This paper warns that well-intentioned practices can have negative impacts and seeks to better understand the variability and possible unintentional outcomes of just transitions. To do so, the authors examine the typologies of justice (social and environmental) the geographies of justice (scale and scope) and then bring these variables together to explore their implications for just transitions.

The authors advocate for a world in which global rules require and enable transnational and local justice. They conclude that such rules will have to be flexible enough to accommodate local dynamics and needs but strong enough to prevent any local elites from claiming the exclusive right to determine how global rules will be implemented.