Transformative transitional justice and climate action

In the face of rapidly escalating but unevenly distributed harms, global climate governance is struggling to prevent catastrophic warming while addressing growing demands for climate justice. This paper proposes transformative transitional justice as a lens through which to identify two sources of climate justice action: elements of justice latent within climate policy architectures, and community justice actions too often overlooked by formal institutions. It identifies ways to connect these institutional and community-level elements into a broader, multi-level justice ecosystem.

Authors

Jasmina Brankovic, Samuel Sontag

In the first part, the paper identifies several entry points within the global climate framework to advance climate justice. The second part provides insights into key findings from participatory research into community-led climate actions in Malawi and the Philippines – highlighting that communities are already pursuing climate justice actions that align with transformative transitional justice principles – actions that institutional actors systematically fail to identify and acknowledge. The research shows the need for integrating communities’ braided experience of harm and articulations of justice with the institutional infrastructure of the global climate regime into a justice ecosystem that allows for more transformative climate justice.