ABSTRACT Public transport plays a significant role in people’s everyday lives for commuting, business, and leisure purposes. Increasingly, the way the public is able to access information about passenger services has been transformed through digitalisation. Despite these digital transformations there remain very few opportunities for people to become directly involved in shaping the design of public transport at an early stage to reflect their personal preferences and experiences. In this paper, we outline and analyse an innovative digital engagement strategy for new trains on the Tyne and Wear Metro network in North East England. This engagement involved people in the design, specification, and detailed features of a new fleet of trains. This was successful in generating over 33,000 public engagements that, in turn, shaped the design and procurement of the trains prior to construction. We discuss how participatory digital technologies can be used to configure engagement, facilitating critical and constructive commentaries. We describe how centring people’s experiences, imagination and curiosity can lead to more meaningful engagement through digitalisation, where the public are not merely the users of transport services but may also be its architects.

ABSTRACT With the escalating urgency of addressing climate change and the surge of a pro-environmental discourse during the last three to four decades, the international imperative of low-carbon societies voiced in the Paris Agreement and reiterated in the parties’ conferences call for ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems’ has gained traction. However, it remains unclear to what extent this imperative addresses the entrenched extractivist and rentier practices that underpin today's carbon-intensive economy. This article turns the case of green hydrogen, often hailed as the fuel of the future, to discern whether current actions are enabling a ‘just transition’ towards the same mode of natural resource exploitation, or one that seeks to overcome the extractivist and rentier dynamics. Taking a case study of Colombia, where debates surrounding hydrogen development swirl around what could be seen as a continuity of extractivism and a more reindustrialization-oriented trajectory, this study examines some of the possible conditions that just transitions would have to comply with if they are to overcome both fossil fuel dependence and the politico-economic behaviours that have turned swathes of Global South countries into natural resource repositories.

ABSTRACT Wyoming is the epicentre of the coal transition in the United States. The coal industry is critical to the state’s economy, both in terms of jobs and a state revenue model dependent on federal coal leasing payments, mineral royalties, and mining severance taxes. However, due to economic, regulatory, and political pressures, the U.S. is currently on track to retire half of its coal-fired electricity generation capacity by 2026. Accordingly, Wyoming faces an uncertain future. Despite the difficult path ahead, many Wyoming policymakers, industry officials, and residents express hostility toward the idea of transition. This often manifests in opposition to renewable energy through policies that double down on investments in fossil fuel energy, despite the increased availability of federal resources and programmes to ease the burden of change. I refer to this phenomenon as transition obstructionism. While transition obstructionism is detrimental to residents across the state, harm is also distributed downstream in the fossil fuel lifecycle, particularly in historically marginalised communities. This article reviews recent efforts by state lawmakers and institutions to actively disincentivize transition and prolong the fossil fuel economy in Wyoming. It then considers how transition obstructionism contributes to ‘embodied energy injustices’ both within and beyond Wyoming.

ABSTRACT In this paper we discuss the pressing need for a just transition in one of our most environmentally and socially problematic contemporary industries: the fashion and textiles industry. We detail the current injustices in the industry, from both environmental and socio-economic standpoints, and then move on to providing some suggestions as to how these entrenched problems with the industry could be addressed. Specifically, we identify five key action areas that could take us towards a just transition for the fashion and textiles industry: establishing limits, developing new indicators, promoting fairness, implementing just modes of governance, and creating new exchange systems. We propose policy interventions in each of these five action areas and discuss how they could practically be put into practice. In doing so, we develop a novel theoretical concept for a more just version of the global fashion industry: the ‘Wellbeing Wardrobe’, which draws on wellbeing economics and de-growth thinking applied to the contemporary fashion industry.

ABSTRACT The concept of a Just Transition [JT] gained considerable international interest as exemplified by a dedicated pavilion set up for the JT by the European Commission and the ILO at the COP27. Although the concept now encompasses a wide range of justices such as the social, legal, and environmental justices, the original concept itself can be traced back to trade union movements in the 1980s. Drawing lessons from the socio-economic damage caused by a failed JT of the UK mine closures between the 1980s and 1990s, this paper argues that former coal mining communities in the UK today continues to face similar problems identified in the past, which makes them uniquely vulnerable against the current process of JT. This paper utilises the multi-level perspective [MLP] theory by fleshing out the role of politics and policy in enabling a JT, using a case study approach to the coal mine closure in the North of England. This paper identifies the failed JT at every stage of the MLP theory. It concludes that the example of the coal mine closures provides a valuable lesson for a successful JT today such as stronger key stakeholder cooperation and a place-based response through significant decentralisation.

