In this interview, we discuss the research and findings of the recent Special Issue on Planetary Justice co-edited by Agni Kalfagianni, Dimitris Stevis and Stefan Pedersen, and published in Environmental Politics.
Congratulations on the Special Issue! How did this set of articles come together?
Thank you! The three of us have been the co-conveners of the Planetary Justice Taskforce of the Earth System Governance project since shortly after it was officially launched in 2018. This Taskforce brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who are concerned with questions of justice in the context of the ongoing profound transformations of the Earth system and their unevenly distributed consequences amongst humans and between humanity and other species. The Taskforce has the ambition to advance and explore the understanding of justice as well as to galvanize communities of research and practice to further consider and integrate planetary justice in everything they do. We got to know many of the authors of this special issue through Taskforce meetings and events. We also reached out to others who we knew were working on the same issues from fresh perspectives. We were specifically on the lookout for scholars with a critical approach to the main analytical questions of this special issue around the scope, temporal and spatial scale, and purpose of planetary justice.
What is the key intervention that the Special Issue is making?
That we need to critically rethink justice analytically and practically in ways that are commensurate with our current context. For example, Rawls developed his liberal egalitarian theory of justice because of the limitations he found in utilitarianism, and Nussbaum and Sen developed their respective capabilities approaches because of the limitations they found in Rawls’s liberal egalitarianism, and so on. In the past, political thought did usually take the Earth system to be a static background while it was generally (but not exclusively) suffused with methodological nationalism. The present is the time of a paradigm shift – where anthropogenic changes to the Earth system are more widely recognized and where transformations of the political system to counteract the negative consequences of this are increasingly being sought.
We live in “a planetary age”, an age of multiple and compound tensions that affect the entire planet and endanger human and non-human life on earth. This also entails a major theoretical challenge, because to develop notions of “planetary justice” requires listening to and evaluating a range of perspectives and epistemologies around a deeply unjust world where systemic power differences determine the life-chances of everyone, up to and including the prospects of life itself in the biosphere. Notions of planetary justice then need to develop through a process that is open to various interpretations about new ways of living together, of who forms our community (planetarily and locally), and how to rethink the co-existence with the world we inhabit.
As for the key intervention the Special Issue is making, this might be that a more profound understanding of justice, including planetary justice, must pay attention to historical and ongoing power relations between humans and between humanity and the more-than-human. Due to this, solutions sensitive to pluriversality are receiving more attention. It bears highlighting that this pluriversality is not only centred on humans but is inclusive of non-human species and the entire planet.
In your Introduction to the Special Issue, you distinguish ‘planetary justice’ as a ‘rebalancing of priorities’, of relations, stakes, and actors. What has this meant for your own thinking about justice?
Several things. First of all, conceptually, that there are multiple understandings and interpretations of justice, and for that reason we need analytical tools to be able to distinguish them and try to understand what they try to transform, for whom and what, where and when, and for what purpose.
Second, politically, that justice does not automatically unite “progressive” forces in society. Massive work is required to overcome formidable hurdles including power inequalities, entrenched individualism, social fragmentation, widespread discourses of ‘no-alternative’, a global order of competition and complexity, etcetera. Much more thought is needed into how one can generate potent collective agency for a project promoting a sound conception of planetary justice and avoid self-defeating dispersion, incoherence, or co-optation. This also goes for how to constitute collective identities in ways that can attain collective empowerment and commitment to a clear and coherent orientation for planetary justice.
Third, ideationally, that planetary justice should not become another buzzword that is appropriated politically for various purposes. This is why this special issue is so important. Because we are collectively and in a transdisciplinary manner trying to give meaning to and start a discussion on the most important facets of our planetary and/or pluriversal realities which vary widely but also require common thinking. We need to learn to prioritize planetary habitability, but it is not conceivable to secure that goal while simultaneously ignoring human wellbeing. A key goal, therefore, is to better get across how individual and collective human wellbeing is something highly dependent on having ecologically and socially well-functioning communities.
Finally, are you planning any more research on this topic? What’s your next direction?
We are currently conducting a series of webinars where we explore planetary justice around the world. In these webinars we invite engaged scholars from different world regions to answer three main questions on (a) the major theoretical and political tendencies on planetary/ecosocial justice in their respective world region, (b) the forces for or against justice in that region, (c) and the relevance of thinking in planetary justice terms for their work. In 2024 we conducted three webinars on South America, Western Europe, and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. We will continue this year trying to cover as many world regions as possible. The ultimate goal is to systematically analyse and combine these webinars and co-author with all participants a synthesis paper on planetary justice tendencies. Next to that we are working towards securing a grant that will boost our efforts.
Bios:
Agni Kalfagianni is professor of Management of International Social Challenges at the Erasmus Faculty of Social and Behavioural Science of the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. She specialises in the effectiveness, legitimacy, and ethical and justice considerations of private and transnational forms of governance in the sustainability domain. She is co-founder of the international Planetary Justice Taskforce of the Earth System Governance project and had the rotating co-chair role of the Earth System Governance project for the period 2019-2022. Agni is Editor-in-Chief of International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, (co)Editor-in-Chief of the Global Environmental Governance book series by Routledge, and has served in the Boards of the Earth System Governance and Agriculture and Human Values journals. She is currently leading the Beyond Giving project on philanthropic foundations and justice in the sustainability domain funded by the Dutch Research Council.
Dimitris Stevis is professor of international politics in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University, USA. He focuses on the international political economy of environment and labour with particular attention to environmental labour studies and just transitions. He co-convenes the Planetary Justice Taskforce of the Earth System Governance Project and the Just Transition and Care Network. He co-convened the Just Transition Research Collaborative (2018-2022). He is a founder and codirects the Center for Environmental Justice at Colorado State University and a cofounder and executive committee member of the Mountain and Plains Thriving Communities Collaborative, an environmental justice technical center funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (USA). He is currently working on The Critical Minerals and Metals Just Transition Listening Project, funded by the Sloan Foundation, and the Just Transition Academy Exchange initiative, funded by the Just Transition Fund.
Stefan Pedersen is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations, School of Global Studies, at the University of Sussex, located in Brighton, UK. He works on theoretical issues related to planetary politics and global environmental governance. He has co-convened the Planetary Justice Taskforce of the Earth System Governance Project since 2019. He was recently a Research Fellow at The Streit Council (2023-24) and a SEI Visiting Researcher at the University of Sydney (autumn 2024). For publications, see Google Scholar.
