Accepted Paper
Paper short abstract
We criticise the dominant 'JUST' framing on the decarbonisation of energy systems, showing how it limits analysis and action through a critical comparison with Nancy Fraser's critical theory of justice and with case study evidence fromCanada and South Africa.
Paper long abstract
The concept of ‘just transition’ has become central to academic and policy discourse on the decarbonisation of energy systems. The ‘JUST’ Framework, introduced in 2018 and actively promoted to international organisations and national governments has become the dominant framing these debates. However, we argue that the inattention to questions of power and history within JUST fails to identify and challenge the social relations that produce injustice, and ecological destruction and limits action to what is possible within contemporary sociopolitical and economic structures. Drawing on Nancy Fraser, we call for a more radical approach to theorizing just transitions, one that not only addresses questions of redistribution, recognition and representation but centres on the uneven relations of power that generate injustices within and across these three dimensions. Case-study evidence from the global North and global South illustrates the potential of this new approach in analytical and political terms.
G(local) political economy of green transition: Actors, institutions, and power shifts