Fairness is essential in actions aimed at mitigating climate change and addressing its consequences. However, the meaning of ‘fairness’ – and related ideas like climate justice –often remains vague. This ambiguity can lead to policies or practices perpetuating injustices or overlooking those most affected by climate change or proposed solutions. 

Working towards fair climate solutions touches deeply embedded social, economic, and political inequalities. It will need to address structural mechanisms that create tension between environmental and economic aspects and may work to disadvantage vulnerable individuals and groups that often lack a proper voice in decision-making. Achieving fairness in climate solutions may require transforming current systems, not merely adjusting them. 

This SEVEN project aims to address this lack of clarity and develop a better understanding of fairness in climate solutions that can assist all actors in creating just and effective responses to climate change. In this transdisciplinary project, we bring together insights from law, social sciences, humanities (history of ideas, ethics), economics, medicine, and other relevant disciplines.

The project will first develop a conceptual framework to identify factors and mechanisms that hinder or facilitate fairness, using concrete cases in which ideals have been translated into distinct activities like citizen initiatives, court proceedings, and international negotiations.  

These insights will then be applied to specific proposed climate solutions in close collaboration with societal partners. In this stage, this project will connect with other signature projects – in particular health care, the protein transition and hydrogen – to assess fairness and explore systemic solutions to fairness challenges.