Prospective Research: COGITO: coping with climate debt through just transition: Exploration and Analysis of Scenarios for Brussels

One of our greatest debts to future societies is due to the ongoing global climate change and environmental
degradation. It has long been observed that environmental burdens are unequally distributed in cities and
disproportionately impact disadvantaged communities. In the absence of sufficient climate mitigation and adaptation
policies, these inequalities will worsen under the pressure of climate change. The framework of “just transitions”
focuses on limiting the impacts of climate change and reducing environmental harms while also bridging social
inequality. There exists a well-established body of literature on (in)justice in regard to the sustainability challenges in
cities, including literature on environmental, climate, and energy justice. However, these bodies of literature tend to
be fragmented and often consider only some dimensions while ignoring others. Besides the fragmented
understanding of just sustainability transitions, literature reveals another major research gap in the exploration of
such transition processes: the lack of future-oriented analysis. Additionally, while the literature on these dimensions
of justice is well-established, justice is often not explicitly addressed in sustainability transitions policies.