Sarah Kenehan

There is a major divide between the work of normative theorists and concrete climate action (or inaction) politics and policies. In this volume, authors tackle the strained relationships between principles of justice and climate politics by responding to real-world climate politics and policies, offering proposals and analyses that take concerns of feasibility seriously, and identifying immediate justice and feasibility concerns with recent proposals for climate action. Contributors look at questions of feasibility as they relate to specific international institutions like the IPCC and UNFCCC, and widely discussed principles of climate justice, including backward-looking principles like polluter pays and forward-looking principles like ability to pay. Others explore the feasibility hurdles and justice concerns that challenge popular mitigation proposals.

This collection helps bridge the divide between the work of normative theorists and climate action (or inaction). In this volume, contributors reflect on how we should understand the relationship between theorizing about climate justice, the principles of justice that result, and feasibility constraints on climate action. Some explore the role of theorists or the usefulness of their theories for guiding policymaking and action on climate change, while others discuss concerns with who is establishing what the feasibility constraints are and how they are doing so. Others identify and discuss psychological feasibility constraints on just climate action, or draw important parallels and distinctions between the feasibility constraints that were tackled in order to address the COVID-19 pandemic and those that need to be tackled in order to respond to global climate change.