Addressing climate justice calls for a “fundamental, decolonial constitutional change”, according to a new study published in Climate Policy.
While systemic change would only be possible in the long term, there is potential for progress within the constraints of current systems, says the study, which introduces a tool to guide this outcome.
The new “Indigenous climate justice policy analysis tool” is designed to facilitate a “qualitative assessment” of the policymaking process and individual policies.
It evaluates whether a policy encompasses Indigenous climate justice and includes mechanisms to move towards securing “just” outcomes.
While the authors acknowledge the limitations of the tool in providing a measure of true “justness”, the dimensions it tests can provide insight into whether a policy upholds Indigenous climate justice, they argue.
As such, it is designed to empower Indigenous communities to hold governments accountable and to guide non-Indigenous policymakers in improving their practices to achieve “inclusive” climate justice, the authors say.
The tool was designed for assessing policies in New Zealand – the Indigenous Māori use the term Aotearoa rather than the colonial-era name – but the authors say they have “endeavoured to make it adaptable for use in other settings”.
However, one of the study authors noted the “significant political resistance” that might be triggered by attempts to embed the tool in policymaking in New Zealand – and elsewhere.
Climate justice pathways
The new research is designed to help address the gaps in the inclusion of Indigenous climate justice policies within climate action.
Climate justice is a term used to explain efforts to reshape climate action from a technical effort to cut emissions into an approach that also focuses on human rights and social inequality. It includes an understanding that those least responsible for climate change often suffer the worst impacts.
In many parts of the world, Indigenous communities bear the brunt of adverse impacts from climate change, as well as facing systemic disadvantages in climate change mitigation efforts due to structural inequity.
The paper says that, even if a policy is deemed “just”, it will still be inadequate because “true” justice “cannot be achieved in the context of a dominant colonial, capitalist patriarchy whose associated hierarchical structures, oppressive dynamics…are antithetical to Indigenous ways of being”. However, recognising the long-term nature of systemic change, the authors highlight the potential to make progress within current systems.
The tool is, therefore, designed to empower Indigenous communities to realise progress within existing governance systems, even though the authors say they recognise that justice is conditional upon “system transformation”.
Historically, colonialism has significantly contributed to climate change, as revealed by Carbon Brief analysis published in 2023. As such, climate change action necessitates addressing colonial emissions and practices by integrating “decolonial” theories, which prioritise dismantling harmful structures over efforts to reform the status quo, the research argues.
“Climate injustice is inextricably linked to colonialism, capitalism and extractivism, yet dominant environmental justice frameworks often overlook the unique experiences of Indigenous communities,” says Harjeet Singh, global engagement director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, who was not involved in the study. Singh tells Carbon Brief:
“The very countries and corporations responsible for the climate crisis are now positioning themselves as the arbiters of climate solutions. Yet, they steadfastly avoid addressing the broader polycrisis – manifestations of colonial, capitalist, extractive and patriarchal systems from which they have reaped immense benefits.”
Existing approaches have been insufficient in effectively guiding climate policy for Indigenous people’s health and equity, the research states. The authors note that conventional environmental justice literature does not explicitly prioritise kinship relationships (whakapapa), which they say are central to the Indigenous conception of climate justice.
The authors refer to the Māori creation story which follows that all beings “emerge from the realms of Ranginui, the Sky, and Papatūānuku, the Earth – our common ancestors”. These “more-than-human” relatives are central to kin-based systems which emphasise a shared ancestry between humans and the natural world.
This “inherently anti-colonial” conception of climate justice embraces the “restoration and maintenance of harmonious relationships between humans, ancestors of all current beings and those still to come”, the research says, in contrast to settler colonialism which is “a form of violence that disrupts relationships between humans and our more-than-human relations”.
According to the authors, this tenet has largely been overlooked in mainstream climate justice efforts. In fact, limitations within existing political and legal frameworks prevent Indigenous communities from fulfilling the responsibilities they have towards the environment and other beings.
Key criteria
The research is underpinned by Kaupapa Māori – Māori customary practice and principles. This includes “wellbeing, priorities and aspirations, social and cultural contexts, and Indigenous rights”, the authors say, as well as policy frameworks, health impact assessments, ecological models and Indigenous understanding of environmental justice.
This was the basis for the tool, which incorporates 13 essential criteria (C1-C13) shown in the table below and classified under five key dimensions of justice.
