Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene: Structural Inequality and the Political Economy of Climate Governance

Abstract

Environmental justice (EJ) has moved from the margins of social mobilization to the center of environmental governance discourse. Yet despite its institutional adoption, distributive and procedural inequalities persist across climate and environmental policy regimes. This article argues that environmental injustice in the Anthropocene cannot be adequately explained as a failure of implementation or regulatory oversight. Rather, it is structurally embedded within the institutional design and political economy of contemporary environmental governance.
Drawing on interdisciplinary environmental justice scholarship and political economy analysis, the article traces the evolution of EJ from grassroots struggles against environmental racism to its incorporation into state bureaucracies and global climate frameworks. While institutionalization expanded the normative vocabulary of environmental politics, it also transformed a radical critique of structural inequality into technocratic policy language. Market-based instruments, carbon trading systems, risk assessment models, and voluntary corporate commitments, hallmarks of neoliberal environmentalism, prioritize efficiency and competitiveness, often reproducing socio-economic hierarchies through ostensibly neutral governance tools.
The article develops a multidimensional framework integrating distributive, procedural, and recognition justice with an institutional political economy perspective. This framework demonstrates how growth-dependent states, globalized production networks, and technocratic regulatory rationalities constrain transformative reform. In response, the article advances a structural reform agenda centered on redistributive fiscal mechanisms, democratic deepening, recognition-based co-governance, and transnational accountability.
By reframing environmental justice as a structural governance issue and a test of democratic legitimacy, the article contributes to debates within environmental politics by moving beyond policy instrument analysis toward institutional transformation. Justice-centered governance is shown to enhance legitimacy, policy durability, and social stability, positioning environmental justice not as a peripheral concern but as foundational to the future of climate governance.