# Just transitions under pressure: from early visions to new proposals and trajectories in the Global South

Yanis Rihi

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Yanis Rihi. Just transitions under pressure: from early visions to new proposals and trajectories in the Global South. 2025. halshs-05316005v2

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# Just transitions under pressure: from early visions to new proposals and trajectories in the Global South<fnref n="1" />

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Yanis Rihi, yanis.rihi@universite-paris-saclay.fr<fnref n="2" />

Paris Saclay University, France

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9507-7602

## Abstract

The concept of a just transition has gained increasing visibility in international climate governance; yet, it remains shaped by the Global North's institutional and epistemic logics and visions, often reduced to compensating the socio-economic costs of decarbonization. Drawing on proposals, regional scholarship and empirical cases from Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, I develop a transregional and multi-scalar reinterpretation of the concept. I identify four overarching challenges – epistemic exclusion, governance asymmetries, financial injustices, and economic rationalities – that constitute objective barriers to marginalised actors' ability to realise these proposals and thus reshape global sustainability frameworks. Current climate policies and practices dynamics limit access to financial and institutional resources, as well as the intellectual and political space where alternative visions of justice, sovereignty, and development can emerge. My contribution advances a conceptual cartography of just transitions that expands the debate beyond its genesis, reframing climate and environmental governance through plural and situated understandings of justice and sustainability.

**Keywords:** Just transitions; Global South; Climate justice; Climate finance; Environmental governance

## Introduction

Over the past decade, the concept of a ‘just transition’ has become a central reference in climate and environmental policy debates. From multilateral institutions to social movements, the term has been widely adopted as a framework for reconciling sustainability policies with social justice measures (Morena et al., 2020). Yet, the concept’s genealogy reveals that it originated in the labour struggles of the 1970s in North America, before being redefined through successive waves of institutionalisation and global diffusion (Swilling and Annecke, 2012).

This growing prominence coincides with a moment of paradigmatic fatigue in global sustainability thinking, as well as in international development theory and policy. Indeed, since the late 1980s, the paradigm of sustainable development – as institutionalised in the Brundtland Report and later operationalised through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) <fnref n="1" /> – has provided the dominant framework for reconciling economic growth, environmental protection, and social inclusion (Vivien, 2007). It has structured international cooperation, national policy agendas, and research funding across both the Global North and South, becoming the hegemonic language through which the future of development is imagined and governed (Bourg, 2012; Theys, 2020).

Its limits, however, have become increasingly apparent. Whether it is the transgression of planetary boundaries, the persistence of poverty and inequality, or the inability of the SDGs to transform underlying economic models, these drawbacks all expose the inherent contradictions of a framework that assumes the compatibility between environmental protection and endless growth (cf. Victor, 2018; Chancel, 2020). It is precisely under these conditions that

<footnote n="1">¹ This is a pre-peer review and editing article submitted to *Environmental Politics*.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Yanis Rihi is a Political Economy of Development and Environment PhD student at Paris Saclay University. His research focuses on how asymmetrical North–South relations, through the prisms of international financial, institutional, political, and epistemic architecture, shape just transitions to decarbonised economies, with a particular emphasis on the Global South.</footnote>
the idea of a 'just transition' has emerged as a counter-paradigm – or at least as a new normative horizon – seeking to reintroduce questions of power, justice, and inequality into sustainability debates.

Yet, the meanings attached to the concept remain deeply contested (Wang et Lo, 2021). For instance, the existing literature – still primarily dominated by Global North perspectives and contributions (cf. Mbeva et al., 2025) – tends to frame it mainly in terms of distributive justice, employment protection, and compensatory mechanisms within established welfare regimes (cf. Evans, 2007; ILO, 2015; Stark et al., 2023). This focus on procedural and sectoral adjustment tends to obscure more profound questions of environmental justice, power relations, and inequality that underpin much of present global climate governance (Newell and Mulvaney, 2013).

By contrast, in the Global South, in recent years, the discourse of just transitions has been progressively reappropriated, taking on more contentious and transformative meanings (Alarcón et al., 2022). Here, the concept is increasingly mobilised to address long-standing structural grievances stemming from colonial extraction, ecological debt, and sovereignty over natural resources. Indeed, across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, governments, social movements, and local communities articulate their own visions of justice – rooted in demands for reparation, energy sovereignty, and epistemic autonomy and shaped by the various types of socio-environmental issues they face, from energy precarity to extractive dependency (cf. Sokona et al., 2023; Atteridge et al., 2022; FOEI, 2023).

Still, these diverse reinterpretations of the concept remain marginal in mainstream debates and international climate arenas (Mbeva et al., 2025). The Global South continues to be portrayed as a space of policy implementation or “catching up” (Olivier de Sardan and Vari-Lavoisier, 2022), rather than as a site of knowledge production and normative innovation. This article aims to address this gap by developing a conceptual cartography of just transitions, situating plural Global South perspectives within the global evolution of the concept. Indeed, by advancing a transregional and multi-scalar analysis and drawing on an extensive synthesis of academic scholarship, policy frameworks, and grey literature, this work bridges insights from multiple regions to examine the epistemic recompositions through which the idea of just transition is appropriated, contested, and resignified across diverse contexts of the Global South.

