Resilience thinking – an approach for understanding and managing change – is increasingly central to climate change adaptation law and policy. Yet the influence of adaptation law and policy on the distribution of climate impacts is often overlooked in studies of socio-ecological resilience to climate change. This article demonstrates how environmental justice scholarship helps to address this gap in the literature relating to adaptation law and resilience. Drawing on existing literature, the article identifies four principles to promote resilience and justice through climate adaptation laws. Climate adaptation laws must (i) prepare for, and respond to, change; (ii) address the distributive effects of climate change and adaptation; (iii) promote participation in adaptation processes; and (iv) cross sectors and scales. Each criterion can be implemented in part through existing legal processes, but might also be further supported by incremental law reform. Developing both resilience and justice dimensions will enhance the effectiveness of adaptation laws in addressing climate impacts.

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Technology transfer to developing countries has been identified as essential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. However, existing analyses underplay the influence of wider normative principles in shaping institutions for technology transfer in global climate governance. This article uses discourse analysis to explore the ideas and assumptions underlying technology transfer institutions both within and outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This discourse analysis identifies four key periods in the development of technology transfer institutions in global climate governance. In the first three periods, technology transfer institutions embody discourses ranging from green governmentality to deregulatory ecological modernization. In the fourth period, the post-Copenhagen Technology Mechanism embodies a broader discursive landscape that parallels a more fundamental contest over the extent to which redistributive claims are allowed to shape institutions of global climate governance.

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