Climate Justice Research Articles

Background: Environmental contributors to sudden death are not well understood but should inform emergency preparedness and mitigation strategies. We examined flood and pollution risk and sudden death from 2018 to 2021 in Lenoir, a rural North Carolina County which suffered extensive damage from recent hurricanes, most notably Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Research Aim: Determine if census tracts with greater flood or pollution risk have higher sudden death rates. Methods: We identified sudden deaths among adults aged 18-64 from death certificates using a published algorithm (Figure 1). We geocoded decedents’ addresses and linked them to census tract-level data from the EPA Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool and American Community Survey. Flood risk was defined as the percentage of census tract residents at high (>25%) flood risk over the next 30 years, and pollution risk as the percentage of residents ≤1 mile from a Toxic Release Inventory site. We compared census tract-level sudden death rates by flood and pollution risk levels using incidence rate ratios (IRRs) estimated with Poisson regression, adjusted for racial distribution, median household income, and prevalence of coronary heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Results: Among the 15 census tracts in the county, the median flood risk was 10% (range 4 to 16), and the median pollution risk was 8.4% (range 0 to 56.54). Of the 15 tracts, 2 were in the highest tertile for both flood and pollution risk. There were 242 sudden deaths in Lenoir County during the study period, a rate of 437 per 100,000. Tract-level sudden death rates ranged from 246 to 1,130 per 100,000 (Figure 2). Every increase of 10 percentage points in flood risk was associated with a 92% increase in sudden death rates (IRR 1.92, 95 % CI 1.40–2.64). Every 10-point increase in pollution risk was associated with a 14% increase in sudden death (IRR 1.14, 95 % CI 1.04–1.23) (Table 1). Being in the highest risk tertiles for both flood and pollution was associated with higher sudden death rates compared to being in the lowest tertiles for both (IRR 2.02, 95% CI 1.50-2.66). Conclusions: Flood and industrial pollution risk were associated with higher sudden death rates within a rural county, even after accounting for socioeconomic and cardiometabolic burden. Locally-targeted environmental hazard preparedness and mitigation should be evaluated to prevent sudden deaths in vulnerable communities.

This article presents a pedagogical proposal grounded in the Translanguaging Learning Movement Framework (TLMF), developed through collaborative teacher education sessions from the Translinguar Project in southern Brazil. Comprising seven flexible pedagogical movements, the TLMF was co-constructed through educators’ reflections and draws on translanguaging theory. The article outlines a teaching unit on climate justice, a pressing theme marked by environmental disasters disproportionately affecting migrant communities. The proposal offers strategies for implementing translanguaging pedagogy in multilingual classrooms, fostering linguistic, social, and climate justice. It contributes to critical language education by connecting diverse linguistic repertoires with context-responsive and socially engaged teaching practices.

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s (1990) Good Omens offers an apocalyptic rewrite of mythology, making it clear that Pestilence has been overthrown and replaced with Pollution as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This replacement reflects contemporary shifts of the cultural spotlight from the fear of infectious disease, which peaked in the mid-20th century, to the slow, gradual, and pernicious environmental damage caused by human agency. This shift continues through the current concerns of ecological collapse and climate change. Conventional wisdom suggests that in the Book of Revelation, Pestilence represents disease and decay. However, in Good Omens, Pollution symbolizes humanity’s most pressing existential threat: ecological devastation. Unlike apocalyptic works like McCarthy’s The Road (2006) and Mad Max, which depict a braver, more violent apocalypse, Good Omens critiques environmental destruction through humor and satire. Pollution is characterized as a passive yet powerful protagonist, representing modernity’s acceptance of ecological violence, spoofing obscene consumerism, and highlighting the destructiveness of modern societal habits. Through the lens of eco-criticism, this paper discusses how Good Omens interrogates current ecological worries and contributes to the conversation around climate justice. This approach ultimately leads to an insightful exploration of how Pestilence’s reframing as Pollution challenges the tropes of the apocalyptic genre, engaging with broader ecocritical and cultural discussions about the role literature can play in shifting perspectives on the ecological crises faced today.