To do so, the argument unfolds in three steps. First, the paper traces the concept's genesis, from its origins in labour environmentalism to its institutionalisation within international climate frameworks, highlighting the processes through which it has undergone successive reformulations. It then examines how actors across different regions of the Global South reinterpret the concept in practice and discourse, articulating plural, situated visions of justice. Finally, it discusses the broader ethical, political, and epistemological implications of these reconfigurations, identifying four main barriers – epistemic exclusion, governance asymmetries, climate finance injustices, and dominant economic rationalities – that currently constrain the ability of marginalised actors to put those visions into practice and therefore significantly reshape the sustainable development paradigm. Through this comparative lens, the article advances a more plural and political understanding of just transitions; one that recognises the Global South not as a peripheral space, but as a key site of theoretical innovation and political imagination for climate governance.

## The foundation of a key climate policy concept

The concept of a 'just transition' was first introduced in the 1980s, as a response to new environmental regulations that threatened employment opportunities in sectors reliant on polluting industries (Swilling and Annecke, 2012). Anthony Mazzocchi, a prominent figure within the *Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union*, has been identified as a central figure in
establishing a nexus between environmental protection and labour rights through this idea (Mazzocchi, 1993). He advocated a proactive approach that would couple ecological measures with job creation and support for displaced workers – laying the groundwork for what would later be known as “labour environmentalism” (Stevis and Felli, 2015).

In the early 1990s, Mazzocchi proposed establishing a *Superfund for workers* to provide concrete social compensation to those affected by increasing environmental regulations (Eisenberg, 2018). In 1995, this initiative was renamed the *Just Transition Fund*, a term popularised by his colleague Les Leopold (cf. Leopold, 1995). This semantic change marked the emergence of a broader political vision that linked environmental protection to social equity and worker protection beyond the fossil fuel sector alone (Laurent, 2024). This vision was subsequently institutionalised through the creation of the *Just Transition Alliance* in 1997, which brought together trade unions and environmental justice organisations to advocate for an integrated approach to economic and ecological issues. The momentum, however, waned in the early 2000s due, among other things, to internal tensions within the labour movement and the rise of economic nationalism, which prioritised international competitiveness over local environmental justice issues (Stevis and Felli, 2015).

Notwithstanding this setback, the 2010s represented a turning point in the development of the concept. From then on, driven primarily by the *International Trade Union Confederation* (ITUC), the idea was progressively incorporated into the discourse surrounding global climate negotiations. This offers a glimpse of the beginnings of a conceptual revival at the dawn of new ecological issues and a complex, changing geopolitical landscape, highlighting how ideas intended to bring about profound societal change in response to a specific issue are disseminated and adopted across space and time.

## *From picket lines to policy papers*

Before the 15th *Conference of the Parties* (COP15), the ITUC, in collaboration with several environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), initiated a trade union mobilisation on climate-related issues. This mobilisation placed significant emphasis on the necessity of integrating ecological action with social justice measures, aiming to avert the exacerbation of inequalities, particularly in regions with a high reliance on fossil fuels, by policies designed to combat global warming (Morena et al., 2020; Swilling and Annecke, 2012). This mobilisation led to the progressive incorporation of the concept into the UNFCCC's official frameworks, thereby establishing trade unions as legitimate stakeholders in international climate governance (Stevis and Felli, 2015).

This growing body of interest and activity around ‘just transition’ culminated in 2015 with the publication of the *Guidelines for a Just Transition* by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), extending the analytical framework of the concept to broader socio-economic dimensions of the transition. In that sense, the guidelines emphasise the importance of contextualised social dialogue, stakeholder participation and policy coherence (ILO, 2015). In the same year, the *Paris Agreement* explicitly included the term in its preamble. This symbolic gesture profoundly anchored the link between climate policy, decent work, and livelihoods within an international treaty (UNFCCC, 2015). This rise in prominence of the concept in international climate arenas continued with the *Silesia Declaration*, adopted at COP24 in 2018, which reaffirmed the need to integrate social issues into the low-carbon economy and the transformations ahead. It, however, remained largely rhetorical, mainly due to the absence of binding mechanisms to ensure its implementation (UNFCCC, 2018).

It should be noted in this regard that the European Union has distinguished itself as one of the most proactive entities in operationalising the concept of a just transition. Indeed, the *Just Transition Mechanism*, a central component of the *Green Deal*, has mobilised €17.5 billion to provide support to the most carbon-intensive regions in managing the socio-economic
impacts of decarbonisation. However, recent studies show that territorial plans for this specific policy mechanism were developed hastily, mainly through top-down governance approaches, with limited social participation and weak accountability mechanisms (cf. Moesker and Pesch, 2022).

Also, on the other side of the Atlantic, in the United States, the concept faces strong political opposition but remains very much present in public debate. For instance, the 2019 *Green New Deal* bill, sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<sup>ii</sup>, sought to enshrine the principles of a just transition in federal legislation. The text establishes an explicit link between ecological transition and social justice, focusing on historically marginalised groups, including indigenous peoples, racialised communities, deindustrialised regions, and low-income populations. Furthermore, despite the bill's rejection in the Senate, mainly due to divergent cost estimates ranging from $51 trillion to $93 trillion, it has prompted a comprehensive political discourse on the potential consequences of climate policy, including the amplification of existing and the creation of new inequalities. The bill also contributed to politically emphasising the necessity for systematic government commitment to ensure that the transition does not occur at the expense of the most vulnerable. In this respect, the *Green New Deal* presented a robust counterargument to technocratic or market-based approaches, asserting that social justice and ecological transformation must be considered in tandem.

