Defining just transition

Climate change has sparked a vivid discussion on its socio-economic risks, capturing the attention of academic circles and policymakers. While it is widely argued that a low-carbon transition should be socially just, the precise criteria that policies must adhere to, in order to be universally accepted as ‘just’, remain insufficiently defined. To fill this gap, we draw on relevant theories of distributive justice where equal responsibility should lead to equal outcomes. According to our definition, just transition policies should minimise relative costs for the most vulnerable groups. Furthermore, uneven responsibility for causing damages should be also taken into account by discounting the importance of relative costs of groups with high responsibility.