Responsibilities for just transition to low-carbon societies : a role-based framework

Abstract

Low-carbon transitions in industrialised societies will have significant social, economic and environmental impacts, raising concerns of justice. Calls for urgent transitions evoke a question about the roles of different actors in advancing transitions and ensuring they are just. While the responsibilities for emission mitigation have been long discussed, responsibilities for making a just transition have not. The question about responsibilities is particularly pressing because of the diverse constellation of actors involved in climate action, including diverse forms of non-state actors from city-level and business alliances to grassroots activists. We examine the responsibilities of state and non-state actors in the decarbonisation process, asking: what role do different actors play regarding the justice impacts of climate action? We combine sustainability transition studies and political philosophy on roles and responsibilities to create a role-based framework for just transition-related responsibilities of different actors at different spatial scales.