Environmental Justice and The Alliance for a Just Transition: Grist for Climate Justice Planning

Abstract

Conversations about how to tackle climate change often fail to incorporate the perspectives of activists from the Environmental Justice Movement and the Just Transition Alliance. Ignoring voices from workers and communities that have been in the sacrifice zones of environmental contamination often leads to “false solutions” that further exacerbate both the disproportionate impacts on communities of color and the threats from climate change. In this perspective, three EJ activists provide a clarification and reminder on why and how the terms environmental justice and just transition became critical to the movement for climate justice. Policies for climate justice planning are included.

Ground Truths: Community-Engaged Research for Environmental Justice

“…The concept of just transition emerged from the labor movement and broadened as labor-community alliances formed in the EJ movement. For example, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union leader Tony Mazzocchi called for a "just transition, " to provide "a new start in life" for workers threatened by environmental policies (Córdova, Bravo, and Acosta-Córdova 2022; Labor Network for Sustainability and Strategic Practice Grassroots Policy Project 2017). With a focus on protecting needs of workers in the transition away from the fossil fuel economy, the just transition framework addresses the potential harm caused by decarbonization, while remaking the economy in ways that prioritize the well-being of the environment and the people who live there (Cha et al 2019).…”

“…Another emergent CER practice in the EJ movement is planning focused on just transitions. Just transitions is both a concept and a process by which society shifts from an extractive, exploitative economy to a regenerative economic system by making connections between workers and community issues, organizing, and movement building (Córdova, Bravo, and Acosta-Córdova 2022). One example of this type of planning was developed by the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) with Movement Generation in their guide to just transition planning (Gonzalez 2021), which details how communities can craft and lead their own vision for achieving a just transition.…”