Politics, Voice, and Just Transition: Who has a Say in Climate Change Decision Making, and Who Does Not

George Boss*, Alix Dietzel, Dan Godshaw, Alice L Venn

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

177 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The city of Bristol, United Kingdom, set out to pursue a just transition to climate change in 2020. This paper explores what happened next. We set out to study how just transition is unfolding politically on the ground, focusing on procedural justice. Over the course of a year, we conducted interviews and observations to study decision-making at three levels - public sector, private sector, and civil society. We found that not only is it difficult to define what just transition means, even for experts, but that the process of deciding how to pursue such a transition is highly exclusionary, especially to women and ethnic minorities. We therefore argue there is an urgency to revise decision making procedures and ensure that there is ample opportunity to feed into decision making processes by those who are typically excluded. Inclusive decision making must be embedded into the process of just transition from the beginning and throughout its implementation - it is not a step that can be ‘ticked off’ and then abandoned, but rather an ongoing process that must be consistently returned to. Finally, we conclude that cities have the unique opportunity to pilot bottom-up participatory approaches and to feed into the process of how a just transition might be pursued at the global level - for example, through their participation in the United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) processes.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)86–104
Number of pages19
JournalGlobal Social Challenges Journal
Volume2
Issue number2
Early online date13 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2023

Research Groups and Themes

  • Environment and Society
  • Centre for Environmental Law and Sustainability

Keywords

  • Just Transition
  • Cities
  • Bristol
  • Procedural justice

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Politics, Voice, and Just Transition: Who has a Say in Climate Change Decision Making, and Who Does Not'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this