Opinion – Reclaiming Just Transition from Neocolonial Energy Agendas
the concept of a Just transition – a shift towards a lasting economy that prioritizes social equity and minimizes harm to workers and communities – is facing critical headwinds. Recent international climate negotiations reveal significant obstacles, including disagreements over gender-based approaches and Russia’s insistence on acknowledging the impact of unilateral trade measures. These challenges highlight a basic tension: can a truly just transition be achieved within the existing frameworks of state-led initiatives and international negotiation, or does it require a radical shift towards grassroots, community-driven alternatives?
the current trajectory, often exemplified by frameworks like the european Green Deal (EGD), risks co-option. These initiatives,while ostensibly focused on sustainability,inevitably engage with governments,industries,and corporations historically entrenched in fossil-fuel-oriented,capitalistic,patriarchal,and extractive practices. This raises a crucial question: if the mechanisms designed to facilitate transition are themselves rooted in the systems that created the climate crisis, can they deliver genuine justice?
The answer, increasingly, appears to be no – or at least, not without a powerful counter-movement. A vibrant and growing network of activists, workers, and marginalized communities are actively forging a different path, one rooted in locality, indigeneity, and equity. this “Just Transition Rising” movement, visible at the June Climate Meetings in Bonn, is deliberately centering the voices of those on the frontlines of climate impacts.
The examples are compelling. Italian workers facing mass layoffs at the GKN automotive factory didn’t simply accept their fate; they transformed the situation into a worker-led movement, pooling their expertise to explore carbon-zero and non-extractive production methods – a direct challenge to the “wasteful and profit-driven capitalistic model.” Similarly, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, expanding its reach across South Asia, is proactively building climate resilience from the ground up. By 2024, SEWA’s Livelihood Recovery and Resilience Fund and Extreme Heat Income Microinsurance programme provided vital support to 50,000 informal workers. In the United States, the Energy Democracy project is equipping activists with the tools to challenge corporate control over energy utilities, advocating for a system built on deep relational organizing, cross-movement connectivity, and the prioritization of Black and Indigenous voices.
These aren’t isolated incidents; they represent a rising tide of authentic Just Transition,driven by those most affected by the climate crisis and existing power structures. This emerging approach is fundamentally anti-neoliberal, anti-extractivist, and anti-colonial.It recognizes the deeply political and social dimensions of climate change and energy use, moving beyond simplistic market-based solutions and exploitative trade and finance mechanisms. Crucially, it acknowledges and empowers the knowledge systems of Indigenous and local communities, fostering decentralized, community-led, and non-prescriptive alternatives that envision pluriversal futures – a world with many possible, equitable pathways forward.
Reclaiming Just Transition requires actively resisting its co-option by dominant power structures and amplifying the voices and initiatives already building a more equitable and sustainable future from the ground up. It demands a shift in focus from top-down policies to bottom-up empowerment, recognizing that true justice will not be delivered to communities, but built by them.
