Climate justice: the urgent research agenda(s)

Abstract

Climate change has moved rapidly from the fringes of scientific research to become a topic that is central to debates among scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. It is now a front-burner issue for governments, businesses, civil-society organizations and publics. As the science of climate change has improved, and as its impacts start to be felt around the world, it has become clearer that this issue is about much more than changes to the natural environment. It is also about politics and the distribution of scarce resources among and within national communities. It is about harsh impacts being felt by some more than others, not least by those individuals and communities least responsible for causing the problem. It is about the disproportionate responsibility of the world’s affluent people and nations. In short, climate change is a matter of equity, fairness and social and distributive justice.