Specifically, these five dimensions are relational justice, procedural justice, distributive justice, recognitional justice and restorative justice, described in more detail underneath the table.
The first three criteria focus on relational justice, including on relationships and how they form rights and responsibilities. In this context, it also extends “cosmopolitanism”, the notion that emphasises equal moral worth and respect for all humans.
Next, there are three criteria on procedural justice. These emphasise transparency and active and fair participation of all in the decision-making process. The paper extends the notion of active participation to non-human entities, such as land, air and water, providing them with political agency through human guardians who represent their interests.
For example, the Whanganui River in New Zealand has been granted legal personhood, represented by the respective local Indigenous people who are imbued with guardianship obligations. This translates to a legal right of recourse if harm is caused to the natural entity by human activities, such as releasing pollution.
The next three criteria focus on distributive justice, including the disproportionate impact of climate change on Indigenous communities who contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions. The authors advocate for free and fair distribution of burdens and benefits across groups.
Criteria 10 and 11 focus on recognitional justice. These emphasise recognition of and respect for diverse cultures, experiences and identities, validating multiple ways of knowledge production and dissemination, including Indigenous epistemologies alongside traditional Western knowledge.
The final two criteria are about restorative justice, focusing on repairing harm to individuals, communities and the environment. The paper’s conceptualisation encompasses correcting the harms against “people, other living things and the natural world” and distinguishes between reparations (financial) and remedying underlying injustices (restoration of land).
Each of the above criterion is graded against three levels of achievement:
- Unacceptable, indicating harmful impacts or no change.
- Progress towards justice, indicating some improvement usually within current systems and norms.
- Climate justice, signifying complete justice for all human and non-human entities beyond the constraints of current frameworks.
The paper notes that the tool’s multidimensional nature often extends the analysis to matters outside the purview of policymakers.
For example, the case of political agency for non-human entities is useful in understanding the constraints of policymaking within existing frameworks, they note. This, essentially, means that the tool evaluates policies by standards that are currently “impossible to meet within the context in which policy development currently occurs”.
Applying the tool
The tool was piloted in New Zealand by analysing the 2021 advice to the government produced by the country’s Climate Change Commission.
Using 11 questions – six about the criteria and five about the tool as a whole – the authors identified gaps, shortcomings, redundancy and duplication issues for improvement.
The pilot also assessed the feasibility of embedding the framework in the policymaking process, whereby the tool could have continued benefits.
The research is “well-grounded in climate justice theory”, says Dr Zoha Shawoo, a scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, who was not involved in the study.
She says the tool could be “particularly useful in conducting gap analyses and to guide the implementation of climate finance, to ensure that climate finance projects are also advancing justice”.
Shawoo adds the tool faces many challenges including not “getting a buy-in from decision-makers and those in power, who have a vested interest in not undoing the existing systems that they actively benefit from”.
The tool was designed primarily for the political and geographical context of New Zealand, but the authors say they have “endeavoured to make it adaptable for use in other settings”.
In particular, it could be applied to other settler-colonial nations, the authors add.
Dr Rhys Jones, one of the study authors and associate professor at the University of Auckland, tells Carbon Brief about the challenges to embedding the tool within policymaking:
“First, using the tool requires particular capabilities, knowledge and expertise, which may not always be present in policymaking agencies. Second, it can be quite resource-intensive to undertake a comprehensive analysis using the tool. Third, some of the issues addressed by the tool are beyond the scope of conventional policy considerations, such as the capacity for all (human and non-human) entities to express political agency. Fourth, particularly in the current political climate in many countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, there may be significant political resistance to the focus on Indigenous rights and recognition of Indigenous values and knowledges in policymaking processes.”
Prof Alexandra Macmillan, an environmental health researcher at the University of Otago, another author involved with the study, tells Carbon Brief:
“[The] current structures, processes and distribution of power in climate policy…are not keeping the world’s populations safe from climate change, instead, continuing to subsidise and support an insupportable status quo.”
She adds that the tool is also “relevant to countries who consider themselves to be post-colonial, including high income countries like the UK whose wealth has accumulated from colonial extractivism, and whose current climate policies risk relying upon ongoing colonial violence in other countries”.
The post Study offers new policy tool for considering ‘Indigenous climate justice’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Study offers new policy tool for considering ‘Indigenous climate justice’
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines