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This article investigates the development of China’s carbon markets through the lens of financialization, focusing on how financial logics are emerging within a state-led economy.

Paper long abstract:

This article investigates the development of China’s carbon markets through the lens of financialization, focusing on how financial logics are emerging within a state-led economy. Building on a conceptual framework comprising five interrelated indicators: assetization, financial actor participation, derivative instrument development, speculative trading behaviour, and discursive framing, the analysis interrogates whether, how, and to what extent financialization has taken root in China’s national emissions trading system (ETS). Rather than presuming a linear or liberal trajectory, the article theorizes financialization as partial, contingent, and state-curated. Through a periodized account of three key phases: regional pilot programmes (2011–2016), institutional consolidation (2017–2020), and the national ETS launch (2021–present), the article traces the evolving architecture of carbon governance and identifies signs of financialization. Empirical findings demonstrate that while carbon is increasingly framed as a financial resource and embedded in registry systems, its circulation remains tightly regulated, derivative instruments are prohibited, and speculative trading is institutionally precluded. Financialization in China’s ETS thus reflects a hybrid regime in which market tools are selectively mobilized but remain subordinated to administrative control and developmental priorities. By conceptualizing this process as partial financialization, this article contributes to broader debates on environmental governance and offers a framework for understanding how financial logics can be embedded without financial liberalization.

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The study reviews climate change policies of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) Member States to determine how they integrate environmental justice principles that can address climate-induced loss and damage.

Paper long abstract:

National climate change policies are expected to ensure fair resource distribution, involve marginalised groups in decision-making, and prioritise support for communities disproportionately impacted by climate change. By addressing these inequities, policies can significantly promote climate justice. Guided by international frameworks like the Paris Agreement, governments of States such as Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have since enacted climate change policies to localise Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13—an effort to redress the climate and ecological crisis. These States collectively govern the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA). This paper therefore reviewed climate change policies of the Member States to determine the extent to which they integrate environmental justice principles. Employing the Policy Triangle Framework, the review examines: (i) the context in which the policy was formulated, (ii) the policy-making process, including agenda setting, (iii) the content or focus of the policy e.g., access to funding and legal mechanisms and (iv) the involvement of actors, including policymakers, interest groups, and other stakeholders. Results revealed that policies inadequately support climate justice. Additionally, certain policies, such as those formulated in 2011, have not undergone a timely review, a factor which limits their relevance. This paper emphasises the need for prompt policy updates to address emerging challenges and calls for the development of an overarching climate action plan for the five States. This is given their shared vulnerabilities to climate-induced loss and damage that is compounding impacts such as human and wildlife conflicts.

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This panel explores how state-led energy transitions may impact justice in community health. Mining operations (coal, limestone, uranium) leave toxic heavy metal waste in water/soil, together with arsenic in groundwater. We use spatial methodologies to understand waste's health impacts.

Paper long abstract:

This panel explores the relationship between state-led energy transitions to achieve decarbonization targets and injustice in community health. In northeastern India Indigenous communities have reported a surge in non-infectious diseases since the 1990s when pilot uranium mining started. These communities have reported disproportionately high levels of respiratory, skin, and kidney diseases, miscarriages, and childhood disabilities compared with surrounding villages. Public and private corporations have conducted mining operations (coal, limestone, uranium), leaching toxic heavy metal waste into soil and water. Groundwater arsenic contamination, often resulting from over-harvesting groundwater when water sources are depleted, is widely documented in neighboring states, with serious health impacts. To better understand public health impacts, we conducted household surveys in mining-proximate communities. Combining these surveys, we have spatially documented households, communal water sources, farm fields, rivers where communities catch fish, and health issues.

This paper describes new methodological approaches we propose to better understand environmental exposures and related human health risks, using spatial documentation and multiple regression models. In India and other Global South nations, state agencies curb environmental and health protections to fast-track economic growth. Mining practices across India (coal, limestone, and uranium) are widely reported as under-regulated and Pollution Control Boards have found unsafe levels of heavy metals in surface water nationwide. Our spatial model to identify correlation between water sources, adverse health impacts, and industrial waste, will help us identify how to conduct ecosystem testing in the project’s next phase.

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This paper examines how power, decision-making and knowledge intersect with climate justice in forest governance. Using governmentality and decolonial frameworks, it examines top-down approaches and colonial legacies, while exploring co-production’s potential to foster just governance models.

Paper long abstract:

Forests play a crucial role in mitigating and adapting to climate change, and modern applications of woodfuels are also increasingly used as a source of renewable energy. However, the governance of forests, from community to global frameworks and mechanisms, has been plagued by challenges, including power inequities both within and across national contexts.

