“‘JUST TRANSITION’ WITHIN GLOBAL CLIMATE POLICY: THE GENEALOGY OF AN IDEA”

Global climate policy, represented by the Paris Agreement and its near universal implementation within countries of the world, has struggled with addressing the context of historical emissions. Advanced industrialized countries have tried, largely successfully, to put aside the origins and means of their economic advancement. For their part, developing countries have tried to indicate within the constrained space of climate negotiations how their own present needs and future demands are inexplicable without this conjoined past. In this presentation, Khan will explore the emergence of the idea of “just transition” from a concept meaning the integration of the existing workforce within green economies to that of a means of bringing justice within the discourses of the global climate regime, and with what practical ramifications. 

Biography
Naveeda Khan is associate professor and chair of anthropology, sits on the board of the Program in Islamic Studies, and serves as affiliate faculty for the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature and the Program in Environmental Science and Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Her research spans riverine lives and national climate policy in Bangladesh, U.N.-led global climate governance processes, German romanticism, Bengali and Urdu literature, and writings on the environment. She is the author of “Muslim Becoming: Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan” (Duke University Press, 2012), “River Life and the Upspring of Nature” (Duke University Press, 2023) and “In Quest of a Shared Planet: Negotiating Climate from the Global South” (Fordham University Press, 2023) and editor of “Beyond Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan” (Routledge, 2010).