*Originally published in 2025 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered directly to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

In the past few months, activists, scholars, and policymakers in the United States have been witnessing a major collapse of energy transition and environmental efforts, as the continuous climate denial of the Trump administration: abandoning climate multilateralism by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement twice, repealing the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding which concludes that greenhouse gases (GHG) threaten public health and safety, canceling regulations on drilling and pipeline development for the oil and gas industry, while ending tax credits for renewable energy like solar and wind power in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Despite depression and anxiety overflowing for the future of climate action, across the Atlantic Ocean in Bonn, Germany, the June Climate Meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have witnessed major progress for Just Transition negotiations, advocating for transition patterns without climate crisis, economic disruptions, or social inequalities.

The escalating heatwaves, extreme weather, and natural disasters underscore the severity of the climate crisis and the urgency of action. They demand a fundamental break from environmental extraction, fossil fuel combustion, and excessive production and consumption, while transitioning towards green pathways that emphasize social, environmental, and economic sustainability, focusing on decarbonization, renewable energy, and climate-resilient development. However, for countries and communities less capable of such transitions, due to either their dependency on fossil energy for development and livelihoods, or their dual positionality of insusceptibility to climate impacts and non-resilience for economic and technological transformation, the green transition can worsen inequality through displacement, gentrification, and unemployment.

Just Transition, in turn, emerges as a set of principles that requires equitable consideration of different people and communities in the transition process from high-carbon to low-carbon, from extraction to regeneration. It emphasizes equitable energy access, diversified low-carbon pathways, decent and secure jobs, gender equity, and fair evaluation of social impacts. The Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), as the historical UNFCCC initiative on Just Transition, was created to facilitate countries transitioning to a low-carbon and climate-resilient future, while reducing inequalities for disproportionately affected countries and communities. In short, achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement justly and equitably. Since its establishment at COP 27 in 2022, there have been ongoing questions about its further refinement and implementation. In 2024, the World Resources Institute........

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