Is "Climate Justice" just a vibe? - Protest and Power

You’ve probably noticed “Climate Justice” is the phrase du jour. It’s on banners at rallies, it’s name-dropped in grant applications, and it’s hashtagged over Instagram.

It feels good to say. It signals that we are on the “right side” of history. That we care about more than just carbon parts per million. But it’s really difficult - to us as researchers anyway - to actually understand what it means.

Is it a more of a “vibe” than a clear strategy? If we walked into a rally and asked five different people to define it, would we get five completely different answers?

And why would this actually matter?

At the Activism Research Hub, we don’t just wonder about these things; we do the homework. Not only that, we also stick it up on a website so you can check it yourself! Find it here https://www.theenvironmentalmovement.org/climate-justice

To gather all the information for this website we recently undertook a big review of the landscape. We analysed 67 academic papers and 107 community resources from across Oceania, and combined it with an analysis of 619 Australian environmental group websites to figure out what people actually mean when they say “Climate Justice,” and how they plan to achieve it.

The results were fascinating, slightly worrying, and deeply instructive. Here is what we found.

1. It’s a “Layer Cake” (and Indigenous sovereignty is the base)

First, the academic view. Researchers don’t see climate justice as one single thing. They see it as a “multi-dimensional” layer cake.

There’s Distributive Justice (who bears the costs?), Procedural Justice (who makes the decisions?), and Recognition Justice (whose knowledge counts?). In fact, 85% of the academic papers we reviewed focused heavily on “Procedural Justice”: the idea that fair decision-making processes are just as important as the outcome.

But when we looked at the community resources (the plans and reports from groups actually doing the work) a much stronger theme emerged.

Across Oceania, Climate Justice is fundamentally inseparable from Indigenous Sovereignty.

Our review found that 79% of community resources explicitly centre Indigenous communities and perspectives. This isn’t just about “inclusion” or “consultation.” It is about recognising that colonial systems are the root cause of the climate crisis.

Take Oxfam. They are doing the hard yards on putting climate justice goals into practice across Oceania.

The Te Arawa Climate Change Strategy is another prime example. They don’t split “justice” from “culture.” For them, climate justice is grounded in whakapapa (genealogy) and kaitiakitanga (guardianship). Or look at the Yidinji Proposition, a technical framework that moves beyond vague demands to propose a specific $4 billion annual Loss and Damages Fund from Australia to the Pacific.

The takeaway?

If your definition of climate justice doesn’t start with First Nations/Indigenous/Pasifika land rights and sovereignty, you might be out of step with the movement in Oceania.

2. We know the “who”, but we’re stuck on the “how”

Achieving justice requires a couple of things. You need the entity seeking justice of course; people, groups, or beings that have been denied justice in the past. But you also need some sort of entity that has done the justice denying. And it’s clear that when it comes to climate justice most people lay the blame on one particular group.

The fossil fuel sector.

Back in 2023 we did an analysis of how Australian ENGOs talked about climate justice and who they thought was the villian. The results were pretty clear: the fossil fuel sector was the most commonly diagnosed cause of climate injustice. This sounds obvious, but it’s important as it proves the movement has a clear target. We know exactly who is responsible.

The tension arises when we look for the solution. We found a significant gap between the high-level principles of justice and the messy reality of implementation.

While academic papers are great at diagnosing the problem, they seem to struggle when coming up with simple, actionable solutions. Our review found that only ~20% of papers actually tracked whether a policy or action delivered a justice outcome. We are drowning in plans, but thirsty for evaluation.

However, some community groups are doing the hard yards. The Hunter Jobs Alliance in NSW is a standout example. They aren’t just shouting slogans about a “Just Transition”; they are doing the gritty work of doorknocking 4,000 homes and building a blueprint for what happens to coal workers when the mines close.

The takeaway?

This is where the rubber hits the road. It’s easy to write about “transformative change” in a report; it’s much harder to build a new economy in a coal town.

3. The “paper tiger”: Our rhetoric-action gap

This brings us to one of the biggest problems when it comes to enacting climate justice.

1. It’s not clear what it actually means

2. It’s not clear what we’re actually supposed to do to bring it about

Of the 619 environmental group websites we looked at, only 5% of them actually provided a detailed explanation of what they meant by the term “Climate Justice”. For the vast majority (the other 95%), the term was used as a buzzword or a signal, without any definition for the new activist or the curious public.

But the disconnect goes deeper. We found a fascinating mismatch between how groups diagnose the problem and the solutions they propose.

Climate justice requires transformative change…

Many ENGOs use “Transformative” language. They correctly diagnose that the root causes of the climate crisis are systemic issues like capitalism, colonialism, and entrenched power dynamics.

Yet we only have small incremental actions on offer.

Yet, when it comes to the “Prognostic Frame”—the part where they tell you what to do about it—they flip to “Incremental” tactics. We are diagnosing a Stage 4 systemic illness, but prescribing a band-aid solution like “sign this petition,” “educate a friend,” or “donate today.”

There is a logic to this; these are the actions that remain “allowable” within our political system, while radical action is increasingly criminalised. But we have to ask ourselves: if we want transformative justice, shouldn’t our actions match the scale of our diagnosis?

The takeaway?

Transformative change requires transformative action, so rather than over-thinking solutions in silos, look to the groups already mapping this path and help amplify them. We are far more powerful when we act as a collective ecosystem than when we struggle alone

4. The provocation: Is the jargon hurting us?

This leaves us with a big question for the movement.

If “Climate Justice” is an obscure, undefined term on 95% of our websites, are we accidentally gatekeeping our own movement?

Our review of community resources actually showed that there are many groups across Oceania putting in the hard yards to create pathways to climate justice. Maybe it is these we need to spend more time looking at than the small incremental steps of groups trapped in the NGO funding treadmill or punishing academic publishing industry.

We know that to achieve meaningful social change such as delivering a climate just future for all, we need numbers. We need the nurse in Western Sydney, the tradie in Queensland, and the retiree in Tassie. But does using academic insider language or NGO mobilising tactics actually make it harder for them to see themselves in our struggle?

If a potential activist lands on a website and sees terms like “procedural justice” or “distributive equity” without a clear explanation, do they think, “This is for me,” or do they think, “I don’t belong here”?

Or if the climate justice petition is run by an environment group with limited resources and negative ‘latte-sipping tree-hugger’ stereotypes following them every step, are they immediately discounted?

We suspect this confusion might be a barrier, but the data isn’t there yet. We need to track climate justice campaigns over time to see if “justice” framing actually mobilises new people, or if it just preaches to the converted. (Spoiler: That work hasn’t been done yet).

So, where to from here?

Our research across community groups, academic papers, and NGO campaigns shows that Climate Justice isn’t just a vibe; it is a rigorous, multi-dimensional strategy that requires us to centre Indigenous sovereignty, challenge our own incremental tactics, and speak in language that invites everyone in.

We have mapped this all out including the actors, the definitions, and the pathways, in our Climate Justice Landscape analysis. You can check out the full breakdown, including the “Map of Actors” and the “Justice Dimensions” visuals, right here:

👉 www.theenvironmentalmovement.org/climate-justice

See something missing? Add it to the map and help build our understanding of effective ways to both talk about climate justice and to actually deliver it to everyone, everywhere.