Environmental Debate Research Articles

Missing conceptual links in the international environmental policy debate: power, time and transfer

ABSTRACTOver the past 20 years, scholars have examined the role policy transfer has had on the development of environmental policies across the globe. The literature in this area has discussed everything from the movement of cap-and-trade policies to the movement of rain barrels. As the name ‘policy transfer’ implies, studies tend to focus on the successful movement of a policy or program. Part of the reason for this focus is that studies tend to neglect the role power and time play in the transfer process. To begin addressing this, the concepts of power most commonly associated with the three faces of power debate and ideas of political time, policy time and ‘chronological’ time (i.e. timing, tempo, time) can help explain a range of environmental transfers (or non-transfers) better than the existing literature.

Framing environmental debates over nuclear energy in Turkey's polarized media system

ABSTRACT ‘The age of sustainable development’ has been characterized by an on-going debate over how to define development and which alternative energy resources to rely upon. It is high time to rethink the news media's role in this debate due to transformations in journalism, particularly the role of the media in harnessing the sustainable energy transition. Accordingly, this paper examines the role of the news media in environmental debates over Turkey's nuclear program within the country's polarized media system. Adopting a content analysis method, the paper illuminates how selected media outlets (three mainstream and one online alternative) have framed and disseminated debates over Turkey's nuclear program. The findings reveal that the media system matters in public debates on energy, but also that the alternative media have the potential to contribute to societal debates on issues – even within a polarized media setting – by voicing unspoken ideas.

Carbon Emissions Embodied in India–United Kingdom Trade: A Case Study on North–South Debate

This study is an appraisal of North–South trade and environmental debate on the context of ‘carbon leakage hypothesis’. This article attempts to quantify the CO2 emissions embodied in the bilateral trade between India and the United Kingdom (hereafter mentioned as the UK) using an input–output model-based analysis for the year 2015. It further proposes a hypothetical situation of no trade between India and UK in order to calculate and analyse the contribution of this bilateral trade in global CO2 emissions. The results from this study confirm the possibility of ‘carbon leakage’ from Indian commodity production sectors and find that among two trade partners, the UK is able to avoid more carbon emissions than India through trade which helps the UK to reach their carbon emission mitigation targets. On the average, manufacturing of commodities in India those are to be exported to the UK generates 1.053 kilo-tonnes of CO2 emission per million dollars of export annually and manufacturing of commodities in the UK which are imported to India generates only 0.141 kilo-tonnes of CO2 emission per million dollars of import from the UK annually for the years 2011, 2013 and 2015. This is because of the proportionately higher consumption of more emission-intensive energy items, like coal, and coal products by India in industrial production than the UK. At the end of the article, this study proposes a few suggestions to ensure a decent level of emission imbalance in the trade flows for the anticipation of increasing India–UK bilateral trade in coming days due to post-BREXIT eventualities to reduce the pressure on the global environment. JEL Codes: C67, F64, Q37, Q42

Inconvenient truths: pluralism, pragmatism, and the need for civil disagreement

Environmental philosophers and ethicists who have advocated for “environmental pragmatism” have been right to insist on the importance of pluralism in environmental debates and on the utility of pragmatism in navigating them. But they have tended to rest their claims too heavily on the premise that consensus is a necessary, and readily achievable, condition of pragmatic thought and action. Recent developments within environmental studies and sciences (ESS) suggest a similar trend. What the pragmatist tradition requires, by contrast, is a commitment to the disagreement that necessarily accompanies ideological diversity and to the conservation of the conditions, structures, and institutions within which that disagreement can exist and even thrive. Ultimately, pragmatism prioritizes dissent as the basis for a healthy and rigorously democratic community. With environmental problems, this prerogative becomes even more pronounced, given their invariably complex social, political, and scientific dimensions, which require intellectually and ideologically diverse responses. Environmental discourse, education, and politics would benefit from the recognition that conflict among pluralistic constituencies, when considered through the lens of pragmatism, becomes not a problem to be solved but a fact to be lived with, and a tool to be used.

