Debates About the Just Transition in Mexico. Development, Workers Demands and Popular Environmentalism

Abstract

The notion of “just transition” has been built as a series of demands from labor and environmental organizations regarding energy transition plans, mainly in Global North contexts. Growing attention to the term from diverse actors has led to a notable dispute over its political and strategic meanings. This article proposes to expand the lens that predominates in the literature on the “just transition” to privilege the conditions and debates that are taking place in the Latin American region. It explores how the structural tensions between development, extractivism, and claims for environmental justice are reproduced or resolved in the context of the just transition imperative. Taking Mexico as a case study, the text reviews the debates around the energy policy of AMLO’s Fourth Transformation government, characterized by an anti-neoliberal turn and a strategy to restructure the national electrical system. Under this analysis, the text identifies the construction of two meanings for the just transition in which unions and popular environmental movements articulate differentiated approaches. The article concludes by suggesting action-research strategies to promote synergies between labor and environmental movements in the face of the decline and phase-out from the fossil energy model.