Jobs aren't enough: Redefining just transitions in Australia with community voices

The transition to a low carbon economy is underway in Australia and many other advanced economies with significant social, economic and employment challenges. For a just transition to succeed it must reduce emissions while ensuring that the benefits and burdens of any transition are fairly shared at the local and global level. A social justice framework is crucial to ensure regional communities are not made worse off by transition strategies. Our study employed critical discourse analysis to examine key government and media articles on the energy transformation in Queensland, Australia as well as qualitative responses to a survey done in Gladstone, a town central to the Queensland transition. We find that the government focuses on manufacturing ‘community’ and emphasising the importance of generating jobs and training to ensure Queensland is a clean energy superpower. However, this framing misses the more nuanced understanding of what a just transition could be according to community members. We argue for adopting social policies that tackle both climate change and other community priorities to bolster support from local stakeholders for climate action.