Realizing a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels

The document examines how current just transition policies often focus narrowly on compensating direct fossil fuel workers, thereby overlooking marginalized groups and structural inequalities. Through analysis of the US and Thailand, it highlights gaps in gender and racial representation and the risk of geographic economic disparities. It advocates for long-term strategies that integrate distributive and procedural justice to ensure a fair transition for all affected stakeholders.

• Current just transition policies primarily focus on compensating workers and communities directly dependent on coal, oil, and gas, but they often lack critical reflection on the broader meaning of justice and fail to include measures for people already marginalized within the energy system.
• Transition policies are frequently reactive and compensatory—focusing on lost wages and pensions—rather than providing proactive, holistic adaptive support that includes social services, environmental reclamation, and long-term economic diversification.
• Existing transition frameworks risk reinforcing gender and social inequalities because women and migrants are often over-represented in indirect, lower-paid service or unpaid care roles that are not covered by worker-centric compensation and re-training programs.
• In the United States, transition planning has been limited by a reactive approach to the coal industry's decline and an assumption that clean energy growth would automatically offset job losses, despite the fact that new jobs are not always located in the same regions as disappearing fossil fuel roles.
• Thailand lacks formal national just transition policies, and its energy blueprints (TIEB and PDP) do not explicitly address justice or equity implications for workers or households, despite significant gender imbalances in the energy workforce and governance.
• Achieving an equitable transition requires applying principles of distributive justice (fair allocation of costs and benefits) and procedural justice (inclusive decision-making), while utilizing socio-demographically disaggregated data to identify and remedy existing injustices.

APA

Piggot, G., Boyland, M., Down, A., & Torre, A. R. (2019). Realizing a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/realizing-a-just-and-equitable-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels.pdf

Chicago

Piggot, Georgia, Michael Boyland, Adrian Down, and Andreea Raluca Torre. Realizing a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2019. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/realizing-a-just-and-equitable-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Piggot |first1=Georgia |last2=Boyland |first2=Michael |last3=Down |first3=Adrian |last4=Torre |first4=Andreea Raluca |title=Realizing a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=January 2019 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/realizing-a-just-and-equitable-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{piggot2019realizing, author = {Piggot, Georgia and Boyland, Michael and Down, Adrian and Torre, Andreea Raluca}, title = {{Realizing a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2019}, month = jan, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/realizing-a-just-and-equitable-transition-away-from-fossil-fuels.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }