A recently published book scrutinises India's climate policies through a feminist perspective, emphasising "just transitions" for marginalised groups. It explores pathways to equitable sustainable futures, featuring case studies and insights from diverse contributors. Professor Seema Arora-Jonsson is the co-editor and she has also co-authored a couple of the book chapters. SLU Global posed some questions to Seema regarding the book's content and its potential contributions.
In the book, we demonstrate how attempts towards sustainable futures are impossible without addressing questions of justice and without active social policies that accompany climate interventions. We analyse what it would take to ensure just transitions in India from a feminist perspective where gender and intersecting dimensions of power such as class, ethnicity and geography (the rural) in particular, are at the center of our analysis.
Just transitions, as for example in the EU and in Sweden, are usually discussed in relation to the question of jobs and industry. We emphasise how we cannot think of just transitions without dealing with questions of land, water, forests and agriculture. This is a dimension sorely missing from formal discussion of a just transition.
We develop a comprehensive understanding of:
(1) What a just transition implies for people’s livelihoods in different walks of life and social positions and
(2) The ways in which gender justice could be integrated into climate policy making and implementation for a just transition.
We draw attention to asymmetrical effects of climate change as well as climate policy interventions. The chapters in this volume engage extensively with the invisible infrastructure of care and social reproduction that upholds the current system and highlights good practice case studies that challenge the gendered nature of governance and climate action.
While discussions on just transitions are gaining ground, the absence of a feminist and gender lens is disturbing, given that feminist thinking has been at the forefront of conceptualising relations of power.
Our book is unique in taking up the question of gender and power in relation to the discussion on just transitions. It demonstrates the gaps in ongoing attempts of transitioning to a cleaner and climate resilient economy and provides a theoretical framework by which to think them through.
The case studies from different parts of India also highlight the possibilities of transitioning with justice in the different sectors–from agriculture to forestry to renewables to the work of bureaucracies and the importance of policy documents.
In India as well as globally, attention to social policy dimensions are presumed to be taken care of by co-benefits approaches from climate programmes or in a taken for granted framing of sustainable development. However, concerns about the social costs of transitioning from coal to cleaner energy as well changes in agriculture, water and forestry programmes all raise urgent questions about the implications of climate related interventions themselves.
While we focus on India, the book has relevance far beyond India’s borders. India’s ability to deal with its diverse population and huge inequalities is an important litmus test for countries seeking to transition in the midst of increasing inequalities both in the global North and South. In bringing together an innovative mix of academics, practitioners and policy-makers who speak from their different standpoints, we raise voices that address this question from many different dimensions.
In the introductory chapter I raise the question of the discrepancies of justice across scales. For example, what appears to be just at one level, such as at the international level may in fact result in injustice for a large number of people on the ground in villages.
The chapter emphasises that that justice is always a process, that we must adopt a wider and scalar approach when discussing justice but also always keep in mind the material effects experienced by different groups of people as a result of climate interventions and attempts to right the balance of wrongs in relation to climate change.
In chapter 5, Voices from the Field, we interviewed a range of practitioners working with questions of climate change. I was struck by the willingness to work towards a better future across the board, even if people might hold very different views on how to go about it. We need more of such discussions because even in climate discussions, academic or otherwise, there are too many silos.
The book is aimed at researchers and students interested in the fields of gender studies, climate policy and SDGs and at climate policymakers. Universities with interdisciplinary programmes have begun to offer specialised courses on climate policy and sustainable development and this will fit in very well with many of these new programmes.
It will also be of interest to development professional, researchers and students in the field of development studies. The book is written in a way that also makes it accessible to a wider public. In fact, the book launch that we held in Delhi in September 2023 was attended by people from many different organisations and walks of life. It is this unexpected response to the book that also gives me hope of all the goodwill that exists to bring about much needed change in the world.