Deep Maps: West Cork Coastal Cultures

Deep Maps: West Cork Coastal Cultures Claire Connolly (bio), Rachel Murphy (bio), Breda Moriarty (bio), Orla-Peach Power (bio), Michael Waldron (bio), and Rob McAllen (bio) Environmental history faces particular challenges in the context of a national story that has most often been told in terms of “a battle for the land” behind which lay a yet more evocative “battle for the soil.”1 Recently, we have seen efforts to disrupt the dominance of land-based national histories from the twentieth century with a new attention to oceans and coasts.2 But how do we join political to natural history, and what role can be played by current inhabitants of Ireland’s coastlines? This report outlines some of the ways in which cultural history can speak meaningfully to environmental debates on the future use of the oceans by offering a case study that combines humanities and STEM methods in an exploration of the contested coastline of west Cork. The cultural heritage of our coastlines is rich but elusive: a record of human encounters with land and sea that is deeply felt and experienced yet often described as elusive and intangible. Inherently intricate, fluid, and changeable, coasts are often understood in disjointed ways and addressed differently by science and humanities researchers. As Michael Chiarappa and Matthew McKenzie suggest in the journal Environmental History, the success of such conversations depends on our ability “to engage in a level of ‘shared authority’ [End Page 180] across disciplinary boundaries” and on a further dialogue—an “often delicate and evolving relationship” with coastal communities themselves.3 The team behind the project Deep Maps: West Cork Coastal Cultures developed a methodology to bring to life the rich physical, cultural, and symbolic heritage of the west Cork coast. This interdisciplinary collaboration between STEM and humanities researchers was funded by the Irish Research Council between 2015 and 2019 with the aim of developing an approach that can be applied to other natural and historical environments.The project investigated the biological, cultural, and historical context of the southwest coast of Ireland from 1700 to 1920 and used the findings to prompt a fuller public understanding of current environmental priorities. By advancing an interdisciplinary understanding of this coastline, the project forms a link between cultural history, scientific research, and environmental priorities while communicating a sense of shared identity and fostering ownership of maritime heritage. In linking the research skills of literary and cultural history with those of marine biology, geoinformatics—defined by Ehrlers (2003) as “the art, science, or technology dealing with the acquisition, storage, processing, production, presentation, and dissemination of geoinformation”—and digital curation, the project joins up aspects of the maritime environment that are often disconnected in modern debates. Deep Maps responded to needs emerging from both humanities and the biological and environmental sciences. In the case of the former, the environmental humanities have posed urgent new questions about the scope and scale of human interactions with the environment as represented in literary and other texts; while in the case of marine biology, scientists are increasingly aware of the need to deepen and enrich their apprehension of marine environments via a more nuanced sense of the histories and cultures of these storied places. [End Page 181] West Cork Coastal Cultures Our focus was on the rich maritime environment that is found along the arc of Cork’s Roaring Water Bay, from Clonakilty to Bantry Bay, as it is shaped by sea and land and as it is imagined within eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poems and drawings. The project chronology begins with antiquarian inquiries and poetic responses to the Cork coast and ends with the start of serious biological field research in this area, when Louis Renouf from University College Cork began visiting Lough Hyne near Skibbereen in the 1920s. While undertaking research for the Ordnance Survey in 1842, John O’Donovan described Cork as being “particularly Irish especially in the mountains and along the coasts.”4 Elsewhere in the Ordnance Survey correspondence, however, we find a note about “the first monument erected to the memory of Nelson after the Battle of Trafalgar” at Castletownsend, a reminder that this was a coastline closely involved...

A non-ideal world

Nature is a central motif in Russian literature. There were certain phases from the 18th to the 20th centuries when an intense interest in various natural phenomena and ecological issues could be observed among works of literature. What is less well known is that in contemporary Russian literature, too, current ecological and environmental problems are also taken up in numerous works, which take an active, and often critical, stance in the Russian environmental debate.

