Editorial: A ‘Just Transition’–a meaningful movement or rhetoric that has been co-opted for other purposes?
The phrase ‘Just Transition’ has roots in the 1990s American trade union movement, arising from the concern for workers’ welfare with a transition out of fossil fuels; a transition that could leave workers jobless and without transferrable skills despite years of undertaking potentially hazardous work. The term was coined by one of the movement’s leaders, Tony Mazzocchi, who fought for the guarantee that workers would not have to pay for clean air and water with their jobs, their living standards or their future (quoted in Nguyen, 2022). By 1997, the Just Transition Alliance was formed and continues today, with a key objective to shift toward ‘a sustainable economy that does not compromise people and our environment, one that is driven by those at the frontline and on the fencelines of unsustainable production’ (Just Transition Alliance, n.d.).Alarcon, P., Diaz, C., Peters, S. and Schwab, J. (2022) Rethinking ‘Just Transition’: Critical Reflections for the Global South [online] <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362726229_Policy_Brief_Rethinking_%27Just_Transition%27_Critical_Reflections_for_the_Global_South> [accessed 26 September 2022].
Banerjee, A. and Schuitema, G. (2022) ‘How just are just transition plans? Perceptions of decarbonisation and low-carbon energy transitions among peat workers in Ireland’, Energy Research & Social Science 88: 102616 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102616>.
Eisenberg, A. (2019) ‘Just transitions’, Southern California Law Review 92: 2 [online] <https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/2019/01/04/just-transitions-article-by-ann-meisenberg/> [accessed 26 September 2022].
Just Transition Alliance (no date) ‘What we do’ [website] <https://jtalliance.org/about-us/> [accessed 26 September 2022].
Nguyen, L. (2022) ‘A beginner’s guide to a just transition’ [blog], 19 May, University of Washington <https://smea.uw.edu/currents/a-beginners-guide-to-a-just-transition/> [accessed 21 August 2022].
United Nations (2015) Paris Agreement [online] <https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf> [accessed 26 September 2022].
United Nations (2021) Human Development Insights [online] <https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks> [accessed 25 August 2022].
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