The Just Transition and Care initiative
The Just Transition and Care network is a joint initiative of the Inter-University Research Centre for Atlantic Landscapes and Cultures (CISPAC) at the University of Santiago de Compostela in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Justice of Colorado State University and the UNRISD’s Just Transition Research Collaborative. It aims at establishing an international network of researchers and stakeholders with a shared interest in discussing the place of care work in the politics of Just Transition.
Aims and objectives
The Just Transition and Care (JTC) initiative aims to facilitate an international conversation around the relevance of both social and environmental care work to the politics of just transition.
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Just Transition (JT) is a policy framework promoted by labor and environmental justice organizations to design climate policies from the perspective of those most affected by both environmental and economic inequalities. The framework indicates how to compensate for the necessary phasing-out of carbon-intensive industries while also responding to the most urgent and vital needs of frontline communities, by creating decent, stable and community-driven jobs in clean energy and infrastructures.
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The Covid19 pandemic, however, has called attention towards the many forms of care work (paid and unpaid) that are needed to re/produce healthy bodies, societies and ecosystems, and that go either unrecognized, or seriously under-valued and undermined in most countries. Yet, a full recognition of the relevance of care work to the JT agenda is still largely missing.
Seeing the JT agenda as a crucial platform for demanding socially just climate policies, the JTC initiative aims to facilitate an international conversation around the relevance of social and environmental care work to the politics of just transition.