This conceptual paper explores power dynamics in forest governance, focusing specifically on decision-making and knowledge, drawing on structural models rooted in governmentality and decolonial theory. The first section situates the discussion within co-production frameworks, highlighting their transformative potential. By synthesising insights from environmental governance and development studies, the paper examines the potential of co-production to challenge entrenched knowledge hierarchies, integrate diverse knowledge systems, and promote equitable decision-making.

The second section examines structural critiques of forest and environmental governance, particularly through Foucault's concept of governmentality and its application to forest management. Here, knowledge is framed as a discursive practice that extends power, categorising and ordering complex realities in ways that often reinforce hegemonic systems. Drawing on Scott’s critique of high modernism, this section underscores the limitations of top-down planning and the role of informal processes in shaping governance outcomes. Further, decolonial perspectives that draw on governmentality expose how post-colonial power structures perpetuate inequities in forest governance.

By integrating these frameworks, the paper interrogates the intersections between equity, knowledge, and power. It argues that locally led and co-produced forest governance models hold potential for transformative justice, provided they actively challenge colonial legacies and prioritise procedural, distributive, and cultural equity.

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This paper examines how youth-led movements in Kenya are challenging proposed global climate solutions and reshaping the understanding of climate justice. Through their actions, they emphasize the need for inclusive and locally relevant approaches in global climate measures and agreements.

Paper long abstract:

As the impacts lof the climate crisis become more urgent and visible, countries have responded by signing treaties and agreements like the Paris Agreement, aimed at reducing emissions and adapting to the growing threats to both human life and the environment. However, this global response has also exposed tensions between the actions of industrialized nations and the lived realities of those in the global south, particularly African communities that are disproportionately affected by climate change. Amid these dynamics, youth climate activists have emerged as powerful voices within the broader environmental movement, challenging both the pace of climate action and the equity of proposed solutions. This paper examines critical sites of climate conflicts in Kenya where youth are actively opposing the hegemony of international organizations, such as the United Nations and its affiliated frameworks, which, while promoting global climate agreements, often reflect and reproduce dominant discourses that marginalize local contexts and indigenous solutions. It examines how the youth are pushing back against carbon-offset schemes and just energy transition projects in Narok, Mau Complex areas and Northern Kenya which reinforce climate and green colonialism. Using the neo-Gramscian perspective of counter-hegemony, which critiques dominant power structures and emphasizes grassroots resistance, the paper explores how African youth climate activists are constructing counter-narratives that challenge the ideological and material dominance of global climate governance and production systems.

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Paper short abstract:

Jharkhand, home to 32 Tribes, faces climate-induced challenges like rainfall variability, deforestation, and mining. These issues disrupt agriculture, erode tribal livelihoods, and force migration. It critiques policies, urging justice-focused solutions to protect tribal rights and ancestral lands.

Paper long abstract:

Jharkhand (the 28th Indian State), means “The land of forests,” is home to 32 Scheduled Tribes with a profound connection to their ancestral lands, which are integral to their identity, culture, and livelihoods, predominantly centered on agriculture and allied activities. Jharkhand’s agriculture relies heavily on the south-west monsoon (June-September), but rainfall variability poses significant challenges. According to the Climatological Report of Jharkhand (2011), unpredictable pre- and post-monsoon rainfall, alongside frequent droughts, has negatively impacted agricultural productivity. For instance, in 2010, a 47% rainfall deficit led to a more than 50% decline in food production, while erratic excessive rainfall caused floods, further damaging agricultural fields.

Deforestation exacerbates these challenges. From 2001 to 2023, Jharkhand lost 5.98 kha of tree cover, emitting 3.12 Mt of CO₂. Humid primary forests, crucial for biodiversity, saw a 0.77% decline due to developmental projects and extensive mining operations for coal and minerals. The top two regions, including Pashchimi Singhbhum, accounted for 59% of tree cover loss. This environmental degradation not only disrupts ecosystems but also erodes the cultural and economic foundations of tribal communities.

Deforestation, mining, and land alienation have forced tribes reliant on forests and farming to migrate to urban areas for low-paying jobs in construction and agriculture. Migration severs their connection to ancestral lands, disrupts cultural identities, and exposes them to exploitation, perpetuating socio-economic inequalities. This paper critiques climate policies, advocating for justice-centered approaches to empower tribes, protect their rights, and enable sustainable adaptation to environmental change.

