Calls for climate justice abound as evidence accumulates of the growing social and environmental injustices aggravated or driven by climate change.There is now a considerable and diverse literature on procedural, distributional and intergenerational dimensions, including questions of recognition in climate justice. Yet its meaning, scope and practical implications are still contested. Importantly, the broader landscape within which climate justice is situated is rapidly changing, bringing new challenges to the understanding and practice of climate justice. This review takes stock of climate justice literature in view of this new context. We find several disconnects and tensions between more philosophical and academic treatments of the subject on the one hand, and "activist"-oriented approaches to climate justice on the other. Scholarship often falls into silos around scales from global and local, between mitigation and adaptation or draws distinctions between climate justice and other forms of (in)justice. This inhibits an understanding of climate justice that can address more directly its underlying root causes in an historically constituted global economic system and intersecting set of social inequalities. We propose a research agenda centered on a transformative approach to climate justice, placing analysis of power in its various guises at the center of its enquiry, and subverting and moving beyond existing distinctions by focusing on the social and institutional relations and inequalities that both produce climate change and profoundly shape responses to it. We elaborate on three key strands of such an approach: inclusive climate justice, deepening climate justice and governance for climate justice.

Despite global recognition of the urgency of climate action and the need to transition to a low-carbon economy, greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and adaptation needs remain urgent. For a number of years, there have been calls for greater attention to political economy in tackling climate change and development outcomes. The political economy analysis is important as it can be used to assess the factors that may enable or constrain the implementation of climate change policies and actions and sustain political commitment. A framework can guide the process of political economy analysis, identifying relevant stakeholders, their incentives and motives, and other structural factors. This rapid review summarises several such frameworks specifically aimed at climate governance issues developed in recent years, some of these also include useful guidance and steps on the implementation of the framework. The review focuses strictly on the literature around political economy analyses in relation to climate change. It does not explore the history of and rationale for political economy analysis in development in general, nor the accompanying frameworks or operational How-To guides. Another K4D helpdesk by Lucas (2019) looking at what factors affect the political will of African governments to address climate change highlights a number of political economy frameworks that may also be useful to draw on.

This paper examines the issue of management of climate finance in the Global South. It acknowledges the efforts made by the various stakeholders so far but seeks to advance a clarion call for a more inclusive and targeted approach in dealing with climate change. The authors highlight the limited role played by least developed countries and small island developing states in contributing to the conversation on climate change. The authors emphasize the need for enhancing the role of the most vulnerable countries, marginalized groups, and indigenous peoples in the management of climate change. This rapid review focusses on the access to the Green Climate Fund by local civil society organisations (CSOs), indigenous peoples, and women organizations within the Global South. The authors observe that there still exist barriers to climate finance by local actors in the Global South. The authors note the need for more significant engagement of all local actors and the need to devolve climate finance to the lowest level possible to the most vulnerable groups. Particularly, climate finance should take into consideration gender equality in any mitigation measures. The paper also highlights the benefits of engaging CSOs in the engagement of climate finance. The paper argues that local actors have the potential to deliver more targeted, context-relevant, and appropriate climate adaptation outcomes. This can be attributed to the growing movement for locally-led adaptation, a new paradigm where decisions over how, when, and where to adapt are led by communities and local actors. There is also a need to build capacities and strengthen institutions and organisations. Further, it is important to ensure transparency and equitable use and allocation of climate finance by all players.

Community engagement and community-led approaches have been considered a fundamental component of past pandemics, such as Ebola, and the same has been observed in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, especially for reaching the most vulnerable. There is a large and growing literature base on community-led innovations in general, to which literature reflecting on Covid-19 responses is increasingly contributing to. This rapid literature review draws on a range of academic and NGO sources. First, Section 2 briefly explores what is meant by “community-led innovations”, as community-led is a loosely defined term that can take on a variety of meanings. Section 3 provides some examples of community-led innovations and actions from across a variety of contexts, including high-, middle- and low-income countries. Given the scale and scope of the subject, these only provide a small snapshot of community-led initiatives that have taken place in response to the Covid-19 crisis. Section 4 summarises the key common features and trends across examples. Section 5 summarises some general lessons and success factors identified in the examples and literature, building on the findings from Section 4.