Environmental Justice Tensions In Climate Governance across Spatial Scales

International and supranational bodies play a central role in climate governance by setting agendas, defining targets and policy frameworks and channelling resources downward (Stockmann & Graf, 2023). Often, technocratic and expert-driven approaches take the lead in international sustainability policies, with local priorities and context-specific knowledge pushed to the margins (Westman, 2026; Caprotti et al., 2017).

However, since COP15 in Copenhagen (2009), local state and non-state actors have gained recognition in multi-level climate governance (Westman, 2026; Hooghe & Marks, 2001). The local scale is, thus, increasingly seen not just as a site of implementation, but as a site where policies are actively reshaped (Affolderbach et al., 2019). It is precisely at this local scale that tensions between distributional, procedural and recognitional justice surface (Schlosberg, 2004). Yet how international directives are translated discursively and practically, and whose interests prevail remains underexplored (Stockmann & Graf, 2023). Examining socio-material practices locally is therefore crucial (Johansson, 2026), especially from an environmental justice perspective.

We therefore invite papers that explore how climate directives and policies travel between global and local scales, and the environmental justice tensions it produces. We welcome contributions on, among others: how (marginalized) communities engage with or contest these directives - whose interests are recognized or sidelined in local governance - alternative or participatory methods (countermapping, photovoice, zine-making) that surface justice concerns conventional policy analysis misses. Ultimately, this session aims to advance empirical and epistemological insights into how climate governance operates across spatial scales.

Keywords: multi-level governance, environmental justice, socio-material practices, policy translation