Justice in Transition: CGIAR Climate Security Launches Climate Justice Research at INAET 2025

From energy geopolitics to climate equity, this year’s International Network on African Energy Transition (INAET) conference delivered a powerful convergence of ideas, perspectives, and momentum. Held in Nairobi, the gathering brought together policymakers, private sector leaders, researchers, and development partners to explore how Africa can shape the energy transition on its own terms.

For the CGIAR Climate Security team of the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, it was a key moment: we officially launched our Climate Justice Research Strategy, a bold initiative to reposition justice not as a rhetorical afterthought—but as a central strategy for advancing climate action that is equitable, effective, and peace-positive.

Despite increasing global attention, climate justice is still often treated as a normative principle—recognized, yet rarely translated into real, operational change. Our workstream is designed to challenge that gap by offering a tangible, research-based framework for integrating justice across climate policy and programming. 

We ground this analysis in three cross-cutting themes: 

1. Justice in policy and legal frameworks 
2. Justice in resource allocation and financial mechanisms 
3. Justice in fragile and conflict-affected settings 

At INAET, CGIAR Climate Security presented its three flagship studies—each responding to real-world tensions in the transition and aiming to offer policy-relevant, grounded insights.

1. Climate Finance Justice

Are multilateral climate funds reaching the least responsible, most affected communities? 

Our research finds that historical emissions—central to the climate justice narrative—play little role in the allocation of funds to Africa. While current vulnerability levels explain some distribution, inconsistencies point to geopolitical interests and institutional inertia.

This study underscores the need to realign finance with justice—not just efficiency—and to promote climate investments in countries that are least responsible for emissions but most exposed to climate impacts.  

2. Energy Transition Minerals (ETMs), Land-Water-Food Systems, and the Risks to Peace and Security

How is the global rush for Energy Transition Minerals (ETMs) reshaping resource dynamics—and what are the consequences for peace and stability? 

 As the demand for lithium, cobalt, and other critical minerals accelerates, large-scale extractive projects are expanding into areas already strained by land degradation, water scarcity, and fragile food systems. This study explores whether and how a nexus exists between ETM extraction and conflict, and aims to identify strategies to mitigate risks while protecting livelihoods and ecosystems. 

ETM mining operations are often water-intensive, land-displacing, and governance-challenged. In fragile or poorly regulated settings, they risk intensifying resource competition, exacerbating inequalities, and triggering social unrest.

Our objective is to provide a clearer evidence base for understanding these dynamics and offer practical tools for inclusive governance, environmental safeguards, and peace-positive extraction models. 

In her keynote address, Maddalena Procopio, Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)​, framed the just transition as deeply tied to human security. She emphasized that Africa now holds greater bargaining power over its mineral wealth, and that Gulf states are increasingly positioning themselves as renewable energy investors.  

Yet, this growing influence must be matched with stronger accountability, fair benefit-sharing, and community participation to avoid replicating past extractive injustices. 

And while many discussions at INAET assumed a global Net Zero trajectory, the reality is far more complex. As we noted in our presentation, the world is navigating a “Messy Mix” of fossil fuel persistence, partial transitions, and strategic mineral hoarding. Recent developments in Greenland and Ukraine, where newly discovered ETMs are being stockpiled for national security rather than clean energy, serve as a warning: a just transition must be designed intentionally—it won’t happen by default. 

3. Development and the Just Transition

Can a just transition align with African development goals? 

For many countries in the region, poverty reduction, employment, and infrastructure development remain the overriding national priorities. This study questions the assumption that just transition must follow a uniform path and instead explores how it can be anchored in Africa’s own development agenda. 

As Veronica Smith CEO of the Critical Minerals Africa Group emphasized, Africa should not limit its focus to ETMs, which are largely driven by external markets. Instead, the continent should prioritize minerals like iron, copper, and gold—resources that can directly support industrialization, manufacturing, and long-term sovereignty over its economic future. 

Our study takes this insight further, asking how just transition strategies can become development accelerators—not constraints. It investigates the conditions under which sustainable development goals and green transition goals can be mutually reinforcing, particularly in rural, peri-urban, and fragile contexts. The aim is to build transition models that are inclusive, job-rich, and peace-oriented, rather than technocratic or externally imposed. 

Looking Ahead: Making Justice the Starting Point 

The INAET conference offered a timely space for reflection on climate justice, resource governance, and Africa’s shifting geopolitical role in the global transition. From sessions on partnerships to the geopolitics of extraction, one thing was clear: the transition will not be linear, and it will not be neutral. It will redistribute power, create new winners and losers, and challenge the boundaries between development, security, and sustainability. 

That’s why we believe justice is not the outcome of good climate policy—it’s where climate policy must begin. 

Our new Climate Justice Workstream is part of CGIAR’s Climate Action Science Programme and aligns with our broader portfolio, which includes three core impact areas: 

• Climate Action 4 Peace 

• Strategic Humanitarian Support 

• System Science and Transformation 

We look forward to co-creating knowledge, policy solutions, and practical tools with partners who believe that the energy transition must be not only green—but fair, inclusive, and peace-positive. 

To learn more or collaborate with us, get in touch. Because justice is the only transition worth making.

Authors: Grazia Pacillo, Marina Mastrorillo, Cesare Scartozzi, Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT