Last edited: February 2025
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This section provides a structured overview of how Just Transition principles can be integrated into city-specific processes for transitioning to low-carbon futures. It identifies the gaps and challenges for a Just Transition and explores practical opportunities to integrate this approach in practice.
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City climate action, or urban climate action, is understood as the full range of activities, such as initiatives, projects or policies, that aim to mitigate climate change by reducing, removing or avoiding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and/or adapt urban systems, practices and infrastructure to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience to current and expected climate impacts.
As cities accelerate climate action, maintaining a focus on Just Transitions is essential. Without it, there is a risk of overlooking important social considerations and the wider impacts of transition policies, particularly on vulnerable groups.
The Just Transition approach has gained prominence in climate policy, notably after its mention in the preamble of the Paris Agreement, which calls for "taking into account the imperatives of a just transition of labour and the creation of decent work and quality jobs", and in the European Green Deal, which emphasises the social impacts of the transition on regions dependent on fossil fuels and the need for the transition to be "just and inclusive". To support this vision, the Just Transition Mechanism has been developed to provide targeted funding to regions where most people work in the fossil fuel sector.
While initially driven by labour groups — a focus popularised by the International Labour Organisation's Just Transition Guidelines, published after the Paris Agreement — Just Transition has gradually become a broad and multifaceted concept. After its initial focus on jobs and employment, it was quickly broadened through engagement with environmental justice groups, and later adopted by climate justice advocates to include more diverse demands for equity and justice in the face of climate change and the transition to a low-carbon future.
Many of these issues are not new to cities: issues such as green gentrification, air quality or vulnerability to climate risks have long been central to urban development. But as cities take on a greater role in climate action, new issues such as accessible sustainable mobility, food security or the right to repair, which have not been central to existing narratives of Just Transitions, are becoming essential to a Just Urban Transition.