Environmental activism during communist era in Slovenia

Upon 1945, the Yugoslavian communist leadership put in motion ambitious strategy of industrialization and modernization regardless of costs, hence gradually evolving issues of environmental degradation were placed in a subservient position. Some planners deemed environmental degradation a necessary evil in order to fulfill pledges of development, progress, and better living standard. However, from the 1970s onwards environmental issues were addressed in urban planning, improvement of central-heating systems, by setting out emission thresholds, and mandatory environment clearance for credits approval for corporative entities, but law enforcement was not upheld to the highest standards and in full. The League of Communists of Slovenia allowed rather loosely knitted grass-roots environmental enthusiasts since the late 1960s; groups were comprised with well-educated citizens, which were mostly keen mountaineers. Environmentalists were especially active in urban areas mostly dealing with local issues (urban planning, sewage systems, contamination of the tap water, and excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers). In 1971, local environmental societies merged into the Association for Environmental Protection in Slovenia (AEPS), which in the late 1970s focused broadened scope of activities, mainly against the construction of hydroelectric power installations on the Soča River and the Mura River, and the Nuclear Power Plant Krško after the Chernobyl accident. In the 1970s, in Yugoslavia and Slovenia as well, concurrently with the West, modern legislation for environmental protection was adopted, and new self-government bodies for environmental issues comprising with politicians, lawyers, scientists, and environmentalists were established; thus the influence of AEPS somehow diminished. The Slovenian government increased finances for research, and at the same time in the environmental debates replaced politicians with technocrats, who proved to be unwilling listeners to environmentalists' complaints and suggestions. The environmentalists were accused by a top-level politician of being exaggerators, followers of Western initiatives and in general obstructers of development. In 1980s environmentalists broadened its ranks and scope of activities, especially after the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. Environmental societies and society were attracting people who were interested in changes but did not want to risk direct political opposition and the consequences of this type of direct dissent. Slovenian environmental groups played an important role during the democratization. In 1989 they even established a political party ‘Zeleni Slovenije’ (Greens of Slovenia). The party was a partner in the first post-communist Slovenian government (1990-1992), and they successfully pushed for incorporation of ‘green policies’ in the Slovenian legislation.

Repenser sur l'environnement: Une étude écocritique dans Gouverneurs de la rosée de Jacques Roumain, Moi, Tituba sorcière… noire de Salem de Maryse Condé et L'Exil selon Julia de Gisèle Pineau

Abstract From the Stockholm conference in Sweden in 1972 to the Chile conference that will take place from 2 to 14 December 2019, the environmental debate provoked by environmental challenges such as climate change continues to be in full swing in all these international meetings. It is obvious that it is an attempt to meet the millennial demands represented by the consequences of climate change such as drought, flood and hurricane among others that ravage not just the West Indian world but humanity in general. It is also true that for some time now, environmental affairs are no longer those of just environmentalists or geographers, writers and literary critics have also stepped up to the scene in protection of the environment. Therefore, this article aims to analyse through ecocritical theory the place of the environment in Jacques Roumain's Gouverneurs de la rosée, Maryse Condé's Moi, Tituba sorciere... noire de Salem and Gisèle Pineau's L'Exil selon Julia. To what extent these writers care for the well-being of the environment? In what way? What are the perspectives of the future advocated by these writers?

Housing Activism Initiatives and Land-Use Conflicts: Pathways for Participatory Planning and Urban Sustainable Development in Bucharest City, Romania

This paper presents a geographical perspective of the phenomena of housing activism and land-use conflicts per se. It focuses not only on their spatial manifestations, but also on the complexity of the perceived meanings, values, and the power relationships among the involved parties, rooting into activist geographies. The research methodology was based on two complementary methods: frame analysis to observe the emergence, sources of land-use conflicts, and nature of the relationships between the actors involved; and discourse analysis to explore the social interactions and power relations between structures and practices related to housing activism. For a more inclusive perspective on the sources of land-use conflicts and housing activism initiatives in Bucharest, we used a combination and triangulation of various sources and modes of data collection. Compared with other European cities with active civic engagement, this phenomenon is still emerging in Bucharest. Although conflicts are numerous, the civic initiatives are still fragmented and fail to generate a vision and implementable public policy. However, multiple assaults on urban spaces (green areas, historically protected areas) have resulted in more actions and actors (individual or organised) becoming civically engaged. The article contributes to the environmental debates that stress housing activism as a pathway to participatory planning initiatives.

Recomposing Ecopoetics: North American Poetry of the Self-Conscious Anthropocene. Lynn Keller. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017. Pp. xv+284.

<i>Recomposing Ecopoetics: North American Poetry of the Self-Conscious Anthropocene</i>. Lynn Keller. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017. Pp. xv+284.

