How mapping spatial injustices can refine just transition outcomes: Insights from the Czech Republic

There is still no universally accepted approach or definition of the just transition term, which applies particularly to the ‘just’ part of the transition (Beutel, 2022). Abram et al. (2022) suggested to use it as an analytical concept for ongoing transition processes, providing a whole-system perspective on justice (procedural, distributive, recognition, and restorative) that can help in identifying systemic policy solutions to address environmental and socioeconomic concerns. However, the fundamental challenge still remains to incorporate the spatial dimension into mapping and understanding of just transition, considering multiple spatial scales and time horizons (Kanger and Sovacool, 2022). Most comparative studies in the context of the EU assessing the negative impacts of the coal phase out, energy transition and its development potential have dealt with either regions (NUTS3) or so called cohesion regions (NUTS2). Although these studies provide useful international comparisons, they present quite generalized results which often ignore the fact that coal regions are not uniform and homogenous entities. There are both inter-regional (depending on the location, scale and structure of regions) and intra-regional (between districts, municipalities and localities) differences. When these differences are ignored and coal regions are considered only in the aggregate, the analyses can give biased results, the policies based on aggregate data may perpetuate both disadvantages and advantages in many local areas and the measures taken (e.g., distribution of money from just transition funds, subsidies for energy efficiency renovations, etc.) may be inefficient or even regressive, reproducing existing inequalities between the centres and the peripheries, and others. Using several examples from the Czech Republic, we provide empirical evidence how some just transition measures and new renewable energy systems (which should replace fossil resources) as they are currently being implemented reproduce existing patterns of environmental injustice and keep characteristics of carbon economy, such as spatial concentration, imbalances of scale and power, procedural injustice and lack of trust, et cetera.