Background: The discourse of climate finance has become a cornerstone in the pantheon of global climate governance, typified by contestations on issues of credibility, equity, and effectiveness. Objective: This paper explores the politics of climate finance in Ghana through the interrelated issues of access, equity, and socioeconomic consequences. Method: Within the framework of climate justice, the analysis draws on qualitative data gathered through semi-structured interviews with policymakers, representatives of civil society, international organizations, and youth advocacy groups and supported by secondary data. Results: The findings show Ghana to be grappling with the mobilization of funds from several mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund, Climate Investment Funds, and Article 6 carbon markets, yet there are many administrative bottlenecks, with weak institutional capacity undermining access in a meaningful way. The equity issues also exist with climate finance flows concentrating in the south and urban areas, leaving women, youth, and northern communities dominated and marginalized in governance and benefit-sharing. Socio-economic outcomes weave another set of narratives, for on one side projects like the Shea Landscape Emission Reductions Project have improved women's livelihoods and created green jobs, whereas on the other, trade-offs come along with restrictions to charcoal-dependent livelihoods and costly industrial compliance that actually present new risks. Conclusion: The study argues that climate finance in Ghana reflects both the opportunities for and the tensions of doing an actual green transition delivering co-benefits in renewable energy and resilience yet reinforcing inequalities when badly timed. Policy recommendations are made for strengthening institutional capacity, targeting vulnerable regions and groups, and embedding gender and youth quotas in governance, while livelihood safeguards need to be integrated into project design. By situating Ghana's experience into the broader climate justice discourse, the paper adds to debates on how climate finance can promote not just environmental outcomes but also equity and sustainable development in the Global South.

The category of the Global South is being used and constructed by a range of different actors in response to the introduction of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). State representatives from emerging-market economies use the ‘Global South’ as a rhetorical device to highlight what they perceive as an unjust unilateralist policy instrument. Such mobilizations benefit certain actors whilst overlooking other perspectives on climate justice and development, tending to conflate states with people as well as flatten regional power-struggles around energy transitions. Adopting a Thirdspace methodology to examine empirical dimensions of the Global South in this context sheds light not only on some of the geopolitical stakes of the green transition, but also, on the multi-scalar and uneven relations between core and periphery of the global economy that such discursive devices mask.

Beyond Profit: The hydrogen economy as a civilizational choice between climate justice and neocolonialism

Claiming a role for planning in intersectional climate justice

Towards COP29 climate equity: Multi-scale trade-driven inequality in China’s land-use carbon emissions

Objective: To analyze the implementation of the voluntary carbon market in forest regions of southeastern Mexico through the framework of climate justice. Methodology: Application of interviews, participant observation, and documentary analysis. These materials were analyzed taking into consideration the four dimensions of climate justice proposed by Schlosberg: distribution, participation, capacities, and recognition. Results: The voluntary carbon market provides benefits to communities, but in practice, it reproduces structural inequalities evident in differential access to information and in unequal influence on project conditions. Value: The voluntary carbon market has expanded in southeastern Mexico, but there is a lack of depth in existing studies on the topic. Limitations: There is no official information regarding the number of participating communities in this market. Conclusions: The ways the voluntary carbon market and climate policies are implemented need to be reformulated to prioritize community autonomy and climate justice over market efficiency.

This study aims to analyze the interconnection between climate crisis, human rights, and the future of the environment within the framework of international and national law. The climate crisis is not only an environmental issue but also a serious threat to the fulfillment of human rights, such as the right to life, health, and a healthy environment. This research employs a normative juridical method to examine how international and national laws regulate these interconnections and to identify structural weaknesses in the legal system that hinder the enforcement of climate justice. The results indicate that a more adaptive and responsive legal framework is needed to address the climate crisis and human rights protection. This legal framework must be capable of integrating human rights principles into climate policies, ensuring accountability for human rights violations caused by climate change, and promoting public participation in climate-related decision making. The study recommends the harmonization of environmental and human rights laws, as well as strengthening law enforcement mechanisms to achieve sustainable development and climate justice.

This article examines the rise of rights-based climate change litigation as a transformative legal strategy across diverse jurisdictions. It introduces a threefold typology—human rights-based, rights of nature-based, and indigenous or hybrid claims—and analyzes how each approach draws on constitutional, international, and customary legal sources. Through comparative analysis of landmark cases from the Netherlands, Colombia, Ecuador, the United States, the Philippines, and regional courts, the study demonstrates how courts are recognizing new rights-holders, expanding doctrines such as proportionality, the precautionary principle, and intergenerational equity. This study has comparatively examined how rights-based strategies are deployed across jurisdictions, classifying them into three primary forms: human rights-based, rights of nature-based, and Indigenous or hybrid claims. Each approach brings distinct legal arguments, normative strengths, and practical challenges. Human rights-based litigation is bolstered by established legal doctrines and judicial familiarity but often struggles with causation and procedural thresholds. Rights of nature litigation offers a paradigm shift toward ecological justice but requires supportive constitutional frameworks and enforcement mechanisms. Indigenous and hybrid claims deepen legal pluralism and cultural legitimacy, yet often face systemic barriers to recognition and implementation. The article argues that rights-based litigation is not only reshaping climate governance but also redefining legal subjectivity and state accountability. It contributes to the development of transnational environmental law by offering an integrated framework for evaluating the legal coherence, strategic potential, and normative implications of rights-based climate claims.