Juventude e políticas ambientais: a percepção e os discursos de jovens brasileiros

Analisa as percepções e os discursos de jovens brasileiros sobre as políticas ambientais na atualidade, com base em questionário com perguntas abertas e fechadas. A ênfase é nas respostas abertas, as quais apresentam as justificações dos respondentes para as questões postas. O suporte teórico utiliza contribuições da sociologia ambiental e da sociologia da juventude. As principais conclusões indicam que a percepção dos respondentes é predominantemente pessimista, acreditando que o Brasil está regredindo em suas políticas ambientais. Quanto às autoridades eleitas que atuam ou já atuaram na defesa do meio ambiente, os jovens reconhecem em especial os vereadores, prefeitos e deputados estaduais, o que demonstra a primazia das políticas locais na percepção da juventude. Mais do que o ato de proferir discursos, os jovens atribuem importância à participação dos agentes públicos no debate ambiental qualificado com vistas à proposição de mudanças ou de aperfeiçoamentos das políticas ambientais.

Nexus between financial development, energy consumption, income level, and ecological footprint in CEE countries: do human capital and biocapacity matter?

In recent decades, climate change and environmental pollution have been at the center of global environmental debates. Nowadays, researchers have turned their attention to the linkage between real output and environmental quality and test the environmental Kuznets curve. Majority of the studies focus on a single pollutant aspect and measure the deterioration of the environment through carbon emission (CO2) only. In contrary, the current study uses a comprehensive proxy, ecological footprint, to measure the environmental quality of the sixteen Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). The aim of this paper is to discover the impact of financial development, economic growth, and energy consumption (renewable and non-renewable) on the environment. In addition, for the first time, the current study includes biocapacity and human capital in the growth-energy-environment nexus in the case of CEECs. In doing so, we used annual data of sixteen CEE countries in perspective of the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and cover the period of 1991-2014. For reliable findings, this study focuses on second-generation econometric approaches to check stationarity, cross-sectional dependency, and co-integration among the model parameters. The long-run estimations of the "Dynamic Seemingly Unrelated-co-integration Regression" (DSUR) signify that the effect of economic growth on ecological footprint is not stable and validate N-shaped relationship for cubic functional form between per capita income and ecological footprint (environmental quality). Empirical evidence divulges that financial development and energy use significantly contribute to environmental degradation while renewable energy improves environmental quality by declining ecological footprint significantly. Moreover, the significant effects of biocapacity and human capital are positive and negative on the ecological footprint, respectively. In robustness check through the "Feasible Generalized Least Square" (FGLS) and "Generalized Method of Moment" (GMM) models, we found consistent result. Lastly, the "Dumitrescu-Hurlin (D-H) Panel Causality Test" demonstrates that two-way causal relationship exists between EF and GDP, EF and FD, EF and EU, EF and BC, and EF and HC, while one-way causality is running from RE to EF. This study puts the present scenario of CEE economies in front of the policymakers and suggests that they should consider the vital role of renewable energy and human capital to get sustainability.

Getting off the (water) Bottle: Constraining or Embracing Individual Liberty in Pursuit of the Public Interest

ABSTRACTThe tension between individual freedom and the public interest has been at the center of environmental debates since Garrett Hardin’s article on the tragedy of the commons. Debates over bottled water are no different. Opponents of bottled water criticize its wasteful production, exaggerated advertising, and lack of stringent regulation. Indeed, bottled water may present a unique harm to the public interest. This does not mean that coercive action is the only policy solution. By understanding the reasons why individuals consume bottled water it is possible to design policies that allow for preservation of choice and protection of the public interest.

COVID-19, salud pública y medioambiente.

In the 1970s, the American biochemist and oncologist Van Rensselaer Potter coined a new word, 'bioethics', to describe an emerging discipline bringing together the life sciences and ethics. This new field, for Potter, represented "a bridge to the future" of humanity. Fifty years later, the "global bioethics" that Potter theorized in the 1970s has largely been reduced to clinical ethics. Meanwhile, the role of bioethics in what is probably the most important debate for the continuation of human life on the planet, the environmental debate, has been minimal. In view of the dangers that threaten life as we know it today, and consequently even human continuity on our planet, it is imperative to ask what kind of change is needed to avoid such risks, how to achieve it, and what the role of bioethics should be in this transition. Keywords: Bioethics, Covid-19, Medical ethics, Environment, Public health.

