pathways by which CBO climate action leads to intersectional climate justice. Our analysis examines how CBOs 1) recognise and rectify historical and compounding vulnerabilities; 2) plan and act in ways that are people-centric and place-based; and 3) work collectively with organisations and government through alliances, coalitions, and participatory processes. We find that CBOs have the potential to work collectively to ensure processes are just and outcomes are equitable for those most at risk of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, populism is widely understood to entail an exclusionary conception of "the people" that threatens climate change action. While this threat is real, I argue that populism itself can be understood as a response to perceived exclusion and marginalization, making it possible to conceptualize a more heterogeneous conception of populism's "people." Examining two approaches to climate change action rooted in contrasting conceptions of the people and the elite, I argue that climate justice organizing offers a promising effort to construct a heterogeneous people and offers a powerful critique of the elite representation of climate change action in which "we are all in this together." Yet along with this promise, climate justice organizing must navigate tensions that are inescapable within any populist formation. One neglected thread of populist history and theory offers resources for doing so; in the final section of this paper, I explore its relevance to climate justice today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical, interdisciplinary analysis of the current global landscape of climate action and response with the aim of determining its overall trajectory toward either justice and equity on the one hand, or exploitation and segregation on the other. It finds that tendencies toward the latter are far more pronounced. This paper summarizes those findings and presents arguments for three categories of climate action that are producing and/or exacerbating inequity, injustice, and segregation. They are: securitization (of resources, infrastructure, borders, and land), financialization (of exploitative mitigation and adaptation measures), and (im)mobilization (of migrants and the climate-vulnerable alongside the increased mobility of elite populations). An examination of the political rhetoric and public discourse associated with these trends follows, revealing widespread dehumanization and 'othering' used to condone a system that justifies protection for some populations and the expendability of others. Together, this analysis provides a framework for exposing and critiquing our current trajectory toward an outcome that is best described as climate apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores opportunities for intergenerational communication to foster collective climate action and justice. While climate change communication can be framed as a site of intergenerational conflict and blame, we consider how the concept of superordinate identities offers rhetorical possibilities for generational coalition building to ultimately facilitate joint climate action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an ongoing debate among climate activists and scholars on the merits of 'climate emergency' frames, which mirrors debates in critical security studies on the benefits and risks of 'securitization'. Climate emergency advocates demonstrate that rapid transformative action beyond 'normal' politics is needed to meet the Paris agreement targets. Critics, on the other hand, highlight the risks of deploying emergency frames to galvanize climate action, which may simply result in failed securitizations or even in emergency suspensions of democratic norms that advance climate action at the expense of climate justice. This paper will engage this debate by exploring the question: could climate emergency mobilizations be compatible with climate justice? I will argue, following Andreas Kalyvas, that the climate emergency can be framed as an opportunity for an 'extraordinary politics' of democratic constituent power, though this would involve risks and trade-offs that must be negotiated in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advancing equity and justice in climate action planning (CAP) presents a considerable challenge for urban governance actors. This paper provides necessary and practical guidance for developing participatory approaches that help planners avoid perpetuating dominant knowledge systems and corresponding planning interventions that have brought us to the current state of climate change and social inequity. Advancing equity and justice in CAP requires reflexive, participatory practice that centers vulnerable residents and supports communication across differences in social position and systems of meaning. These actions require a fuller accounting of the underlying social processes that drive vulnerability to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavily featured over the last few years in global research and policy agreements, Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) remain however exposed to much debate over the ways their current design and ability to achieve both environmental goals and social needs. As they become mainstream climate mitigation and adaptation options, their capacity to deliver expected benefits, especially when contemplating equity and justice, is at least uncertain. Through a critical review of existing debates and perspectives on NBS, this paper questions their uptake and points at the frequent embeddedness of NBS in speculative and elite-based development paths in both urban and rural areas. We present an alternative, justice-oriented approach to NBS so that projects can avoid nature-enable dispossession and instead build nature-inspired justice that prioritizes the needs, identities, and livelihoods of the most ecologically and socially vulnerable residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: As governments move in earnest toward a green economy, few countries are considering education policy that can facilitate the development of green skills for such transitions. Where policy discussions are happening, green skills are often conflated with science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) skills, with little attention to the breadth of green skills needed to achieve climate justice. Purpose: We present a green skills framework to help support policy stakeholders imagine a continuum of green skills for a just transition. Methods and approach: This article applies a critical feminist lens to understand how green skills have been conceptualized across the gender and adolescence, greening and sustainability, and education fields. It also integrates the perspectives of stakeholders from climate, education, and gender‐focused multilateral, government, and non‐governmental organizations working on green skills. Findings The analysis finds that green skills coalesce around three distinct but overlapping paradigms. The first understands green skills through a technical lens as the specific capacities needed for green jobs. The second and third paradigms understand green skills through a sociological lens, seeking to tackle the behaviours and social structures driving the climate crisis. As such, they centre on cross‐cutting generic capacities and transformative capacities, respectively. Taken together, the article offers a new definition of green skills for policy stakeholders. Policy implications: The three approaches to green skills outlined in this paper constitute the pillars of a new green learning agenda for climate action, climate empowerment, and climate justice. This green learning agenda fills a significant void in both climate policy and education policy, and could help governments address current capacity building needs while setting their populations up for the long‐term social transformations required to achieve a just transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a concerning topic, as it is impossible to deny its damaging effects on the planet. Different policy responses have been offered regarding climate change adaptation, and these have brought forward issues related to climate justice. As this topic is still not very well known in Brazil, this paper