In the process, it gave rise to subsequent proposals, for example, the *Green New Deal for Cities Act*, which has also advocated for substantial investment, amounting to almost $1 trillion, in sustainable urban infrastructure to address historical environmental injustices. Despite these initiatives failing to be enshrined in legislation, they signify a growing commitment to prioritising unresolved justice issues within the context of transition planning (Feffer, 2022). They also reveal that, even within the Global North, approaches to a just transition can diverge, with diverse limitations in translating them into effective policies.

At this stage, the trajectory of the concept and its political use highlight two key factors. First, the fact that it remains closely linked to the heritage of coal-dependent regions in the Global North, where it was born geographically. Second, under these circumstances, it is currently reduced to a single political imperative: translating the social acceptability of climate policies by taking into account those most affected by the structural transformations they induce. Therefore, in this context, the primary objective is to mitigate potential adverse effects, including protecting workers facing the threat of redundancy, supporting vulnerable households experiencing short-term price increases, and facilitating assistance for businesses facing higher energy costs.

In these western-centred conceptual framings, social justice measures are often reduced to sectoral compensation, operating within already existing welfare states and developed political-economic structures to provide essential social protection mechanisms for a category of the population most likely to be affected by decarbonisation efforts. But by reducing the notion of justice to the mere management of the side effects of transition policies, it inevitably avoids questioning the deeper economic, social, and political logics behind environmental and climate inequalities<sup>iii</sup>.

Thus, these conceptual trajectories illustrate how its rapid institutionalisation since 2015 in international arenas has broadened the scope of the concept while seemingly diluting its initial political significance, that of a strong and unified social demand in the face of differing views on how to govern environmental issues. A conceptual pitfall, which may also be reflected in the dissemination of the concept within scientific literature, as shown in the following subsection.

*Theorising justice, restraining transformation?*
201 The field of research on just transitions has been undergoing rapid expansion in recent years (cf. Alarcón et al., 2022; Mbeva et al., 2025). Although preliminary studies, predominantly conducted in South Africa and Australia, initially concentrated on the social ramifications of coal phase-out, particularly regarding employment (cf. Evans, 2007; Cock, 2011), the field has since expanded to encompass other sectors, such as transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing, in addition to a more extensive range of geographical areas across both the Global North and South (cf. Swilling and Annecke, 2012; Morena et al., 2020; Laurent, 2024).

208 The field has produced several influential frameworks. McCauley and Heffron (2018), for instance, proposed a tripartite model that combines distributive, procedural, and recognitive justice to bridge the environmental, energy, and climate justice literatures. Building on this, Stark et al. (2023) expanded the typology in a review of more than 200 studies on just transitions to include restorative and transformative dimensions. Both reviews, as well as the work of Wang & Lo (2021), however, reveal persistent biases, namely a strong emphasis on distributive and procedural aspects, a lack of attention to established power relations in the more practical implementation of the concept, as well as a marked concentration on Global North case studies to nourish this conceptual framework of just transitions.

217 These conclusions resonate with more recent bibliometric evidence by Mbeva et al. (2025), who demonstrate that academic production on just transitions is overwhelmingly concentrated within institutions and journals based in the Global North, where a small group of researchers exerts disproportionate influence on the conceptual framing and thematic evolution of the field. This ‘intellectual hegemony’ has progressively steered scholarship towards technocratic understandings of transition, elucidating more fundamental analyses of global inequalities and power relations. Researchers such as Newell and Mulvaney (2013) had already expressed concerns about the depoliticisation of just transitions, emphasising the need to view these transformations as a space of conflict and, consequently, to replace them within the broader context of the global political economy. For them, the pursuit of justice entails not the harmonisation of interests, but rather confronting extractivism, elite capture, and the inequitable distribution of resources, a singular issue in postcolonial contexts.

229 In this sense, recent contributions have highlighted the need for a deeper epistemological and methodological shift. For instance, Delina and Sovacool (2018) advocate for inclusive governance based on epistemic and temporal pluralism, while Ghosh et al. (2021) call for the ‘decolonisation of sustainability frameworks’ to account for informality, fragmented sovereignty, and subaltern knowledges. It is in this context that the following section turns to the migration of the concept to the Global South to analyse the conceptual revival taking place there. More specifically, it seeks to understand how a concept with socio-historical roots in the United States has been able to travel and enter into dialogue with other contexts, particularly in the Global South, which are making their own adjustments and modifications to bring new clarity to social processes that are still little known in the literature and to identify structural impasses that remain unresolved.

241 Contested futures: how the Global South reshapes just transitions

242 While present just transitions policies and scenarios continue to be structured mainly by Global North narratives, multiple actors in the Global South – including governments, social movements, indigenous collectives, and local development practitioners – are reappropriating the concept to advance historical and political demands. Through their discourses, practices and struggles, these just transition proposals are charting alternative ethical and political horizons.

248 This reappropriation is first unfolding in multilateral arenas, where the language of just transitions is emerging as a strategic instrument for renegotiating North-South relations. For instance, the *Just Transition Declaration* adopted at COP26 expanded the definition of the concept to encompass not only the protection of fossil fuel workers but also the broader
252 dimensions of economic restructuring induced by climate policies (UNFCCC, 2021). This
253 opening, therefore, gave rise to more profound questions about development paradigms
254 themselves (Laurent, 2021), revealing a growing awareness of the need to rethink sustainability
255 through the lens of inequality and justice.