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In this paper, we examine the mitigation bias in Nigeria's climate policies, and identify the influence of several factors. This misalignment with Nigeria's climate vulnerabilities suggests a need to rebalance policy focus towards adaptation to better protect vulnerable populations.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, Nigeria has enacted several polices to address climate change, including most recently the National Climate Change Policy (2021). In this paper, grounded on the principles of climate justice, we analyse Nigeria's climate change policies, both current and past. We find that historical and current approaches to climate governance in Nigeria disproportionately focus on mitigation at the expense of adaptation. We examine the underlying drivers of this mitigation bias. These include the global climate discourse which is largely driven by developed nations, the difficulty of quantifying adaptation measures, and the international community's mitigation-centric approach. These have all shaped Nigeria's policy framework., and led to a dissonance between Nigeria's actual climate vulnerabilities and the policy focus in local climate governance. A more determined focus on adaptation in climate governance is required to protect Nigeria’s vulnerable populations.

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This paper will be looking at the vulnerabilities of Indigenous women in climate crises from the global south. From a gendered perspective lens and asking the critical question of. Who is the concept of climate justice really for?

Paper long abstract:

In the 21st century, large-scale natural disasters continue to disrupt lives across the globe. Despite ambitious global goals to combat climate change, significant progress remains elusive. Paradoxically, the communities least responsible for the climate crisis-such as Indigenous populations-suffer its most severe consequences. This disparity has led to the concept of climate justice, aimed at ensuring equitable outcomes in the face of ecological crises.

In recent years, Western nations have increasingly turned to Indigenous knowledge systems as a potential solution to climate change. While Indigenous practices often offer valuable insights, can it be considered fair to look to Indigenous communities for solutions when they are grappling with the impacts of cultural erosion, and historical injustices rooted in colonialism and neoliberal state policies? Moreover, Indigenous knowledge systems are shaped by generations of interactions within specific landscapes and expecting them to address global crises ignores their contextual specificity.

Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in North Bengal, India. This research investigates the lived experiences of Indigenous communities, mainly focusing on the gendered dimension of climate vulnerability. Women, often the custodians of traditional ecological knowledge, bear a disproportionate burden as they sustain both their communities and their knowledge systems amidst systemic neglect. This paper argues that climate justice, as it is currently conceptualised, risks perpetuating inequality by overlooking the compounded vulnerabilities faced by Indigenous women. Without meaningful structural support from broader society and the state, climate justice remains an unfulfilled promise that raises the question: Who is climate justice really for ?

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Paper short abstract:

The research relates to climate finance, analyzing how gendered power dynamics shape fiscal policies. It highlights the role of gender-responsive climate budgeting in advancing climate justice by addressing systemic inequities and promoting transparency, equity, and effectiveness in climate action.

Paper long abstract:

Like many other countries in the Global South, Indonesia is increasingly affected by the consequences of increased CO2 emissions in terms of a changing climate and temperature rises. These implications overlap with and worsen existing socioeconomic inequities, including gender disparities. Women, especially those in disaster-prone areas, typically experience limited access to resources and decision-making, decreasing their ability for resilience and recovery. This research is framed within the larger context of climate justice, emphasizing how imbalanced power dynamics perpetuate systemic injustices such as climate colonialism, wherein Global South nations like Indonesia disproportionately suffer from the climate crisis despite their minimal contributions to global emissions.

Drawing on qualitative methods, gender-responsive climate budgeting (GRCB) goes beyond statistical analysis and spending allocation. This study aims to assess the outcomes and implications of climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. The research focuses on the structure and implementation of these budget practices and policies, assessing the influence of gendered power dynamics on these fiscal practices. It involves fieldwork in Jakarta, where national climate policies and budgets are designed, and in Bogor Regency, an area severely affected by climate-change-induced disasters. Further, it explores the extent of national and regional actors’ involvement in GRCB’s discourses and assesses the contribution of GRCB to enhancing community knowledge, resilience, and effective participation in climate change efforts while capturing diverse gender experiences and narratives surrounding adaptation and mitigation responses. The study interrogates how Indonesia’s GRCB addresses intersecting crises and explores pathways for equitable governance amidst the challenges of the current polycrisis.

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Paper short abstract:

With my research paper, I bring critical insights on Indigenous tenure security—a crucial element in addressing climate and ecological crises in the workshop. The findings will challenge workshop participants to reimagine justice in environmental governance, especially for Indigenous tenure justice.