Robustness of European climate projections from dynamical downscaling

How climate change will unfold in the years to come is a central topic in today’s environmental debate, in particular at the regional level. While projections using large ensembles of global climate models consistently indicate a future decrease in summer precipitation over southern Europe and an increase over northern Europe, individual models substantially modulate these distinct signals of change in precipitation. So far model improvements and higher resolution from regional downscaling have not been seen as able to resolve these disagreements. In this paper we assess whether 2 decades of investments in large ensembles of downscaling experiments with regional climate model simulations for Europe have contributed to a more robust model assessment of the future climate at a range of geographical scales. We study climate change projections of European seasonal temperature and precipitation using an ensemble-suite comprised by all readily available pan-European regional model projections for the twenty-first-century, representing increasing model resolution from ~ 50 to ~ 12 km grid distance, as well as lateral boundary and sea surface temperature conditions from a variety of global model simulations. Employing a simple scaling with global mean temperature change we identify emerging robust signals of future seasonal temperature and precipitation changes also found to resemble current observed trends, where these are judged to be statistically significant.

Associations of the edge: Arctic imaginaries

ABSTRACTThe article analyses the most recent environmental debate on Arctic warming. Three main concerns are identified. First, the debate underlines that the ongoing Arctic change is a warning of the planetary crisis to come. Second, it emphasises that this change is a symptom of epochal transition toward the Anthropocene. Third, it regards the change as an outcome of the continuing colonial repression of the extreme North. The main objective of the study on which the article is based was to evaluate these concerns as part of the main historical imaginaries of the Arctic (singled out from related literature). The method utilised was an application of ‘critical reading’ developed by post-colonial researchers. The evaluation revealed that in order to strengthen their message, environmentalists have creatively utilised and developed ancient imaginaries of the Arctic. However, at times, this coupling has in practice resulted in conceptual associations that weaken the environmentalists’ potential in formulating foundational critiques and alternatives. The evaluation of the environmental concerns also helped to sketch the contours of an Arctic development alternative that is grounded on reciprocal localisation and ethno-ecological cooperation.

Sustainability and green marketing challenge: Brazilian brewing industry case study

Goal: Understand the environmental impact of brewing industry activities in Brazil.&#x0D; Design/Methodology/Approach: Discusses the model of production and consumption tied to the brewing market within the environmental debate. By bibliographical research, qualitative approach, case study. The case study data was collected within a three-month period on Ambev’s sustainability program analysis.&#x0D; Limitations: Enterprise’s confidentiality. Some documents could not be reached.&#x0D; Results: This study clarify that Ambev’s sustainability program does not meet its own objectives and statements as it does not effectively contribute to sustainability.&#x0D; Practical Implications: This article’s value resides in revealing Ambev’s greenwashing strategies deepening the effects of environmental crisis worldwide.&#x0D; Originality/Value: This study arises a critical thinking regarding big companies sustainability initiatives lacking real environmental concern.

Visualising sustainability at the Olympics

Cities are increasingly central to sustainability discourse, as urban lifestyles and infrastructure are framed as solutions to global environmental problems such as climate change. This framing relies on geographically referenced visualisations such as architectural renderings, maps, and geospatial models, which portray environmental futures by envisioning the ‘sustainable city’. By showing what sustainability might look like in a future city, these geovisualisations strategically link urban planning interventions to global environmental policy debates. This process is explored through a case study of sustainability design proposed in Olympic cities. Aspiring Olympic hosts regularly adopt sustainability narratives of global–urban sustainability. In an effort to cast their events as ‘the most sustainable Games ever’, city leaders experiment with urban design (e.g. temporary stadiums, zero-carbon building design, or large-scale environmental restoration projects) and link them to global environmental debates. Visual analysis techniques are used to code architectural and geospatial images in 61 Olympic planning proposals, and to evaluate the use of visualisation practices in urban politics. While these designs are quite speculative, the visual artefacts produced through the planning process can be used as political tools for catalysing investment and projecting policy leadership.

Development of a spatial web tool to identify hotspots of environmental burdens in Wallonia (Belgium).

