Mitigating climate change requires a rapid transition away from the extraction, refining, and burning of fossil fuels. It also requires significant modifications to agricultural practices and even to diets. Jobs in the fossil fuel industry, in areas of manufacturing of products powered by fossil fuel, and in some areas of agriculture and food production will be lost. Entire communities will be affected. However, many more jobs will also be created. Both those workers whose jobs are destroyed and those seeking new sills for a carbon free economy will require supports. This raises an important question of justice: What is owed to workers and working class communities whose livelihoods have been tied up with the extraction, refinement, and burning of fossil fuels? And what sort of a voice should they have in the decision-making process for transforming the economy? Massive investments are need to develop technology to subsidize its costs. Is the state obliged to subsidize the development of such technology? How ought the funds to be raised, especially in low income countries?The transition needed is a global one. By some estimates as much as €4 trillion dollars will be required annually. Much that is needed especially in the global South. What duties do wealthy countries have to poorer ones to support the energy transition in poorer countries? We will investigate several examples of these kinds of questions and look at candidates of principles of justice that could serve in developing answers to the questions. We will also look at academic literature, think tank reports, existing and proposed policy responses to some of these issues, and activist analyses. Finally, we will also consider the role of capitalism in the climate crisis, and the extent to which it can be reformed to serve justice in transition.
- Trainer/in: Darrel Moellendorf