aims to raise awareness on climate justice concepts and related issues. This is a literature review which analyses climate justice theories and their relation with the concept of climate change adaptation in order to offer a new point-of-view on the topic. This paper has come to the conclusion that the concept of climate change has been created due to the increased importance of climate justice. Its origins lie in climate change activism, which seeks to help the most affected communities. That was when the fight for sharing the burden of climate change emerged, giving rise to the concepts of mitigation and climate adaptation. Thus, the most affected populations should receive assistance in the form of climate change impact adaptation, financed by the countries which are responsible for most greenhouse effect gas emissions, in name of climate justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the American Association of Geographers (AAG) Climate Action Task Force set forth to imagine academic knowledge production and sharing beyond the current conference model to address the ecological impacts of large-scale, conventional, in-person conferences. Building on provocations of Pulido's (2002) paper "Reflections on a White Discipline," this article seeks to ensure that racial justice is part of that imagining. There is much to be ecologically gained by moving toward smaller regional gatherings and large virtual conferences. Our task, however, is to assess the loss of mentorship, affirmation, and community found at the AAG Annual Meeting that sustains Black, Indigenous, and people of color geographers in the current climate of our discipline. We deploy the term climate for two reasons. First, climate refers to "toxic environments" of home institutions within which geographers of color often teach, research, and write (Mahtani 2014). We call on all geographers to contend with the epistemological, institutional, and individual actions needed to detoxify spaces and places of geography. Second, in pace with Pulido (2002), we argue that knowledge production on the climate crisis is enhanced when geography becomes a safer place for geographers of color. Action taken toward climate justice cannot happen without actions to achieve racial justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate justice provides a crucial framework to embed issues of equity and justice into COVID-19 recovery strategies. The pandemic, alongside climate change, is disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable and marginalized people across the globe, and particularly exposing Black, Brown, and Indigenous people to ill-health and economic hardship. However, there is a risk that economic considerations will take precedence over climate action in recovery strategies and avoid addressing climate and racial injustices. Yet, it is vital that climate and racial justice and just transition principles inform post-COVID-19 recovery strategies to avoid compounding inequalities. This paper unpacks the layers of injustice surrounding the pandemic, along with their relation to climate policy and finance. It advocates for policymakers to adopt climate justice and just transition principles as a framework for COVID-19 recovery strategies to ensure existing inequalities in society are recognized and addressed in the run-up to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in 2021 and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic and climate change intersect to further compound inequalities between and within nations. Current vulnerabilities and historical racial injustices undermine the ability of individuals, communities and nations to cope with, and adapt to, climate change. Economic considerations have dominated climate and development policy, and this must change to include justice and equity as key criteria to ensure a green and just recovery. Policymakers should pursue climate policymaking designed with broad and diverse communities in mind, recognizing diversity and intersectionality, to empower marginalized groups. Just transition principles should be mainstreamed into investment and financing criteria for climate finance and recovery strategies to ensure funding reaches those who need it most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific literature on the co-impacts of low-carbon energy systems—positive and negative side effects—has focused intently on climate mitigation, or climate adaptation. It has not systematically examined the prospective co-impacts of carbon removal (or negative emissions) and solar geoengineering. Based on a large sample of diverse expert interviews (N = 125), and using a sociotechnical approach, in this study we identify 107 perceived co-impacts related to the deployment of carbon removal and solar geoengineering technologies. Slightly less than half (52) were identified as positive co-impacts (38 for carbon removal, 14 for solar geoengineering), whereas slightly more than half (55) were identified as negative co-impacts (31 for carbon removal, 24 for solar geoengineering). We then discuss 20 of these co-impacts in more depth, including positive co-impacts for nature-based protection, the expansion of industry, and reduction of poverty or heat stress as well as negative co-impacts for water insecurity, moral hazard, limited social acceptance and path dependence. After presenting this body of evidence, the paper then discusses and theorizes these co-impacts more deeply in terms of four areas: relationality and risk-risk trade-offs, co-deployment and coupling, intentional or unintentional implications, and expert consensus and dissensus. It concludes with more general insights for energy and climate research, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imperative of climate justice has been gaining political and discursive power in international climate negotiations. Yet scholars are just beginning to investigate how climate policies are impacting social equity in practice. This paper contributes concrete examples and a multiscalar analysis to this emerging understanding. As cities are increasingly important players in global climate governance, it examines cases from three cities in the global North that have made notable attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a socially just way: Chicago, Illinois; Birmingham, England; and Vancouver, British Columbia. These cases show that there is significant potential for cities to further global climate justice through emission reductions while enhancing social justice locally. However, they also demonstrate the importance of understanding just carbon mitigation as a multiscalar phenomenon. In each of these cities, leaders’ abilities to mitigate climate change in a just way are shaped by larger processes of changing global markets, political opportunities and constraints, and inconsistent national regulatory environments. To the extent that cities continue to act as important sites of the carbon mitigation necessary to achieve global climate justice, this research highlights the necessity of creating national and global political conditions that enable the implementation of just climate mitigation in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The world’s poor are especially vulnerable to environmental disasters, including the adverse consequences of climate change. This creates a challenge for climate justice advocates who seek to ensure that those least responsible for causing climate change do not bear unwanted burdens of mitigation. One way to promote climate justice could be to pay particular attention to the environmental policy preferences of citizens from poorer, lower-emitting countries. This paper examines opinions on environment–economy trade-offs and willingness to make personal financial contributions to protect the environment among residents of 42 developed and developing countries using data from the 2005–2008 World Values Survey, the 2010 Climate Risk Index, and World Bank development indicators. Results reveal that individuals in developing countries are less likely to support policies to prioritize environmental protection over economic growth but are more willing to donate personal income for pro-environmental efforts compared to citizens of more developed nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]