After years of focusing on models and data, climate scientist Friederike Otto came to the realization that to combat change, she also had to fight inequality. She described that fight in her next book, “Climate Injustice.” In redirecting her efforts and career, Otto was building on, extending, and widening the work of sociologist Robert Bullard, the pioneer of environmental justice.
Read: Inequality magnifies climate impacts worldwide, climate scientist writes in new book
This bookshelf highlights and celebrates recent efforts to extend and widen our thinking about climate and environmental justice.
The list begins with two books that offer new introductions and (re)definitions of environmental justice. A third title places environmental justice in the intersecting contexts of race, climate change, and COVID-19.
The next three titles explore the changing permutations of environmental justice in climate justice, energy justice, and food justice.
New explorations of social and historical contexts follow, with works on migration, indigenous peoples, African-American communities, Appalachia, and the Disability Rights movement.
The bookshelf ends with a close look at one of the critical venues where climate justice is pursued: the environmental hearing. How one understands and practices consensus and effectiveness in these settings can shape the justice achieved.
As always, the descriptions of the titles are adapted from the copy provide by the organizations or publishers that released them.
Environmental Justice: A Very Short Introduction by Pamela Hill (Oxford University Press 2025, pages, $ paperback)
Environmental justice recognizes that environmental benefits and burdens should be distributed fairly, and that the people making policy decisions should incorporate the views of those most often harmed: people of color, Indigenous populations, low-income communities, and those who are underserved and disenfranchised for other reasons such as age, gender, or disability. In the era of climate change, climate justice is a particular focus. In an engaging and approachable way, Environmental Justice: A Very Short Introduction defines the concept, identifies specific environmental justice populations, examines root causes, including racism, capitalism, and colonialism, and traces the history of the environmental justice movement and governmental responses to it. It concludes with suggestions for achieving this elusive goal.
Environmental Justice: Context, Challenges and National Approaches edited by S. Agrawala (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 2025, 103 pages, free download)
There is mounting evidence that, depending on social and economic circumstances, some communities and groups may face disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards, bear an inequitable share of the costs associated with environmental policies or face more barriers to participating in environmental decision-making. As countries try to tackle climate change, the concept of environmental justice can shed light on how to ensure fairness in the processes and outcomes of environmental policymaking. This report examines environmental justice, its underlying conceptual pillars and how it has emerged in different contexts around the world. The report also provides the first policy stocktake of how governments across the OECD and beyond are seeking to redress environmental justice concerns, building upon insights from 26 responses to the OECD Environmental Justice Survey.
Race and Environmental Justice in the Era of Climate Change and COVID-19, edited by T. Konrad (Michigan State University Press 2025, 266 pages, $34.95 paperback)
Informed by transdisciplinary research in social and environmental justice, Race and Environmental Justice in the Era of Climate Change and COVID-19 is a contribution to the scholarly discourse as well as a form of activism for climate, environmental, and health justice. Using race and Indigeneity as an analytical lens, the book explores how justice in the era of climate change and COVID-19 is envisioned, depicted, and achieved. Its explorations of (in)justice illustrate the wide health and safety gaps between individuals, communities, and even nations living under different environmental conditions. The volume foregrounds voices from world communities, provides solutions to environmental health crises, and advances for and from environmental justice for humans toward justice for all beings.
Climate Justice Now: Crossing Disciplines to Combat Our Planetary Crisis, edited by R. Marwege et al (Columbia University Press 2026, 376 pages, $38 paperback)
Climate change is not only an environmental crisis but also a catalyst for worsening socioeconomic inequalities, leading to widespread calls for “climate justice.” This multidisciplinary book offers a comprehensive exploration of debates on climate justice across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Synthesizing these divergent approaches, it develops a new conceptual framework that transcends disciplinary divides, providing a deeper and richer understanding of climate justice. Contributors make an urgent case that climate justice must be centered within and across disciplines, creating a roadmap for multidisciplinary research and pedagogy on the climate crisis. Featuring a wide range of voices and recommendations, this book illuminates how scholarship on climate change can become a call to action.
Powerless: The People’s Struggle for Energy by D. Hernández & J. Laird (Russell Sage Foundation 2025, 331 pages, $45.00 paperback)
Energy serves as the lifeblood of our daily experiences. It permeates virtually every aspect of our existence, facilitating nourishment, safety, and productivity. When affordability threatens energy’s availability, a family’s living situation can become untenable—too cold, too hot, too dark, and too often, unhealthy and unsafe. In Powerless, sociologists Diana Hernández and Jennifer Laird reveal the hidden hardship of “energy insecurity” – the inability to adequately meet household energy needs. Hernández and Laird argue that household energy is a basic human right and detail policies and practices that would expand access to consistent, safe, clean, and affordable energy. Powerless describes complex social and environmental issues of energy insecurity and shows how energy equity can be an achievable reality.
Nurturing Food Justice: Expansive and Intersectional Visions, edited by H. Alkon & J. Agyeman (The MIT Press 2026, 376 pages, $75 paperback)
Amid the intersecting crises of climate change and inequalities, Nurturing Food Justice offers an unflinching and inspiring take on the ways communities are working to create more just and sustainable worlds. An expansive follow-up to the field-defining Cultivating Food Justice, this edited volume provides an overview of food justice scholar-activism, redefining the field and looking to future theoretical and political futures. The contributors—a racially diverse group of scholars, students, and activists from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds across the United States—synthesize and analyze the findings of food justice research to imagine socioecological relationships that are both environmentally sustainable and socially just. They tell new stories of what food justice is, what it is for, and what it can become.