In response to the Walloon Environment and Health Program, the Scientific Institute of Public Services (ISSeP) developed an integrated approach of environmental exposure assessment in the Walloon region, Belgium. The study presents an index-based approach to estimate the multiple environmental burdens at regional level and detailed local resolution. Indicators are based on environmental measurements of pollutants in ambient air and soil, and on stressors for citizens related to noise and radon. These indicators were mapped as proportions to obtain an accurate comparison between spatial units. In order to indicate the need for intervention, environmental indicators are calculated as the proportion of areas where the level of detrimental environmental factors exceeds threshold values from WHO guidelines and Walloon legal threshold values. In parallel, a spatial web tool based on GIS was developed to enable a flexible and weighted combination of the normalized indicators by computing the resulting composite index online. This interactive web tool designed for policy makers and experts eases the spatial analysis of results in order to identify geographic areas where hotspot exposures are a potential risk to human health. The next steps of this work aim to integrate more environmental indicators (stressors and benefits) and some sociodemographic and health indicators in order to detect vulnerable populations. A holistic assessment is essential to inform environmental justice debates and to ensure a health conducive equal environment. Finally, this environmental health tool will support decision makers focus resources and programs to improve the environmental health of Walloons living in areas disproportionately burdened by multiple sources of pollution.

Reclaiming the role of labour environmentalism in Just Transitions

From its inception in the North American labour movement all the way to its inclusion in the Paris Agreement and current level of global proliferation, the concept of Just Transition has reached the pinnacle of global policy debates. Drawing on contributions to the Just Transition Research Collaborative (JTRC) project and a recently published volume1, we highlight the importance of historicising and rooting the Just Transition concept in the frontline communities and unions that are most directly affected and that initially imagined it. This, we believe, is key to ensuring that Just Transition is not simply a fashionable catchword but a concept that actually contributes to a socially just low-carbon transition. Just Transition: The Making and Globalisation of a Contested Concept The Origins of Just Transition: While the term ‘just transition’ was first used in 1995, it was part of an explicit strategy by unions and environmental justice activists in the USA and Canada that can be traced to the late 1980s. Drawing upon the US federal Superfund policy to clean up polluted sites, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union suggested a Superfund for Workers in chemicals, weapons, and other toxic industries. The strategy of the union envisioned a robust green industrial policy, strong occupational, health and environmental rights and standards, alongside universal health care and the formation of an independent labour party. During the 1990s, US and Canadian unions promoted the strategy in collaboration with the environmental justice and elements of the environmental movement and in the context of systematic discussions between unions and environmentalists2. Just Transition fell off the US and Canadian union and environmentalist agenda after 2001. The Globalisation of Just Transition: The concept survived, however, because global union organisations, in collaboration with a number of national unions, including in the UK, Spain, Australia and South Africa, globalised the concept from the late 1990s onwards (Rosemberg 2020). The Spanish Comisiones Obreras and the associated Sustainlabour and ITUC, played a critical role in the diffusion of labour environmentalism globally, mainstreaming the Just Transition concept within international climate and environmental debates and processes3. During the Great Recession, when proposals for green jobs and green growth became more popular nationally and amongst intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), these unions sought to ensure that Just Transition remained on the agenda. Just Transitions Everywhere: More recently, the uptake of Just Transition has accelerated. Global climate activists started seeing its value and some transferred it back to their national movements. The ILO adopted its Just Transition guidelines in 2015. The ITUC established the Just Transition Centre (JTC) in 2016 and has pursued close collaboration between labour and sympathetic business (Moussu 2020). Other IGOs are also engaging the concept, as are various philanthropic and civil society organisations. Just Transition policies have been adopted by countries, such as Canada and Spain, by subnational units, such as Colorado and Scotland and by cities, such as Longmont, Colorado, and Jackson, Mississippi (Akuno 2020). C40, the global network of megacities has expressed its commitment to Just Transition. The growing number of references to Just Transition has increased the range of understandings of what it should mean, from more conventional and mainstream corporate social responsibility proposals to more transformative ideas that confront the current neoliberal economic system. A necessary step, therefore, is to identify and reflect on the various meanings and operationalisations of Just Transitions. Unions and Just Transitions Today Despite its union origins, Just Transition remains a contested concept within the world of labour. Some unions, particularly in extraction and construction, oppose Just Transition, due to both concerns over the implications of a transition and ideological reasons. Other unions have engaged the strategy but emphasised the social aspects over the urgency of a green transition. There are good reasons for that when states, business and environmentalists focus on urgency without justice. Overall, Just Transition is high on the agenda of the world of labour and there are many instances of unions debating and promoting Just Transition. These include the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, various British and US unions and union related initiatives, the Alberta Federation of Labour in Canada, South African trade unions, Australian unions (Snell 2020) and others. But while some unions from the Global South...