5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

The climate crisis has substantial social impacts through increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather events, heat waves and drought, sea level rise and coastal erosion, and rapid changes to Arctic ecosystems. As environmental sociologists have long argued, climate impacts and vulnerabilities are not equitably distributed, but intersect with other forms of social inequality. This reality feeds calls for climate justice and just sustainability transitions. This session addresses a potent dilemma at the heart of the imperative for climate action and energy system transitions. Actions towards decarbonization and energy transitions may help meet climate goals, but may also create new inequalities or amplify existing inequalities, for example through the siting of renewable energy infrastructure, through mining exploration and extraction to feed the green transition, or through likely increased flows of e-waste. These negative impacts of climate solutions can result in a lack of social buy-in from communities, as well as overt resistance and conflict that feeds political polarization. As such, this session invites papers for a conversation on how we can reconcile the imperative for climate action and decarbonization, on one hand, with concerns for energy justice, climate justice, and Indigenous rights (as protected under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). We invite papers from diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives, which we hope will generate a rich, research-based conversation that helps us better understand how to advance climate action and energy transitions that embody respect for climate justice, energy justice, and Indigenous rights.