Low carbon communities and social justice

Debates about climate change have focused on mitigation – reducing greenhouse gas emissions – and have been concerned with how responsibilities for taking action and rights to protection should be distributed.

This Viewpoint argues that recognition, as well as rights and responsibilities, is a dimension of justice that needs to be considered in decision-making processes at community level.

It asks whether community-based approaches to climate change live up to expectations and looks at:

• how the notion of justice might be conceptualised in the context of climate mitigation and low carbon communities;
• how current UK low carbon community policies and programmes address issues of justice; and
• how two low carbon communities have encountered issues of justice in practice.