256 At COP27, this trend became even more pronounced. Coalitions such as the *Alliance of
257 Small Island States* (AOSIS) and the *African Group of Negotiators* (AGN), supported by
258 transnational movements for climate justice, have mobilised the discourse of just transitions to
259 call for the creation of a *Loss and Damage Fund*. This demand, which has long been advocated
260 by civil society and delegations from the Global South (Bourban, 2018), culminated in a
261 substantial diplomatic victory, illustrating how the concept is being leveraged as a means for
262 redistribution, historical reparation, and the redefinition of differentiated climate
263 responsibilities, shifting – at least temporarily – the balance of power in global climate
264 governance.

265 While the COP27 conference marked a landmark with the establishment of the *Loss and
266 Damage Fund*, pivotal decisions regarding its governance were deferred to the subsequent
267 COP28 conference in Dubai. This delay highlights the inherent limitations of a multilateral
268 consensus, wherein symbolic recognition offers neither financial commitment nor democratic
269 control. Indeed, in Dubai, the recommendations of the transition committee in charge of the
270 fund were endorsed by the participating countries, with the agreement to temporarily entrust
271 the management of the fund to the World Bank for an initial period of four years (Vanhala,
272 2023), with a total value of funding pledges amounting to $770.6 million, mostly from high-
273 income countries (UNEP-CCC, 2023). Moreover, to date, the fund is not yet operational, and
274 the commitments, however symbolic, raise serious concerns about its ability to provide rapid,
275 adequate and equitable reparations. The idea of a just transition, therefore, remains constrained
276 by the institutions and financial imperatives of the Global North, frequently compromising the
277 principles of justice it is intended to uphold. In this sense, the critical position of the Global
278 South, through its discourse on a just global transition, seems to reflect a loss of legitimacy for
279 the World Bank, and, more broadly, for the institutions of the Washington Consensus and the
280 liberal heritage that has historically inspired the implementation of sustainable development in
281 these regions.

282 The debate on climate finance intensified the following year at COP29, particularly
283 regarding the *New Quantified Collective Goal* (NQCG), which aims to supersede the annual
284 $100 billion commitment starting in 2025. Empirical estimates indicate that countries in the
285 Global South would require approximately $1.3 trillion per annum (cf. UNEP, 2024; Gonçalves
286 et al., 2024). But the final agreement merely set a non-binding threshold of at least $300 billion
287 by 2035, explicitly excluding the financing of loss and damage. This omission was met with
288 significant criticism, particularly from civil society and African negotiators, who advocated for
289 allocating $400 billion per year specifically for this item (Sokona et al., 2023).

290 Meanwhile, beyond the amounts involved, it is the very architecture of climate finance
291 that is being criticised through the rhetoric of a just transition. Climate finance remains
292 overwhelmingly structured around debt-based instruments, primarily targeting mitigation
293 projects that promise high, measurable returns, often at the expense of adaptation and locally
294 defined development priorities. For example, less than 5% of available resources take the form
295 of grants, while concessional and market-rate loans dominate, reinforcing financial dependence
296 and vulnerability in low-income economies (Ghosh et al., 2025). In 2022, 60% of low-income
297 countries and 25% of middle-income countries were already experiencing over-indebtedness.
298 (IMF, 2022). In 2023 alone, developing countries paid $1.4 trillion in debt servicing (World
299 Bank, 2024) – a figure greater than the combined public spending on education, health and
300 climate adaptation in many regions of the Global South.

301 Access to these funds is further conditioned by technical standards, green obligations
302 and carbon market mechanisms designed by multilateral donor institutions, primarily financed
by the Global North (Ghosh et al., 2025). They tend to privilege external priorities, marginalise indigenous knowledge systems, and render non-monetised forms of resilience invisible (Gonçalves et al., 2024). As Zylinski (2024) argues, such arrangements risk transforming climate finance into a new form of neo-colonial instrument, reproducing historical patterns of dependency between the Global North and South. This phenomenon is further compounded by the higher financing costs for renewable energy projects in the Global South. This elevated cost is linked to what the author describes as “racialised perceptions of risk”, which refers to the deeply ingrained idea that their economies are inherently riskier. This idea is thus used to justify higher interest rates and public guarantee requirements to secure private returns. Rooted in long-standing global financial hierarchies, this perception, in turn, reinforces structural asymmetries and prejudices between those who set financing standards and those who are subject to them. This enduring imbalance highlights the disparity between the rhetoric of justice in international agreements and the practical realities of climate policies.

Overall, the systematic underrepresentation of the Global South in global climate governance, in conjunction with the persistence of debt-based structures, has constituted a recurring source of diplomatic tensions and demands for structural reform. The mounting calls to replace debt-based approaches with subsidy mechanisms, to anchor financing in principles of justice rather than efficiency, or to decolonise climate finance performance indicators, reflect an emerging consensus within some specific transnational coalitions: future climate policies must be shaped by justice, rather than being optimised for growth or profitability (cf. Sokona et al., 2023; Zylinski, 2024; Ghosh et al., 2025). Under these circumstances, the concept of just transitions serves as the rallying cry for these demands and the paradigm shift needed in favour of international climate justice.

Indeed, networks such as *Just Transition Africa* and the *Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance* exemplify this dynamic. They campaign not only for the restructuring of sovereign and domestic debt, but also for unconditional financing and the right of countries in the Global South to define their own development pathways, independently of standards imposed by international institutions. The mobilisation of these groups is indicative of an explicit desire to resist the dilution of the concept of just transition by re-anchoring it in demands for historical justice and established unequal North-South power relations.

More clearly, our **Figure 1** summarises the concept's trajectory, tracing its thematic evolution across three axes of transformation – temporal, spatial, and institutional – from the radical trade union struggles of the 1970s in the United States to the present-day contested multilateral frameworks. This genealogy reveals three significant conceptual shifts. Firstly, the shift from activism circles to governance arenas has enabled this concept to be quickly recognised by global institutions and countries within the international development community, within just a decade. Secondly, the phenomenon of geographical expansion has shifted the debate from localised industrial contexts in the Global North to international forums and a multitude of contextualised issues, leading to the emergence of new spaces for appropriation, singularly within the Global South. Thirdly, since 2015, the concept has been rapidly adopted by countries, mainly through international climate negotiations, leading at times to a superficial integration into policy.

These multiple mutations elucidate the reasons why, in the present day, just transitions still represent both a potential lever for long-term systemic change and a vehicle for reproducing historical asymmetries. The following section examines how these dynamics are manifested through concrete, context-specific just transition strategies in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America, revealing the tensions, innovations and contradictions specific to each context.

350
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>352 **Figure 1.** Evolution of the just transition concept: From labour activism to institutional frameworks</figcaption></figure>

<caption>353 (1970–2024)</caption>

354 **The Global South facing the dilemmas of just transitions**

355
356 The COP28 agreement, which calls for a gradual phase-out of fossil fuels, has been hailed as a
357 historic step forward. Nevertheless, numerous leaders from the Global South have highlighted
358 the political, economic, and ethical challenges posed by this objective in the prevailing
359 circumstances. Milanovic (2024) justly argues that the decarbonisation pathways devised in
360 industrialised nations carry the risk of imposing penalties on economies that have contributed
361 least to historical emissions, yet are confronted with substantial development requirements and
362 persistent energy insecurity.
363

363 This fundamental disconnection between global climate objectives and the
364 developmental realities of the Global South is driving a reinterpretation of the concept of just
365 transition, at the intersection of social and ecological imperatives. As Ngosso (2013) observes,
366 the “right to development” reasoning, frequently invoked by these nations, cannot be reduced
367 solely to economic growth, thereby risking the perpetuation of extractive practices detrimental
368 to populations and ecosystems. The fundamental tension here is the need to establish a balance
369 between climate policy and environmental justice, that is, to create conditions for human
370 development that are both dignified and sustainable, without compromising the integrity of
371 already vulnerable socio-ecological systems. To that end, Atteridge et al. (2022) identify a
372 multitude of just transitions initiatives in the Global South that seek to align climate objectives
373 with social priorities while confronting deeply entrenched economic, institutional, political, and
374 historical barriers. Despite the heterogeneity of these experiences, they are unified by a shared
375 objective: pursuing a paradigm shift to foster more equitable, locally informed, and politically
376 grounded sustainable development pathways.
377

377 Unlike in other regions, African rhetoric on just transitions is characterised by an
378 explicit effort to construct a coherent conceptual and political framework grounded in local
379 epistemologies, social realities, and the historical legacies of colonial extraction. Sokona et al.
380 (2023) present this as a paradigm shift, in which the notion of justice is approached from a
381 multidimensional and multiscalar standpoint, with links made between decarbonisation and the
382 fight against poverty, inequalities, and unresolved historical injustices. However, they also issue
383 a warning against the risks of external appropriation of this discourse, insisting on the
384 importance for African actors to retain control over its normative content. In this perspective,
385 the authors advocate a participatory, situated governance approach to anchor the transition
386 within the African socio-economic landscape, characterised by informality, young labour
387 markets, and limited social protection. To make this vision a reality, Othhogile and Shirley
388 (2023) propose a contextual typology that distinguishes four particular forms of just transition
389 in Africa: energy, rural, urban, and circular. Their conceptual framing departs from approaches
390 prevalent in industrialised economies, which, as we have seen, tend to centre on coal
391 deindustrialisation and unionised labour transitions, capturing only part of the dynamics
392 relevant to African economies.
393

394 Atteridge et al.'s (2022) work helps identify the obstacles to effectively implementing
395 these discourses. In Kenya, for instance, initiatives to promote green jobs through sustainable
396 transport or the circular economy in cities such as Nairobi are impeded by a scarcity of reliable
397 data, institutional fragmentation and the high level of informal work in this sector. Similarly, in
398 Malawi, national policies designed to encourage adaptation in the agricultural sector, which
399 accounts for 30% of GDP and 64% of employment, have, at times, served to increase the
400 vulnerabilities of small-scale producers, through measures that have been poorly calibrated,
401 resulting in large investors being favoured over family farmers.
402

403 Additionally, bottom-up efforts led by African civil society demonstrate a distinctive
404 approach to designing just transitions on the continent. The *African Just Transitions report*
405 (2023), based on content analysis and a continent-wide survey of organisations working in the
406 fields of climate, agroecology and the environment, highlights not only the diversity of sectors
407 in which the concept is applied, justifying its use now in the plural, but also the diversity of
408 strategies employed by a wide range of actors. While the term is sometimes used explicitly, it
409 is also present in a more subtle way in central concepts such as ‘food sovereignty’, ‘community
410 resilience’ and ‘sustainable development’, revealing a plurality of approaches grounded in local
411 social and human development needs and specific structural issues. It is therefore important to
412 recognise the diversity of actors, with their range of knowledge and expertise, in responding to
413 the challenges associated with a just transition towards sustainability. Indeed, this plurality of
414 proposals has played a decisive role in the formulation of territorial strategies and the
415 development of localised initiatives (cf. Atteridge et al., 2022).
416

417 In Togo, for instance, the international organisation *Friends of the Earth's* support for
418 the inhabitants of Doevi Kope exemplifies a local struggle against oil exploration in coastal
419 areas, where demands for ecological sovereignty are centred on the defence of fisheries,
420 agricultural land and community health. In Mozambique, the action of *Justiça Ambiental*, which
421 denounces the expansion of gas in the province of Cabo Delgado, highlights how new extractive
422 projects exacerbate pre-existing vulnerabilities, thereby intensifying livelihood insecurity in a
423 region already marked by conflict and forced displacement. In a different context, the
424 organisation *Action Solidaire International* in Senegal exemplifies this hybrid, pragmatic
425 approach to just transitions. On the one hand, it addresses the immediate socio-economic
426 requirements of women in small-scale fisheries by introducing advanced technologies.
427 Conversely, it wields significant political influence in national energy debates by advocating
428 for a gradual phase-out of coal (cf. Ayazi et al., 2023).
429

430 Taken together, these experiences reveal a distinctly African politics of just transition –
431 one that foregrounds sovereignty, reparation, and ecological justice, often articulated through
432 the everyday practices of communities rather than formal institutions and top-down policy.
433 While still predominantly constrained by financial dependency and donor-driven agendas
434 (Sokona et al., 2023), these locally grounded initiatives demonstrate how justice can be
435 redefined through the lived realities of vulnerability, resilience, and collective organisation.
436 This is precisely what **Olivier de Sardan** (2025) refers to in epistemology as “creative
437 adaptation,” i.e., the idea of giving life to a whole new language of just transitions and, with it,
438
434 new ways of thinking, measuring, evaluating, and even governing. Ultimately, it means naming
435 and making visible processes and externalities that are often overlooked. As such, this African
436 reappropriation of the concept represents much more than a simple semantic evolution.

437 In another context, in Southeast Asia, the concept of a just transition has been selectively
438 incorporated into national and regional policy frameworks, often centred on social protection
439 and industrial competitiveness, as in developed countries. Indeed, according to Berthe et al.
440 (2022), the region's just transition strategies focus on mitigation – through cash transfers,
441 training programmes, or health initiatives – but do not challenge the underlying power
442 structures or dominant development models. In other words, this technocratic approach is more
443 about adjustment than transformation. Meanwhile, a more thorough investigation of the just
444 transition policy frameworks in Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines reveals a series of
445 barriers, reflecting different historical trajectories and political and institutional contexts, that
446 impede the realisation of genuinely inclusive justice (Bößner et al., 2025). These include, for
447 example, unresolved land rights, heavy reliance on tax revenues from polluting industries, and
448 high levels of informality, which marginalise large segments of the population outside social
449 protection systems.

450 In Laos, for instance, the national forest restoration strategy, which aims to achieve 70%
451 forest cover by 2035, illustrates the tensions between ambitious ecological goals and social
452 justice. In a nation where 60% of the population is reliant on land for their livelihoods, the
453 intersection of customary, informal, and legal land tenure systems engenders pervasive
454 insecurity, particularly for smallholders and rural women (Atteridge et al., 2022). The absence
455 of institutional coordination, coupled with the lack of robust socio-economic data, compounds
456 this vulnerability, thereby engendering considerable challenges in developing informed and just
457 policy. Conversely, Indonesia offers a prime example of the transition dilemmas faced by
458 economies heavily dependent on coal. The commitment to phase out this energy source by 2030
459 is part of a carbon-neutrality strategy, but it conflicts with current societal realities. In the
460 provinces of Kalimantan and Sumatra, coal revenues play a pivotal role in supporting local
461 budgets. Concurrently, more than 60% of the working population is employed in the informal
462 sector, a segment of the economy not covered by the social protection system (Atteridge et al.,
463 2022). This situation highlights a disconnect between climate decisions taken at the central level
464 and their redistributive impacts on local populations, who are often invisible in planning
465 policies.

466 Overall, Southeast Asian trajectories reveal the limits of technocratic approaches to just
467 transitions. While social protection mechanisms are increasingly invoked in transition policies,
468 they rarely challenge underlying power structures or historical inequalities. They may, in
469 certain regions, be obsolete given their political and economic structures, rendering the
470 implementation of justice measures futile. (Bößner et al., 2025). Thus, the notion of justice
471 remains instrumental rather than transformative, mainly mobilised to ensure social acceptability
472 rather than to reshape development paradigms.

