The Global Risks Forum (GRF)
Climate and nature risks fall unevenly. People with least income, secure tenure or political voice often face more exposure and have fewer means to recover, and they have little say in the decisions that shape their risk. Climate justice concerns who bears the risk, who decides and who is compensated. This page sets out the mechanisms that produce unequal outcomes, the records that show them, and the institutions that hold the decisions.
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For climate justice and equity, in GRF's situational-awareness reading, the map opens on population density, flood water and night lights with a 15-day forecast chart at the centre and clouds now from NASA GIBS, framed on the Andes; 3 further NASA layers wait in the list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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Climate justice is an approach that links climate action to equity and rights: who bears climate risk, who decides and who is compensated for harm. It covers unequal exposure, procedural rights, access to finance and loss and damage. Governments, climate fund boards, courts and local authorities hold the decisions.
The working screen behind this subject: its structure, terms and states. Names are placeholders and values illustrative.
Climate justice and equity · National adaptation council · Plan year 4
| No drought allocation rule | Water | Mandate unclear | Basin commission |
| Heat plans missing | Health | Funding | Line ministry |
| Coastal setback unenforced | Cities | Capacity | Province D |
Differential exposure and access. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Informal settlements on floodplains, outdoor work in heat and dependence on rain-fed farming concentrate hazard on lower-income groups. Their losses are a larger share of their assets and often go uninsured and unrecorded.
Rights to information, participation and access to justice decide who can shape and challenge decisions. Where these rights are weak or defenders are threatened, decisions reflect those already heard.
Climate finance tends to reach institutions able to prepare proposals and meet fiduciary standards. Communities and local governments with the greatest need may have the least access.
Relocation, conservation enclosures and carbon projects can displace people or restrict their use of land. Without consent and benefit-sharing, measures meant to reduce risk shift costs to those with least power.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Loss and damage | Harm from climate change that mitigation and adaptation have not prevented, addressed under the UNFCCC through funding arrangements. |
| Procedural justice | Fairness in how decisions are made, including who takes part, who is informed and who can challenge them. |
| Environmental defender | A person or group that acts to protect land, water or nature, often facing threats where rights are weakly protected. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population exposed to hazard by income group | persons, by quintile | periodic | Hazard maps against household surveys | MODELLED |
| Disaster losses by income level | currency and share of household assets | per event | Post-disaster needs assessments | ESTIMATED |
| Ratification of Aarhus or Escazú agreements | yes or no | on change | Treaty depositary records | OFFICIAL |
| Recorded killings of land and environmental defenders | count per year | annual | Civil society monitoring | REPORTED |
| Climate finance reaching the local level | share of committed finance, percent | annual | Fund and project records | ESTIMATED |
| Loss and damage fund requests and approvals | count and currency | annual | Fund records | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II | Assessment of vulnerability, equity and climate justice | Free, IPCC terms |
| World Bank poverty and inequality data | Household income and poverty measures by country | CC BY 4.0 |
| Global Witness land and environmental defenders data | Documented killings of defenders by country | Free to read, terms to check |
| UN treaty depositary records | Status of Aarhus, Escazú and related agreements | Public records, UN terms |
| Post-disaster needs assessments (PDNA) | Damage, loss and recovery needs, sometimes disaggregated | Public reports, terms per publisher |
| Fund for responding to Loss and Damage records | Governing decisions and funding approvals | Public records, terms to check |
Climate and Nature Governance prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| National governments | How climate and nature measures are designed to share costs and benefits fairly | Disaggregated exposure and loss evidence and comparable policy designs |
| Climate fund boards | How access modalities reach local and vulnerable groups | Records of who receives finance and through which channels |
| Courts and human rights bodies | Whether rights are affected by climate action or inaction | Records and assessments presented by parties; the page serves context only |
| Local authorities | How communities take part in planning and relocation decisions | Participation practice and lessons from comparable cases |
Vulnerability is shaped by poverty, housing, health, gender, age, disability, ethnicity and access to services. Informal settlements on floodplains, outdoor workers in heat and smallholders dependent on rainfall face higher risk with fewer resources. Within countries, adaptation investment can flow to places with more political voice rather than greater need.
Climate justice has distributive, procedural and recognition dimensions: who gets what, who decides and whose knowledge and identity are respected. Policies such as carbon pricing or conservation restrictions can impose costs on poorer groups unless designed with compensation and participation. Between countries, debates centre on responsibility, finance and loss and damage.
Combining social and hazard data to identify who is at risk, informed by climate and atmospheric science. Indices simplify and can hide variation.
Assessing who bears policy costs and benefits. Results depend on assumptions.
Involving affected communities in assessment and decision, using policy, institutional and decision science. Participation can be tokenistic if not linked to decisions.
Examining how equity is built into mandates and procedures.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.