Practicing Climate Justice: Negotiating Just Transitions in Canada and on the World Stage

Abstract

Through four case studies—the debates around three Canadian climate plans, as well as the negotiations that happened during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 2005 (COP 11)—this chapter highlights the extent to which considerations of equity and justice are essential to forge collective action against climate change. Negotiators will only be able to agree if they think that what is asked of each of them is fair and equitable, compared to what is required from others. The chapter offers an explanation as to why, despite considerable amount of efforts, the talents and goodwill in current climate negotiations have led to greenhouse gas reduction targets, far removed from what it would take to stem the major threat that climate change poses to humanity. It appears that avoiding the ravages of climate change is not only a vital obligation but also an immense and politically difficult task, involving tricky considerations of justice, linked to the global and non-localizable nature of the greenhouse effect as well as to the magnitude of the problem. We are talking about changing nothing less than the material basis of our civilization: energy produced through burning fossil fuels.