International climate justice and democratic representation: To what extent have climate justice principles been adopted by wealthy states?

The climate justice (CJ) movement seeks to achieve a range of bold, whole-of-society transformations within and between states to address one of the most important issues of our time – the climate crisis. The role of wealthy states in such transformations cannot be understated, as these states are most to blame for the crisis and have the most capacity to address it. This paper explores whether the CJ movement is closer to achieving the goal of promoting approaches that align with CJ politics among wealthy states, by examining the extent to which CJ principles have been adopted by governing parties within these states. It argues that, in the past decade, some such principles have been adopted by left-wing, ecologically minded parties. The first part of the paper identifies common CJ principles the movement seeks to promote among wealthy states. These principles are then used in the second part, which involves case studies of governing parties in Denmark, Finland and Sweden that have, in the past decade, pursued comparatively ambitious climate agendas with considerable grassroots support. By analysing election manifestos (or equivalent texts) produced by these parties, this paper finds uptake of some CJ principles, with further left parties adopting a greater breadth of CJ principles than more moderate parties.