Beyond Decarbonization: Human Rights, Vulnerable Workers, and an Operational Framework for Just Climate Transitions

ABSTRACT Climate transitions are widely presented as pathways toward decarbonization, green growth, and sustainable development, yet their social effects are mediated by labour‐market segmentation, regional dependence, institutional capacity, and unequal political voice. This critical integrative review examines climate transition policies through a human rights‐based approach (HRBA) and asks how transition governance produces differentiated risks for low‐skilled, women, youth, migrant, immigrant, and informal workers. A structured search and citation‐chaining process covered peer‐reviewed research and authoritative institutional and legal sources published mainly between 2013 and June 2026, while retaining foundational earlier contributions. The evidence was synthesized through comparative framework analysis and mechanism‐oriented thematic coding. The review identifies five recurrent mechanisms of unequal impact: exclusion from agenda setting, spatially concentrated job and fiscal losses, unequal access to green employment and training, downward transfer of adjustment costs, and weak accountability and remedy. Evidence from coal transition in South Africa, Indigenous rights conflicts surrounding renewable energy in Norway, informal labour systems in the Global South, and gendered and migrant labour markets shows that aggregate job creation and emissions reduction do not establish justice. The article advances just transition scholarship by integrating recognition, participation, protection, equity, and accountability into an operational HRBA framework linked to indicators, duty bearers, and Sustainable Development Goals 8, 10, 13, and 16. The framework clarifies how transition policies can be assessed before implementation, monitored during restructuring, and corrected through enforceable social protection, co‐governance, impact assessment, and remedy.