Just transition is a framework developed by the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies are shifting to sustainable production, primarily combating climate change and protecting biodiversity. In Europe, advocates for a just transition want to unite social and climate justice, for example, for coal workers in coal-dependent developing regions who lack employment opportunities beyond coal.
In the past years, a number of organizations have deployed the concept of a Just Transition with respect to environmental and/or climate justice.
With regards to climate change mitigation, the IPCC defines just transition as follows: "A set of principles, processes and practices that aim to ensure that no people, workers, places, sectors, countries or regions are left behind in the transition from a high-carbon to a low carbon economy."
At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, France, or COP 21, unions and just transition advocates convinced the Parties to include language regarding just transition and the creation of decent work in the Paris Agreement’s preamble.
At the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, or COP 24, the Heads of State and Government adopted the Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration, highlighting the importance of just transition as mentioned in the Paris Agreement, the ILO's Guidelines, and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Declaration encourages all relevant United Nations agencies to proceed with its implementation and consider the issue of just transition when drafting and implementing parties' nationally determined contributions, or NDCs.
At COP26, the European Investment Bank announced a set of just transition common principles agreed upon with multilateral development banks, which also align with the Paris Agreement.
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Fossil fuel divestment or fossil fuel divestment and investment in climate solutions is an attempt to reduce climate change by exerting social, political, and economic pressure for the institutional divestment of assets including stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments connected to companies involved in extracting fossil fuels. Fossil fuel divestment campaigns emerged on campuses in the United States in 2011 with students urging their administrations to turn endowment investments in the fossil fuel industry into investments in clean energy and communities most impacted by climate change.
Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenhouse gas emissions and social and economic aspects such as energy poverty. Renewable energy sources such as wind, hydroelectric power, solar, and geothermal energy are generally far more sustainable than fossil fuel sources.
Carbon neutrality is an approach for climate change mitigation in which carbon dioxide emissions (or all greenhouse gas emissions) are balanced by absorbing carbon via carbon sinks or by removals. This can be achieved by reducing emissions, most of which come from the burning of fossil fuels, and by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The term is used in the context of carbon dioxide-releasing processes associated with transport, energy production, agriculture, and industry.
Precisely predicting the future is an almost impossible challenge. However, predicting possible trend-lines is a more common thing. Current greenhouses gases emissions and climate change are among the most worrying issues humanity will face in a near futur ...
European countries are currently committing to energy transitions so as to make the supply of electricity more sustainable. In this chapter we present our theoretical extension of a transition framework with the concepts of power, agency and politics in or ...
Springer International Publishing2016
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In developing countries with a large population and fast urbanization, High-rise Residential Buildings (HRBs) have unavoidably become a very common, if not the most, accommodation solution. The paradigm of HRB energy consumption is characterized by high-de ...