Many actors use the norm of climate justice to fight climate change and to struggle against global inequities internationally and domestically. Despite the enormous diversity of ways in which actors have deployed ideas of climate justice, many of the policies framed within this norm sustain oppressive, silencing, and/or assimilating tendencies. Hence, this paper looks at the biases that were introduced from ideas of “sustainable development” into the discourse of climate justice. Through the cases of India and Oceania, the paper illustrates the ways in which colonial legacies of single-axis thinking and development emphasize a particular struggle at the expense of other experiences and ways of life.

Applied Philosophy | Contemporary Philosophy | General Interest | Social and Political Philosophy