The continuous degradation of the oceans, driven by climate change and unsustainable human activities, calls for urgent legal innovation to protect marine ecosystems and vulnerable coastal communities. This paper examines the intersection of Blue Justice and the emerging international legal recognition of ecocide as a critical form of climate action. Blue Justice centers on the equitable rights and participation of marginalized local coastal communities, including indigenous peoples and small-scale fishers, in ocean governance and resource management, addressing historical injustices and environmental vulnerabilities. Concurrently, the proposal to recognize ecocide as a crime—defined as unlawful or wanton acts causing severe, widespread, or long-term environmental harm—offers a powerful legal mechanism to hold perpetrators accountable and deter destructive practices impacting the ocean’s health and climate systems. By re-imagining Blue Justice principles and recognizing ecocide law in broader context of social justice, this paper advocates for a holistic approach that advances social equity, environmental sustainability, and climate accountability in international and national ocean laws. Employing doctrinal legal methodology, the study discusses how recognizing ecocide as an international crime within frameworks like the Rome Statute and in national jurisdictions would reinforce ocean protection as a form of climate justice, ensuring that the ocean’s right to “breathe” is preserved for present and future generations. The analysis finds that existing regulatory frameworks at the international level and in many jurisdictions are insufficient to address the scale and complexity of ocean degradation and climate impacts. The study also finds that re-imagining Blue Justice through the lens of ecocide law promotes a holistic approach that advances social equity, environmental sustainability, and climate accountability in both international and national ocean laws.

Climate change has a direct impact on the constituent elements of the State, such as territory and population, posing a significant challenge for international law. Rising sea levels and related phenomena threaten the existence of island states, cause forced displacement and create a risk of statelessness. This regulatory vacuum is due to the fact that neither the 1951 Convention on Refugees nor international instruments on statelessness offer adequate protection to those who must leave their country for environmental reasons. In response, international law is exploring innovative solutions to ensure the continuity of states and the rights of their inhabitants. In this context, the principle of uti possidetis iuris, traditionally applied in decolonisation processes, could be adapted to the maritime sphere to preserve statehood. Its interaction with the principle of preventing statelessness would make it possible to address a global humanitarian crisis by prioritising human rights and climate justice.

Climate and environmental activists may be at a disproportionate risk of experiencing mental health struggles given their close engagement with climate and ecological justice issues. Literature on supporting activists in their emotional experiences is scarce. This study focused on the under-researched yet prevalent experience of eco-grief within climate activism. Three contemporary grief models were reviewed for their applicability to eco-grief. Using the method of intuitive inquiry, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore how therapeutic practitioners could better support environmental activists in their lived experience of eco-grief, and nurture individual and collective wellbeing. A Thematic Content Analysis generated eight core themes and subsequent sub-themes, highlighting the importance of and practices for emotional processing, while proposing an overall more embodied approach to activism. The findings position eco-grief as a transpersonal phenomenon. Implications, suggestions for a prototype eco-grief model, and future research were discussed.

ABSTRACT This article examines food and cooking imaginaries on Instagram, focusing on themes of food waste, labour, and the infrastructures of hospitality. While vast quantities of food are discarded before reaching our plates, such waste, and the labour that accompanies it, remains largely invisible within the dominant aesthetic regimes of social media. Even on feeds aligned with low-waste living or circular economy values, Instagram’s food culture often privileges polished, high-end aesthetics over messier material realities. Drawing on de Sousa Santos’s concept of a ‘sociology of absences’, we explore how crucial elements of the culinary world – waste, labour, and infrastructure – are not merely overlooked but actively excluded. Instagram rarely acknowledges the precarious conditions of food workers or the ‘offcuts’ that never make it to the plate. These curated, waste-free food imaginaries reinforce exclusionary cultural norms and linear, carbon-intensive economic systems. Challenging these erasures, we use hospitality-related food waste and material practices as a lens through which to rethink the affordances of social media. Inspired by J.K. Gibson-Graham’s ‘politics of the possible’, we ask how Instagram might be used performatively to reveal its own absences. What if food images foregrounded underpaid workers, harried staff, and waste infrastructures – bins, compost, and discarded food – as central visual elements? How might such counter-narratives expand digital food imaginaries towards more inclusive, climate-conscious, and socially just representations? By interrogating Instagram’s visual politics, we call for a broader ethical engagement with food’s material realities, challenging dominant aesthetics and reimagining food’s place at a time of escalating climate and food justice crises.