ABSTRACT The transition from fossil fuels involves the closing down of fossil-fuel based plants and activities, such as coal mines and coal fired power stations. This article outlines the components of a place-based Just Transition in which the management of closures extends spatially, beyond the usual focus on affected workers, to deliver interventions across affected communities with a view to minimising adverse impacts, creating new local opportunities and kindling hope for the future. It positions these interventions as integral to the change process, and not simply a post-hoc compensation for the losers of change. The article identifies six domains for policy action: pre-planning, coordinating change, managing plant closures, redeploying the labour force, redeveloping the local economy, and maintaining social cohesion. For each, specifying goals, targets, indicators and measures helps to reveal the magnitude of the interventions that will be required to achieve a place-based Just Transition. After providing broad estimates of the associated costs, the article concludes that delivering a Just Transition is likely to require re-distributive funding.

ABSTRACT There is growing awareness that the effects of decarbonisation are highly spatial and will impact regions differentially. Old industrial regions are likely to be particularly affected but it is debateable how well equipped they are to engage with transition and for it to be just. Extant literature suggests that this will be highly contingent on the acceptability of this transition amongst old industrial communities, with a call to understand what and who will be impacted [Garvey, A., Norman, J. B., Büchs, M., & Barrett, J. (2022). A “spatially just” transition? A critical review of regional equity in decarbonization pathways. Energy Research & Social Science, 88, 102630]. There is, however, a need for more granularity of evidence on how acceptability is formed and how it plays out in practice. Taking the case of Port Talbot in the UK, this paper provides new insights into the interplay between place attachment and a ‘just transition’ in an old industrial region. This paper finds that there is a strong community understanding of and support for decarbonisation but an equally strong perception of powerlessness to act. There is an enduring sense of place attachment within Port Talbot but the lack of place-based consultation and engagement with the community means that there are no effective development strategies in place. Thus, it can be concluded that there is acceptability but without agency.

ABSTRACT Increasingly, the concept of a just transition is shaping labour’s view of environmental justice but the experience of trade unions working towards just transitions has been mixed, although much action has built on the existing relationships that trade unions have had with their members, other trade unions and civil society organisations. Recent analysis of trade union environmental action has found that a more radical approach is needed that will promote the long-term interests of labour in what has been described as the just transition. This paper argues that if trade unions want future, more transformative strategies, they will have to build their own expertise, building on their own research which has informed their own democratic expertise. This paper makes a contribution to this process by identifying ‘Three Pillars’ which could be used to inform trade union thinking and action. The Three Pillars are: (a) critical analysis of current net-zero policies, (b) new green, industrial strategies supported by social infrastructure, (c) changing labour-environmental relationships. The paper includes a case study of a trade union which is campaigning for a new National Climate Service.

ABSTRACT In academia, just transition has received increasing interest, including the topical research on sustainable welfare states and integrative ecosocial policies. However, an analytical perspective of labour market policy has been surprisingly weak and studies associating just transition with labour security considerations in welfare states are lacking. By inductively synthesising labour-related just transition literature, this review identifies three intertwined approaches to labour market policies: green jobs approach, green skills approach, and green compensation approach. Respectively, they chime with three forms of labour security in terms of employment opportunities, skill reproduction, and income security. We argue that these three forms of labour security constitute three pillars of just transition labour market policies. Addressing three pillars in a holistic fashion is highlighted given that currently they are unbalanced in just transition discussion. Additionally, a critical reflection on the role of economic growth in labour market policymaking is advocated considering it is the labour security that unifies all three pillars. To steer the labour markets toward a greener future, more studies could focus on redefining green jobs, repurposing active labour market policy, and tackling work-welfare nexus from an ecosocial perspective. Exploring the potential of job guarantee for promoting labour security without growth is worthwhile.

ABSTRACT The closure of the Australian passenger vehicle industry in 2017 ended an important phase in the nation’s economic history. Closure affected up to 100,000 employees working across the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and the supply chain, with the impacts concentrated in two Australian states. This paper examines both the processes and the outcomes of this closure, making use of a Just Transitions lens to assess the wider impacts of this change. It reviews the measures put in place to assist workers displaced by plant closure, while also drawing on three waves of data from a survey of retrenched workers. The paper argues the process of transition for former employees was shaped by the distinctive characteristics of Australia’s system of industrial relations and the ambition of its governments to have as many affected workers find employment as possible. This objective was prioritised over quality of employment or the emerging skill needs of industries. The paper finds that while former auto workers have been able to re-establish themselves in the labour market, the management of this major change does not meet the expectations of a Just Transition as too little attention was directed to the wider societal impacts of this transformation.