Navigating just transitions: Trade union strategies and climate delay in North Sea energy politics

This article investigates conditions under which just transition (JT) – a union concept reconciling worker protection with environmental imperatives – becomes entangled in the dynamics of climate delay within North Sea energy politics. Drawing on interviews with trade union representatives and environmental actors in Norway and the UK, we examine how unions navigate energy transitions through strategies that both reinforce and challenge climate delay. Our analysis reveals a critical paradox: both institutionalised inclusion (Norway) and exclusion (UK) lead to delay through different mechanisms. Norwegian unions, embedded within corporatist arrangements, maintain consensus against timetabled phaseout through strategic avoidance. UK exclusion produces fragmented union strategies and undermines implementation and trust. Yet neither outcome is fixed: UK fragmentation creates insurgent potential; Norwegian consensus masks emerging divisions. These dynamics – shaped by historical experiences, structural positioning and institutional constraints – underscore unions' contradictory capacity to either reproduce fossil capital relations or challenge them through coordinated labour strategies and cross-movement coalitions.