Conceptualising and enacting pathways to transformative climate justice: examples from the Philippines

Abstract

Scholarship on climate change adaptation is increasingly moving from incremental responses to climate injustice towards transformative approaches that deliberately change systems to achieve just and equitable outcomes. A transformative understanding of climate justice is relatively new and evidence of how this could be achieved is in its infancy. In this paper, we conceptualise transformative climate justice as comprised of three subcomponents: (1) inclusive justice (seeking to ensure that no one, especially the most vulnerable, is left behind), (2) epistemological justice (drawing upon diverse knowledges and worldviews), and (3) restorative justice (healing and restoration of communities and the environment). We then present examples of how different local communities in the Philippines are experimenting with climate adaptation strategies that embody these three components of transformative climate justice. Through case studies of communities in Itbayat (Batanes), Tambaliza (Iloilo), and Barangay Assumption (Koronadal), we demonstrate how their adaptive strategies contribute to community and ecological resilience. We find that transformative climate justice arises from mundane and everyday struggles, takes place at the “middle place” between top-down and bottom-up initiatives, and requires a deliberate redistribution of power to counter decision-making processes that reproduce injustices.