# Climate Justice **Domain:** Political Economy / Ethics **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Classification:** Infrastructure Concept **Maturity:** Foundational **Related:** [[Reparative Justice]], [[Environmental Justice]], [[Equity]], [[Responsibility Allocation]], [[Power Redistribution]], [[Indigenous Rights]] --- ## Definition **Climate Justice** refers to **the ethical and political framework asserting that responsibility for climate change is proportional to historical greenhouse gas emissions, that impacts are unjustly distributed to vulnerable populations, and that climate policy must redistribute resources and decision-making power to favor those historically marginalized and least responsible for climate change**. Justice encompasses both justice in distribution and justice in decision-making. --- ## General Context Climate justice emerged in the 1990s from Global South activism, arguing that wealthy nations bear responsibility for cumulative emissions and should pay for adaptation and loss-and-damage. Justice frameworks address energy justice, indigenous sovereignty, reparations, and climate security for vulnerable populations. Climate justice is contested: wealthy nations dispute responsibility attribution; corporations dispute emissions responsibility; climate finance remains inadequate. Climate justice demands are increasingly expressed through legal action, reparations claims, and calls for system transformation. --- ## Reparative Justice Context [[articles/Climate Justice as a Form of Reparative Equity|Climate Justice as Reparative Equity]] and [[articles/Climate Justice and Global Reparative Systems|Global Reparative Systems]] position climate justice as a form of reparative transfer from high-emission to low-emission populations, with [[articles/Climate Justice and Global Reparative Systems|genealogical accountability]] through biometric systems. --- ## Governance Context Climate justice demands challenge [[articles/Climate Systems as Human Resilience Platforms|Resilience Platforms]] approaches that treat adaptation as depoliticized resource optimization rather than as justice redistribution. --- ## Key Insight Climate justice represents **the reframing of climate adaptation as distributive conflict**—demanding that climate policy address rather than reproduce historical inequality. --- ## See Also [[Climate Finance]], [[Reparative Justice]], [[Colonialism]], [[Climate Adaptation Planning]], [[Climate Systems]]