What is a just transition for environmental targets?

This POSTnote considers transitions to meet environmental targets and how their costs and benefits for different members of society can be distributed fairly. The term ‘just transition’ is regularly used in multilateral discussions to agree environmental targets. While definitions differ, the aim of just transition approaches is to address potential sources of unfairness to provide better outcomes for different groups of people. Justice issues can arise from proactive climate action undertaken to tackle climate change, but also from reactively adapting to the impacts of unpreventable climate change and biodiversity loss. Individuals’ vulnerability is a combination of these. Action may place unaffordable costs on people and nations who are the most politically, socially and economically marginalised. Major justice issues are most likely to arise when there is a perception of unfairness; where groups are disproportionately disadvantaged or advantaged, or if measures are not accessible to all. Procedural and distributional justice issues are two of the most common and require different approaches. Procedural injustice, (where groups of people may feel their rights or viewpoints have been ignored, not considered in the first place, or their concerns have not been adequately addressed) may require addressing power imbalances. Distributional justice concerns vary on a sector-by-sector basis, but relate to a perception of fairness around who pays, who is helped with costs, and who benefits. For some groups, there are outstanding, unrectified injustices domestically or overseas resulting from damage or actions in the past by the UK state or companies. There is disagreement on whether compensation should be dealt with separately from just transition issues, as it is for historical rather than future injustices.