Paper long abstract:

Environmental and climate justice fundamentally centers on questions of access to and control over environmental resources that impact our global climate. These resources, that form an integral part of people's lived environments, are often at the heart of power struggles and inequitable distribution. Recent studies have established clear connections between environmental crises and Indigenous tenure injustice, highlighting how securing Indigenous land rights plays a crucial role in both preventing environmental degradation and addressing historical inequities (Dawson et al., 2021; Popovici et al., 2021; RRI, 2020). Against this backdrop, I present my doctoral research paper that examines the critical institutional challenges that impede justice for Indigenous tenure security—a factor proven vital in addressing environmental and climate crises. Through a qualitative case study of the Indigenous Rajwar peoples of India's Kumaon Himalayas, I demonstrate how power dynamics within multi-level governance structures constrain the comprehensive notion of Indigenous tenure justice. This constraint manifests in four key dimensions: distributional equity, recognition, participation and capabilities. Rather than achieving genuine tenure justice, these dimensions are reduced to mere land distribution operating within patronized governance networks. The paper reveals how dominant state and non-state actors across scale systematically eclipse Indigenous participation in tenure security processes, thereby reinforcing their pre-existing hegemonic and hierarchical authority—a direct legacy of colonial governance systems. Building on this analysis, the paper argues that powerful actors embedded within these nested governance structures engage in "just-washing" (analogous to green-washing) when addressing Indigenous tenure security issues that are crucial to tackling emerging environmental crises.

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Paper short abstract:

It is crucial to go beyond the Eurocentric conceptualization of the climate crisis and to acknowledge epistemological inclusion and ontological pluralism that use multiple values, normative commitments, and local ways of knowing that are produced by those who are at the frontline of climate crisis

Paper long abstract:

The study argues that there are interlinks between climate crisis, environmental injustice and colonialism that induce variant vulnerabilities and colonial hierarchies created by centuries of global politics and its ecological ramifications, compounded by more recent histories of plundering and use of the natural resources by the global North and fossil fuel corporations. Under this premise, the study aims to explore the notion of climate coloniality and how it unfolds in the African context by examining the indigenous Amazigh communities’ perceptions about climate change, its impacts and possible mitigation and adaptation ways as rooted in the indigenous knowledge. In addition, the study aims to explore and critically reflect on the discourses of ‘just’ green transition and the role of the indigenous Amazigh people in shaping its trajectory and its impacts on their communities. The study focuses on desk research about the history of environmental colonialism, climate injustice and green transition in Africa. In addition, semi-structured interviews and focus groups discussions will be conducted with the indigenous Amazigh people of Morocco and Algeria with a focus on the Draa-Tafilalet Amazigh community in Morocco and the Amazigh communities in Kabylia in the north-east of Algeria. These communities are selected for the purpose of this study as they share similar grievances; they are poor, bear the brunt of climate change and natural disasters, were displaced due to large scale climate action projects such as solar panels and suffer from harsh living conditions.

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Disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) measures are often challenging to implement in small island communities due to their geographical isolation, limited resources, and heightened exposure to climate change and natural hazards. In the archipelagic province of Tawi-Tawi, located at the southernmost end of the Philippines, local governments face severe inequities in the development of formal DRRM plans due to the highly technical nature of government-mandated documentary requirements. While many international, national, regional, and local DRRM frameworks recognize and promote the inclusion of local adaptations and indigenous knowledge (LINKs) in local DRRM, it is not always clear to local governments and stakeholders how these can be integrated into a required one-size-fits-all DRRM templates, checklists, and implementation plans, often directed for the convenience of governmental mandates. By interrogating established forms of power that defines local relationships and power dynamics, the research aims to develop a Guidance Note for the Municipality of Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, which shall enable and empower local leaders in the preparation, identification, verification, integration, and evaluation of LINKs into formal Barangay DRRM Plans. Through the integration of LINKs that are cognizant of resource constraints, easily transferable throughout each individual community, and encouraging of community participation, DRRM plans can be made more effective, context-sensitive, and implementable in small island communities.

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Paper short abstract:

With a focus on Kenya, this paper will explore how developing economies are coping with the emerging landscape of development financing which is increasingly focused towards climate related action.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will explore how the evolving agenda of international development financiers towards climate and sustainability is affecting developing economies’ ability to address developmental challenges.

Lending agencies play a critical role in financing projects that support poverty alleviation, employment, education, rural development, agriculture, governance, and health in developing economies. However, the climate crisis is reshaping the way international aid, financing, and investments are structured. The changing landscape of development financing is drawing focus on climate and related activities.

There is growing emphasis on projects that address climate and sustainability issues. Several international lending agencies have announced plans to invest primarily in projects that have a climate component to them. For example, the Asian Development Bank has set a target for 2030 to ensure that 75 percent of its operations will support climate change mitigation or adaptation. The World Bank is also prioritizing climate action, with its new vision: "to create a world free of poverty on a livable planet.”

