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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.

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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. 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.

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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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An investigation of ongoing resettlement effort by Atlantic Lithium in Ghana. The firm's approach provides inadequate cash compensation against explicit preference for land-based resettlement with potential to impoverish farmers, questioning the "justness" of energy transition fueling lithium mining

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The discovery of lithium in Ghana in 2017 has brought international attention to the country and raised yet another hope of soon to emerge economic pole that will contribute to economic transformation and sustainable development. Subsequently, the Government of Ghana has approved its maiden ‘green minerals’ policy and signed a 15yr lease agreement with an Australian company. The establishment of the lithium mine requires resettlement of inhabitants, raised concerns about the approach in resettling affected inhabitants. Key question that begs for answer and provided guidance for this study is whether Ghana’s premier lithium mine will also impoverish farmers. The study investigated ongoing resettlement efforts by Atlantic Lithium with view of establishing if the lithium mine-induced resettlement will impoverish farmers.

Using qualitative analytical methods and primary data obtained through interviews and focused group discussion, it was found that Atlantic Lithium’s resettlement approach is consistent with precedents in gold mining sites where mining companies provide inadequate cash compensation for farms against explicit farmer preference for land-based resettlement to enable affected farmers continue with their farming activities. This approach has the potential of worsening the plights of affected farmers within a few years of time and perpetuating an injustice and exposing an unjust extraction of so-called green minerals, questioning the “justness” of energy transition that is fueling extraction of green minerals. The paper recommends that the government ensures that some amount of land for farming is included in the compensation package for farms that must be destroyed to pave way for the mine.

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This paper explores how climate change and deforestation have impacted traditional medicinal healers' ability to provide healthcare. We examine “forest health” to understand how forest loss is impacting traditional medicine as primary care, and by extension, loss of Indigenous science knowledge.

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As forest ecosystems undergo increasing change from anthropogenic climate change, it is urgent to document changes in biodiversity to understand how medicinal plant habitats are impacted by these forest disturbances. In India’s Meghalaya state 90% of the rural population depends on traditional healthcare, and forest loss can mean loss of medicinal plant pharmacies. Poverty reduction initiatives and development projects have accelerated forest loss through mining, monocropping, and overharvesting. These impacts have catalyzed medicinal plant extinctions and between some 20-25% of Meghalaya’s existing plant species are endangered. Mining has been especially harmful: toxic runoff from limestone, coal, and uranium mining have degraded rivers and forests.

From 2024-25, our Khasi and multinational team documented forest change from traditional healer (Nongsumar) perspectives. We learned that the decrease in overall forest health of Meghalaya’s SWKH district can be attributed to deforestation (90%), “dryness” (loss of water sources and reduced moisture) (50%), and overharvesting (30%). Nongsumar were reluctant to attribute negative impacts on “forest health” (biodiversity/plant community capacity to adapt to changes) to jhum (swidden) agriculture, because activities support livelihood. However, Nongsumar universally agreed that the growing problem of “forest dryness” was increasingly urgent. Our paper centers Indigenous healers’ lived observations of changes in climate and forest ecosystems (3-4 decades). We argue that overall impacts on “forest health” contribute to a feedback loop wherein decreased access to forest pharmacies leads to loss of Nongsumar ability to provide medical care, and thereby loss of Indigenous science knowledge.

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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.

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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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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.

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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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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?

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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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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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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

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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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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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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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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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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.

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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.