473 Lastly, Latin America offers the most explicitly politicised interpretations of just
474 transitions to date. Here, the concept serves simultaneously as a legal, institutional, and
475 movement-based tool to contest dominant models of development and to advance territorial and
476 environmental justice in regions shaped by a long history of resistance to extractivism and social
477 exclusion. As Giupponi (2023) observes, regional and national legal arenas are becoming
478 central vectors of this politicisation. For instance, the *Inter-American Court of Human Rights*
479 has been instrumental in strengthening the legal rights of indigenous communities and informal
480 workers by incorporating principles of justice into its case law. In several countries, courts have
481 compelled governments to integrate social protection mechanisms into their transition
482 strategies. In Ecuador, the Waorani case (2019) reinforced the territorial rights of indigenous
483 communities in the face of oil interests, while in Chile, a 2021 ruling (Somarco v. Ministry of
484 Energy) mandated retraining measures for workers affected by the phase-out of coal.
This positive trend, nevertheless, continues to face significant constraints, often linked to historical economic dependence on raw material exports. In Colombia, for example, the transition away from oil and coal is hindered by the substantial contribution these resources make to the national economy. Oil constitutes nearly two-thirds of exports and 12% of public revenue, while coal accounts for approximately a quarter. A decline in global demand could result in significant budget deficits, particularly in mining regions, where poverty and land inequality are already pronounced (Atteridge et al., 2022). Added to this are fragmented social protection and pervasive informality (53%), which limit the efficacy of redistributive policies (Pucheta and Belén Sánchez, 2022). Furthermore, the inclusion of 'just transition' in Colombia's nationally determined contributions (NDCs), as part of the "guiding axes", but without further clarifications, has not led to significant improvements in the consultation processes, meaning that indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, which collectively manage one-third of the national territory, remain underrepresented in policymaking (Atteridge et al., 2022).

The case of lithium extraction in the province of Catamarca illustrates this omission of social dialogue mechanisms and the persistence of extractivist approaches in the new material frontiers of the energy transition. In the Andean salt flats, where 68% of the world's lithium reserves are located, large-scale mining projects such as the Tres Quebradas initiative reproduce historical patterns of resource dependence and territorial dispossession. Local communities are facing growing water scarcity and environmental degradation as water-intensive lithium operations overlap with Ramsar-designated wetlands, threatening the fragile ecosystems and traditional livelihoods that rely on agriculture and tourism (FOEI, 2023). While justified in the name of global decarbonisation and the collective fight against climate change, these projects mainly serve the Global North's renewable energy transitions. At the same time, local populations continue to experience energy precarity and limited access to electricity storage technologies, reflecting a form of "green energy colonialism" (Oxfam, 2025), whereby the Global South remains positioned as a supplier of resources for sustainable development agendas shaped by global markets and international institutions. Latin American experiences, therefore, illustrate both the promise and the contradictions of just transitions. In these regions, the concept serves as a vehicle for challenging extractivist logics, including their "green" variants, and for articulating new rights-based approaches to territorial and environmental justice (cf. Alarcón et al., 2022; FOEI, 2023).

In sum, these conceptual and practical dynamics illustrate broader dilemmas faced across the Global South, highlighting how power relations at different levels of analysis shape the content, pace, and modalities of implementing just transitions. As Pai and Ranjan (2023) rightly observe, nations progress along a continuum that extends from the initial stages of commitment and planning to the political execution of these strategies. While the United States and certain European regions are already in the final phase of implementation, numerous countries in the Global South, such as India, Vietnam, and South Africa, are still in the preliminary stages. This imbalance contributes to more profound inequalities, including epistemic exclusion, financial constraints, and top-down governance. Equally important for the Global South is the fact that weak social protection systems and redistributive policies stem from colonial legacies and neoliberal reforms that promoted a selective state and encouraged its retreat from welfare domains. These factors constitute as many barriers to the appropriation and local translation of the concept, thus clearly exposing the multiple domains of tension in which the nexus between justice, sustainability, and sovereignty is being redefined.

Plural epistemologies of just transitions: tensions and silences

Despite growing efforts to reclaim the just transition agenda, the Global South continues to face obstacles that reflect, in part, continued asymmetries in the production and circulation of
536 knowledge within global climate governance, which inevitably determine whose experiences
537 and expertise are recognised as legitimate within international policymaking circles (Mbeva et
538 al., 2025).

539 As Alarcón et al. (2022) observe, in the Global South, the concept of just transitions is
540 reconceptualised as plural, situated and political processes, grounded in realities such as energy
541 precarity, informal labour, customary tenure systems, and indigenous knowledge. These
542 proposals challenge the universalist assumptions embedded in prevailing development policies
543 and scenarios, as most initiatives are fragmented, operate at the local or regional level, and are
544 often impeded by linguistic, institutional, or infrastructural barriers. Moreover, the absence of
545 productive South-South dialogue and the rarity of translating the concept into local languages
546 also hinder its grassroots adoption, making cooperation, mutual assistance, and the circulation
547 of information, experiences, practices, and resources difficult across countries.

548 At the same time, this invisibilisation of the conceptual revival unfolding in the Global
549 South encourages the imposition of internationally standardised “best practices” that are often
550 imported as ready-made solutions. But, drawing on Olivier de Sardan and Vari-Lavoisier’s
551 (2022) notion of “travelling models,” such policy transfers risk overlooking local dynamics and
552 producing unintended effects. This can lead to what Fricker (2007) defines as “epistemic
553 injustice”, meaning the harm inflicted on individuals or communities when their knowledge is
554 discredited or excluded. While critical scholarship is growing – singularly in the last five years
555 (Mbeva et al., 2025) – it remains fragmented and in its infancy. Strengthening South-South
556 research networks, promoting inclusive governance, and valuing diverse epistemologies could
557 go a long way to support actors across the Global South in their active engagement with the
558 concept (Atteridge et al., 2022). Present just transitions initiatives unfold within environments
559 marked by informality, fragmented institutions, and conditional funding, factors that continue
560 to fundamentally delimit what forms of justice and transformation are considered possible. It
561 therefore calls for a more reflexive politics of knowledge that acknowledges the unequal
562 conditions under which global environmental policymaking operates.