The objective of this study is to present a systematic review of the literature addressing the use of biofertilizers in family farming as a strategy for increasing resilience and climate adaptation, its relationship with Brazilian public policies, and with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's benchmarks for climate justice and just transition. To this end, the PRISMA method was used, which is state of the art for studies that aim to systematically review the literature on a given topic, and a case study on the non-commercial biofertilizer Hortbio®. It was possible to verify the need to migrate from the conventional model of food production to regenerative agriculture, including the use of bio-inputs as a strategy. Bio-inputs contain a series of microorganisms capable of producing compounds similar to plant growth-promoting hormones that can increase the tolerance of agricultural crops to abiotic stresses. Hortbio® fits into this context, with great microbial diversity, auxin production, and proven ability to increase heat tolerance in lettuce. Its open formula and non-commercial nature make it a potential solution that meets the IPCC's climate justice and just transition frameworks.

ABSTRACT This article explores how a dialectical materialist approach enriches climate justice analysis by examining the contradictions between capital accumulation, labor, and nature. While conventional climate justice frameworks emphasize equitable outcomes and participatory governance, a dialectical materialist perspective delves deeper into the structural underpinnings of ecological degradation, linking environmental harm to capitalism's historical and material dynamics. By examining two case studies from Muğla, Türkiye, with empirical evidence collected from the field – the Akbelen movement against coal mining and the Deştin movement against cement factory construction – this article demonstrates how a dialectical approach reveals the systemic contradictions in climate justice analysis, historicizes ecological disparities, and questions the material basis of climate injustices. The study emphasizes the interconnectedness of environmental protection, class differentiation, and socio-economic emancipation. The findings contribute to environmental and climate justice scholarship by showcasing the analytical utility of dialectical materialism and shedding light on grassroots resistance in the Global South.

The responsibility of investor-owned carbon majors to contribute to direct air carbon capture and storage investment

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, the MenEngage Alliance, active in 92 countries, has played a key role in advancing gender-transformative work with men and boys. The Alliance has mobilised diverse individuals across sectors and regions to build a community of practice dedicated to engaging men and boys for gender justice across intersecting issues, including climate change. This is the focus of the MenEngage Climate Justice Working Group, amidst growing recognition that environmental crises are gendered – not only in their disproportionate impacts on women and other marginalised groups, but in men’s contributions and responses to them. This paper is founded upon reflections from the Working Group, who conducted 15 interviews with MenEngage members working for environmental and gender justice worldwide. These interviews provided insights into how practitioners became involved in this field, engage boys and men in change, hold men in positions of power to account, and face challenges in their work, including patriarchal backlash and gaps between policy and practice. The paper highlights the tensions of male allyship for gender and climate justice, arguing that men need to simultaneously recognise their roles and responsibilities as allies, beneficiaries, and agents of change, who work towards systemic as well as personal transformations.

Climate change disproportionately impacts vulnerable populations, with girls facing unique challenges that exacerbate existing inequalities. This article examines the intersection of climate justice and the rights of the girl child through a comparative legal and policy analysis of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Drawing on international human rights frameworks and national climate policies, the article investigates how the legal and policy landscapes in South Africa and Zimbabwe address the rights of the girl child in the context of climate change. The article uses primary and secondary sources ranging from constitutional provisions on climate-related legislation to publications, government reports, legal documents and policy papers relevant to South Africa and Zimbabwe. It provides a descriptive figure of the girl child as the intersectionality of being female and a child, as a vulnerable person, in the context of climate change. It found that key issues exist with the existing legal and policy framework that expose the vulnerability of the girl child to climate injustice. Responding to these issues will help improve gender inclusion in policy making and protect girls from climate change impacts in South Africa and Zimbabwe.