A Just Transition

Successfully decarbonising economies while ensuring jobs and livelihoods are protected is essential if we want to achieve both environmental and societal wellbeing. A just transition is where the Government is committed to making required changes necessary in order to manage the climate crisis, while ensuring that no one in society is left behind. 

Protecting Those Most Vulnerable

Transition policies must also address the needs of those most disadvantaged. Underlying norms and practices that drive inequality need to be reviewed in order to ensure that pre-existing biases are not just simply shifted from one industry to another. To date, however, little research has been carried out to ensure that current transition policies meet equity goals that are embedded in the just transition concept. This can result in problematic outcomes as seen in Paris in 2018 when the worst riots in decades were sparked due to increases in carbon taxes. While this policy is thought by many economists, policy makers and politicians to be the best way to tackle climate change, as it encourages people to use less fossil fuels, its delivery did not take into account those most disadvantaged and therefore did not encompass the ideology of a just transition in this instance. The French president Emmanuel Macron was forced to scrap the taxes shortly after they were announced.