Shelter from the Storm: How Climate Change Is Creating a New Era of Migration by J. Hattem (The New Press 2026, 272 pages, $29.99)
In Shelter from the Storm noted journalist and migration researcher Julian Hattem tells the story of the massive human displacement that is already being caused by climate change. With hard-hitting journalism from the front lines of the environmental apocalypse, Hattem takes the reader on a journey from the South Pacific to the Indian subcontinent, the Mediterranean, and beyond, offering a shocking glimpse into the human geography wrecked by a warming planet. Shelter from the Storm also provides rich historical perspective on how climate has impacted migration and a primer on cutting-edge climatological research, creating a multidimensional portrait of this uncertain new age. Shelter from the Storm gives a human face to the millions of climate migrants who are leaving their homes—and the millions more who will follow.
The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples: Climate Crisis (6E) by T. Lore et al (UN DESA 2025, 110 pages, free download)
The sixth edition of the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples focuses on Climate Crisis. It focuses on the vital role of Indigenous peoples in addressing the impacts of climate change. Although Indigenous Peoples account for only around 5 per cent of the world’s population, they effectively manage and protect an estimated 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity and about 40 per cent of protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. Since Indigenous Peoples first came to the United Nations, they have emphasized the fundamental importance of their relationship with their lands, territories and resources, which hold a deep cultural and spiritual significance within their societies. The report is intended as a reference and advocacy tool for Indigenous Peoples and to contribute to the broader conversation around climate change.
Global Afro-Descendant Climate Justice-Landscape Analysis: A Preliminary Report of Organizations, Movements, Trends, Gaps, Barriers, and Leadership by M. Williams et al (Chisholm Legacy Project 2025, 85 pages, free download)
Issued in conjunction with COP30, this paper maps Afro-Descendant leadership and our meaningful participation in global climate movements. Afro-Descendant people worldwide are disproportionately harmed by climate change and systemic racism – yet remain underrepresented in climate governance. The analysis highlights historic barriers: lack of legal land rights, limited access to finance, and structural injustices.
See also Cultivating the Conditions for Black Liberation and Just Transition: An Encyclopedia of Power, Peril and U.S. Climate Finance Policy Prerequisites by Y. Tekola et al (Chisholm Legacy Project 2025, 130 pages, free download) and Burdens and Blessings: Intersectional Statistics and Stories of Black Women and Energy Justice by J. Patterson (Chisholm Legacy Project 2025, 32 pages, free download).
Toward Just Transitions: Visions for Regenerative Communities in Appalachia, edited by S.L. Scott and K. Engle (The University Press of Kentucky 2025, 222 pages, $25 paperback)
Central Appalachia has long endured the exploitation of its abundant natural resources, like timber and coal, and suffered the ensuing fallout, including high poverty, low educational attainment, and persistent health and environmental problems. In Toward Just Transitions, editors Shaunna L. Scott and Kathryn Engle explore the regional damage wrought by extractive capitalism and outline the need for “just transitions.” A just transition is “a vision-led, unifying, and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that shift from an extractive economy to a “regenerative economy,” one that supports conservation and faces climate change. Toward Just Transitions offers solutions for wresting power from corporations and oligarchs and returning it to the communities and marginalized groups they harmed.
Race and Environmental Justice in the Era of Climate Change and COVID-19, edited by T. Konrad (Michigan State University Press 2025, 266 pages, $34.95 paperback)
Informed by transdisciplinary research in social and environmental justice, Race and Environmental Justice in the Era of Climate Change and COVID-19 is a contribution to the scholarly discourse as well as a form of activism for climate, environmental, and health justice. Using race and Indigeneity as an analytical lens, the book explores how justice in the era of climate change and COVID-19 is envisioned, depicted, and achieved. Its explorations of (in)justice illustrate the wide health and safety gaps between individuals, communities, and even nations living under different environmental conditions. The volume foregrounds voices from world communities, provides solutions to environmental health crises, and advances for and from environmental justice for humans toward justice for all beings.
Disabled Power: A Storm, A Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster bv A. Frederick (New York University Press 2025, 272 pages, $30 paperback)
Disabled Power tells the stories of Texans with disabilities who endured the 2021 Texas power crisis, which forced millions of Texas residents to endure a dayslong winter storm without heat or water. Based on 58 in-depth interviews with disabled Texans and parents of disabled children, Frederick highlights how disabled people and those with chronic health conditions are uniquely harmed when infrastructure systems fail. But Frederick also emphasizes another meaning of the phrase “disabled power:” the individual and collective resilience and creativity Texans with disabilities exercised to survive the disaster. The implications of this disaster extend far beyond Texas. Disabled Power offers a blueprint for reimagining vulnerability and resilience to center people with disabilities in disaster research and response.
Beyond Consensus: How Everyday Citizens Advocate for Local Environmental Issues by Kelly Scarff (Bloomsbury Academic Publishing 2026, 150 pages, $100.00)
By better understanding the “genre” of environmental public hearings, one can challenge ideas of effectiveness and consensus so that citizens can learn to advocate more effectively for their concerns about environmental issues. This book addresses how public hearing genre conventions are established and how those conventions inform and often govern tensions that arise in public discourse about a contested environmental project. The case study delves into public comments from two Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) 401 Water Quality Certification public hearings that were held in August 2017 and hosted by Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ). The author argues that there are ways we might reimagine ideas of effectiveness and consensus on a contested environmental project like the MVP.
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