Central Themes While the climate crisis has environmental and physical dimensions, it also has profound ethical and political ramifications. The causes and consequences of climate change, along with steps taken to mitigate it, warrant analysis from the vantage of environmental and social justice. Concepts such as historical responsibilities, protection of human rights and collective rights, compensation to redress past, present, and future losses, and “just transition” all assume a central role in contextualizing our scientific understanding of climate change and in informing how states and societies respond to climate change. Our focus on climate justice mirrors our broader scholarly commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion—goals that we actively explore in our network’s substantive focus, composition, and proposed activities. Concepts of justice are fundamental to our understanding of, and strategies toward, climate adaptation (e.g., resilience) and mitigation (decarbonization) efforts. Consider the natural process chain, in which rising CO2 emissions (driven by human action in a small number of countries and communities) generate global warming, leading to the melting of ice, rising sea levels, and warmer ocean surfaces, which in turn generate even more destructive hurricanes that batter shorelines and coastal communities. As parts of the earth’s coastlines become uninhabitable, societies will need to develop responses and solutions focusing on resilience without sacrificing justice and equity. For example, historically marginalized peoples such as communities of color and indigenous groups typically face the most deleterious effects of global warming, while having contributed the least to it. At the heart of societal decisions to invest in climate resilience is an equity paradox. Climate change will dramatically exacerbate socio-economic inequalities both within and across countries, disproportionately impacting the marginalized. Wealthier individuals have the capacity to fund climate adaptation plans, but also the weakest incentive to contribute to these plans; they are able to channel resources to fund personal climate adaptation efforts. By contrast, vulnerable populations with the strongest need for climate adaptation policies have the fewest resources to contribute to such efforts. Urgent work is needed to explicate the channels by which societal actors—individuals, governments, NGOs, businesses, and civil society groups—may resolve the equity paradox in climate resilience efforts, a necessity to be successful in fighting and solving the climate crisis. Thus, concepts of justice bring together the study of climate resilience in the natural sciences with those in the social sciences and humanities. In a parallel manner, justice remains front and center in our scholarly understanding of decarbonization efforts. Decarbonization depends on the generation of scientific knowledge about the processes that will reduce human emissions of greenhouse gases and/or actively reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by carbon capture techniques. Impactful decarbonization strategies require coordination across countries seeking to ratify effective emissions reductions agreements; notably, geological or ecological solutions may bear little resemblance to political boundaries. It necessitates convincing and empowering voters, firms, and special interest groups to support national policies investing in decarbonization research and facilitate meaningful emission reductions. These policies are poised to generate vigorous opposition from groups registering material losses from decarbonization. To alleviate these “carbon transition” costs for the vulnerable and create momentum for climate policy cooperation, governments and civil society must consider equity norms while formulating policies that redress the losses borne by societal actors harmed by decarbonization. The relationship between climate justice, resilience, and decarbonization raises a cluster of questions that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries: How is climatic vulnerability and resilience scientifically determined? Philosophically, should those harmed be compensated—and, if yes, by whom, by how much, and by what principle? What are the economic dimensions of compensation, and is it most efficiently achieved via carbon taxes or other forms of redistributive policies? How can governmental and non-governmental organizations build mass support for climate compensation, and what sorts of compensatory instruments are most likely to muster popular endorsement? Should intergenerational and cross-national considerations inform equity tradeoffs in determining compensation related to climate vulnerability? The political, economic, geological, ecological, and philosophical dimensions of these questions speak closely to urgent work being conducted in the physical sciences on climate resilience and decarbonization.

Proposed Activities
Accordingly, the network aims to build an interdisciplinary hub of scholars, students and postdocs who are interested in pursuing research projects and creating curricular offerings at Columbia that engage with these cross-cutting themes, rising up to the challenge of the climate crisis. Scholars will benefit from early-stage feedback on new climate-related research projects from colleagues in other disciplines and units in the network; this will enhance the quality, breadth and applicability, and potential scholarly and public policy impact of new work emanating from Columbia. Consolidation of the working group would be achieved through regular meetings, as well as workshops or presentations. This would provide a unique and valuable opportunity to workshop early research ideas and receive feedback from an interdisciplinary group of academics also working on the topic of climate justice. Additionally, the working group could allow faculty and researchers to more easily develop collaborative and interdisciplinary academic projects that address topics of climate justice. We envision new projects and trans-disciplinary climate proposals that are timely and that match ongoing changes to the federal funding strategies toward cross-cutting climate solution research (e.g., the NSF, DOE, and NOAA).

Three Year Work Plan
In the first year, the network intends to consolidate the core working group through monthly sessions and exploratory seminars. During this time, members of the working group will workshop and discuss early research designs and receive comments and feedback from other network members; members interested in developing collaborative projects will benefit from opportunities to get to know scholars across disciplines and units at Columbia. Members will also workshop plans for curricular innovations in the domain of climate change and climate justice, and receive interdisciplinary feedback from other group members. During the second year, members of the core working group will work on their research and curricular projects, and will meet regularly to share updates and receive feedback from network members. During meetings, members will present the findings of their research and receive interdisciplinary feedback on their work. The group will also engage with a wider range of participants in the university by organizing workshops and seminars in which speakers present work on the topics of the network theme. At the end of the year, the network will organize a Columbia-wide workshop on “Decarbonization, Climate Resilience, and Climate Justice.” This workshop will help expand the network by drawing in other faculty and researchers interested in the theme of climate justice as it pertains to resilience and decarbonization. Group members developing curricular and pedagogical offerings may begin offering courses this year. In the third year, members will share the results of their research and curricular projects with group members and with members of the broader CU community. At the end of the year, the network will organize a larger open conference engaging with NYC-based climate researchers, journalists, activists, green-tech entrepreneurs, alongside representatives of public policy organizations and think tanks. The conference will also provide a venue for working group members to disseminate research findings and discuss major themes developed over the course of their collaborations. Concurrently, working group members will pursue the publication of their research projects in scholarly outlets, communicate findings to the broader public, and will begin offering undergraduate and graduate curricular offerings at Columbia on climate change. To summarize, we aim to build an interdisciplinary network of scholars working on the theme of climate justice and committed to principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion; hold regular meetings and seminars in which cutting-edge research is developed and proposed; provide a platform for researchers to formulate collaborative proposals for funding from external sources; advance curricular development at the undergraduate and graduate levels; and organize a university-wide workshop in the second year and a large open conference in the third year.