Climate change

Second, the paper contends that this new framework for analysis and action is already beginning to emerge, with positive results. In the latter sections of the paper we point to examples of the language and actions of “climate justice” at work. We see rights-based action in two interconnected arenas: the legal, and the political/social. In the legal arena, international human rights law provides a powerful tool for marginalized groups seeking to force action among industrialized nations, and rights-based legal actions draw positive attention to the profound human effects of a changing climate. At the same time, groups within and between states are using the language of human rights to forge new social movements, connecting issues of human development with issues of climate justice. Human rights language provides a way to mobilize support for a new type of climate politics – a politics that recognizes that poor peoples will not buy into the broader climate framework until there is some sense of justice in the formal agreements and informal actions

This is not a cut-and-dried development, though. While for some actors it is becoming clear, as Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer have argued, that there can be no real action on climate change without “a historic compromise between the rich world and the poor,”3 some powerful actors like the United States continue to argue that real climate action is too costly and should be put off for the future, or that action on climate change can be taken without addressing basic economic and political inequities. This is seen most dramatically in US withdrawal from the Kyoto accord, and efforts by US negotiators to stall and undermine talks on a post-Kyoto framework.

Yet even as international efforts stagnate, some incredibly positive things are happening within countries. We focus our attention in the final section of the paper on calls within the United States for development of a range of “green-collar jobs.” We argue that this is a particularly promising utilization of human rights language and strategies, that also has much to teach us about how the human rights framework is developing in response to new and emerging challenges to human wellbeing. Through an examination of this growing green-collar jobs movement, we show, in other words, that the language of social justice is itself being reshaped as actors strive to build new political coalitions, and to bridge the gap between human development and ecological wellbeing.