Between Light and Shadow: Exploring Spatial and Multi-Dimensional Justice in the EU’s Green Transition

The Green Transition is the European growth strategy - supported by the European Green Deal (EGD, 2019) - that aims to overcome climate change and environmental degradation, foster climate neutrality by 2050, boost the economy through green technology, create sustainable industry and transport, and cut pollution. EU Member States are requested to implement actions that support the Green Transition, contributing to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. At the same time, the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM) is the EU’s instrument to guarantee that the shift to a climate-neutral economy proceeds fairly and leaves no one behind. Turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities implies that the transition must be just and inclusive for all. Even though within the EU policy framework, Green Transition commonly comes together with the justice dimension, the spatial interdependence between these concepts requires more clarification. Therefore, this contribution questions the EU's Just Transition Strategy and addresses its important limitations: Overemphasising the distributive dimension of justice while undermining the procedural one, paying inadequate attention to the spatial dimension of justice, and considering justice as a secondary element of Green Transition. By analysing these constraints, the chapter provides a critical standpoint of the EU's Just Transition Strategy, highlighting significant gaps in its approach to justice. In addition, practical recommendations for policymakers are made to integrate spatial justice into the Green Transition. Some of these recommendations include assessing how environmental policies related to the Green Transition impact different geographies on a local scale; ensuring equitable geographical access to new infrastructures, such as urban green spaces, renewable energy sources, and green jobs across neighbourhood; promoting green job creation in disadvantaged areas; providing fair access to training programs; empowering the least advantaged groups in decision-making; and, finally, promoting bottom-up decision-making processes that are inclusive, transparent, and focused on addressing structural inequities, rather than solely on immediate economic and environmental impacts.