This raises questions around the changing structure of the development financing landscape. Drawing from examples from Kenya, this paper will evaluate how project proposals involving international development financing have evolved over time, how the emphasis on climate is translating onto development projects and how this change interacts with national development goals within Kenya.

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The paper argues that transition minerals will remain an old wine of displacement and impoverishment in a new bottle of “greenwashing” for transition minerals of solar and wind energy; unless the knowledge, opinions and interests of the most vulnerable communities are accounted for and included.

Paper long abstract:

As the world transitions toward greener energy sources, there is an increasing focus on rare earth minerals, such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, which are deemed essential for developing sustainable technologies. However, the challenges of open-cast mining, displacement of affected communities, and pollution from mining and mineral transport remains a continued crisis even with these transition minerals. Using Jharkhand as a case study, the paper highlights the continued crisis of resource curse among the indigenous communities even with transition minerals. The case of the first uranium mining in Jaduguda, Jharkhand and the genetic deformities that has followed even after years of the mines closure speaks of the risks to the communities. Even when the Task Force-Sustainable Just Transition speaks of revolutionising the energy sector with green fuels; the participation and consultation of the most immediate and affected communities remains excluded from the decision-making process. The paper argues that unless the transition to alternate forms of energy is radically formed on inclusion and participation of communities; the energy transition journey remains unjust. This paper draws on primary data collected through a year-long ethnographic village study conducted in 2024 across Tamar, Jharkhand, and other mine-affected villages in Hazaribag, Dumka, Godda, and Chaibasa. Complementing this fieldwork, government reports—particularly those from the Ministry of Mines—were utilised to map mining sites and provide critical contextual data geographically. Despite the shift towards solar or wind energy, the requirement of raw materials, processing units and most importantly distribution is an administrative, policy, and developmental challenge.

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Paper short abstract:

The ecological and climate crises have exposed mining’s social and environmental injustices. Focusing on North Karanpura, Jharkhand, this paper examines displacement, precarity and resistance in coal regions. It calls for justice frameworks centring on marginalised voices and sustainable futures.

Paper long abstract:

The ongoing ecological and climate crises have brought mining practices and their social consequences into sharp focus. In India’s coal-dependent economy, extractive frontiers serve as both sites of rapid development and enduring injustice. This paper critically examines the intersections of climate justice, ecological degradation, and the lived realities of communities in contested coalfields, with a particular focus on Indigenous lands. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the North Karanpura in Jharkhand, the paper investigates how mine-led displacement, compensation inequalities, and long-term land degradation disproportionately burden marginalized groups.

Through the lens of political ecology and theories of resource politics, the paper explores how resistance movements, gendered labour dynamics, and immobility in the landscapes challenge the dominant narrative of ‘progress’ tied to extraction. It argues that these sites are not only shaped by extraction but also serve as battlegrounds where questions of justice—climate, ecological, and social—are negotiated and contested. By foregrounding the voices of those directly impacted, this paper highlights how coal-dependent regions in the Global South illuminate broader global dilemmas in achieving ecological and climate justice amid systematic inequality.

This contribution offers insights into the limits of current approaches to justice in the context of ecological crisis and argues for alternative frameworks that centre marginalised voices, reparative action, and sustainable futures.

Keywords: Extractive Frontiers, Indigenous groups, Mining and Justice, India

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This paper looks at how state, intergovernmental bodies, and global scientific establishments look at the ethical and , political issues in researching, developing, and deploying various large scale Solar Radiation Modification technologies.

Paper long abstract:

The paper analyzes documents produced by the governments, intergovernmental bodies, and global scientific establishments that include the recent congressionally mandated research plan and initial research governance framework by the White House, House of Commons Science and Technology Committee The Regulation of Geoengineering Fifth Report of Session 2009–10 Report and the UK Government's view and the Response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee 5th Report of Session 2009-10: The Regulation of Geoengineering, The Royal Society's report, Greenhouse Glass removal and the United Nations Environment Programme's multidisciplinary expert panel report on Solar Radiation Modification. The paper demonstrates how even when some of these institutions are significantly concerned about potential risks and ethical issues in solar radiation modification, they are open to a future where researching, developing, and deploying solar radiation modification initiatives if they can cool the planet significantly at a given time. Further, some institutions might potentially be open to solar radiation modification initiatives even if that creates further disproportionate burden on counties and communities that were least responsible for the Anthropogenic Climate Change where cooling the planet at any cost could potentially become the priority. The paper broadly argues how ethics get complicated in the SRM debates and how that can make far reaching impacts for the most climate vulnerable regions and countries if Solar Radiation Modification initiatives get deployed.