Climate justice is a social movement to promote ethical and moral considerations in actions to prevent climate change and in sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its impacts equitably and fairly. It emphasizes community led solutions and better understanding of the drivers of well-being of local communities as well as the local and global impacts of climate change on food security, water scarcity, human well-being and biodiversity loss. It promotes a human-centered approach to development that safeguards the rights of the most vulnerable groups in society, ensuring that the decisions on climate change are participatory, transparent, accountable and equitable across gender, race, income groups and countries.

Areas of Research Focus

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, research teams across the campus are focused on the various topics related to climate justice. These researchers are studying:

• the vulnerability of different social groups and locations to climate change;
• ways to improve disaster preparedness in urban areas; and
• increasing resilience of communities to climate change.