563 More clearly, and viewed collectively, the regional experiences and proposals discussed
564 above reveal both the theoretical depth and the practical policy challenges involved in
565 navigating epistemic divides in contemporary environmental politics. They demonstrate that
566 the plural agendas emerging from the Global South are not merely alternative policy
567 approaches, but also epistemic projects that challenge the hierarchies of knowledge.

568 This argument builds on the concept of “epistemic injustice” as developed by Fricker
569 (2007) and later applied to climate adaptation by Byskov and Hyams (2022). In the latter,
570 whereas their analyses focus primarily on the moral harm experienced by marginalised actors
571 whose testimonies, knowledge or expertise are discredited in climate adaptation policy, this
572 paper situates epistemic injustice within the institutional and political economy of knowledge
573 transfer that structures environmental and climate policymaking. In this context, injustice can
574 be systemic, embedded in the very mechanisms through which climate models, policy
575 templates, and financial standards circulate across borders, often at the expense of plural
576 experiences and perspectives of the most vulnerable, who remain underrepresented in both
577 scholarship and policymaking.

578

579 Discussion and conclusions

580

581 A comparative reading of just transition narratives in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin
582 America reveals the irreducible plurality and richness of the demands articulated under the
583 banner of the concept. Rather than fragmenting the concept, this heterogeneity emphasises its
584 strength: justice in transition is not abstract or universal, but situated, relational, and conflictual.
585 Across these contexts, however, four interlocking challenges persist – epistemic exclusion,
586 governance asymmetries, injustices in climate finance, and dominant economic rationales – that
shape the ethical and political boundaries of what is deemed feasible in the pursuit of a post-
carbon future and currently delimit the scope of transformative action. In that light, those
barriers are not just common to those regions; they are structural to the international
development community.

In many parts of the Global South, just transitions serve as a moral and political
compass, exposing the contradictions of a world in which those least responsible for ecological
degradation bear the most significant costs. From this perspective, justice tends to become both
a principle and a practice – continually negotiated within uneven terrains of power, culture, and
ecology, challenging the underlying premises of existing frameworks, and calling for new
forms of governance and solidarity capable of redistributing not only resources but also how
governance itself is structured, enacted, and legitimised through modalities of deliberation and
democratic expression.

Looking forward, future research should move beyond identifying injustices to
exploring how plural and decolonial approaches of justice can be institutionalised (e.g., Ghosh
et al., 2025). This involves examining the governance mechanisms, financial architectures, and
epistemic infrastructures through which just transitions are negotiated, and assessing how
South-South alliances and transregional exchanges may reshape the global architecture of
environmental and climate policymaking. From an empirical standpoint, the question arises of
how concrete just transition practices can influence global norms rather than simply adapting
to them, through more comparative, multi-scalar, and participatory research, particularly with
a view to overcoming the major obstacle of a lack of reliable socioeconomic data in certain
contexts. In policy terms, advancing just transitions implies designing environmental policies
through an inequality reduction lens – one that recognises the differentiated responsibilities,
capacities, and vulnerabilities shaping the global landscape of sustainable development.

Nevertheless, the many tensions we highlighted also harbour possibilities, paving the
way for the establishment of a shared world and a collective and just response to contemporary
challenges. Contention, in itself, is not indicative of failure; rather, it is an essential component
of a dynamic and plural politics of transformation. As we have seen, just transitions are not only
spaces of conflicts and resistance but also laboratories of reinvention, where alternative notions
of prosperity, autonomy, justice, and relational well-being are articulated.

Beyond their regional specificities, these emerging trajectories can serve to bridge
current divides in international relations and to reinforce a renewed form of global social
contract grounded in justice, solidarity, and shared ecological responsibility. The field of
reflection it opens up remains, in that sense, both a battleground and a space for imagination,
where competing visions of the future can clash, creating fertile ground for epistemic
recompositions and the reimagining of climate and environmental policy<sup>iv</sup>.

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761

762 **Notes**

<footnote>i See: G.H. Brundtland, Our common future, World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987. https://docenti.unimc.it/elena.borin/teaching/2019/21812/files/lessons-and-recommended-readings-1/Our%20Common%20future%201987.pdf</footnote>

<footnote>ii See: Ocasio-Cortez, A., and Markey, E. (2019). Green New Deal. 116th Congress. Available at: https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres109/BILLS-116hres109ih. pdf.</footnote>

<footnote>iii Environmental inequalities manifest in multiple forms – from uneven exposure to environmental harms, to unequal access to ecological resources, benefits, and decision-making processes concerning their management. They are often embedded within broader patterns of social inequality, where disparities in income and power contribute to environmental degradation. Privileged groups tend to have a higher ecological footprint, while ecological crises disproportionately affect lower-income populations, thereby deepening existing inequalities and generating new ones (cf. Laurent, 2015, 2023; Chancel, 2020).</footnote>

<footnote>iv This analysis is based on a qualitative and interpretative reading of the references used. As such, it has several limitations. Firstly, emphasising the reappropriation of just transitions in the Global South necessary simplifies the internal diversity of these spaces and the different trajectories within the Global North. Secondly, the use of predominantly English-language literature, often, from academic circles that are unevenly accessible reflects imbalances knowledge production and circulation. These constraints call for caution when generalising the results and highlight the importance of future work that is based on participatory methodologies, transregional collaborations and that better integrate under-represented voices, languages and experiences that are still marginalised in the academic and political debate on just transitions.</footnote>