German Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch once noted that while the idea of utopia is something we must dream about, we need to temper it with realism. He meant that utopia provides us with a compass towards the seemingly impossible – yet one we should strive for.

The conversation here is about revisiting the word ‘just’ when used to qualify transitions. In many respects, it is a rhetorical device that may or may not live in the real world. It is a mistake to assume that ensuring justice in transitions is solely the responsibility of government or the men and women in corporate boardrooms. The reference to ‘just’ is often a test of how the whole of society is engaged in the project of social solidarity.

Let us assume that each society will find an answer that is more or less intuitively close to the answers of other societies – guided by the Biblical admonition to not do unto others which you would not like done unto you.

To succeed, justice in transitions requires high levels of social consciousness and empathy towards those who are not from your neighbourhood or do not share your affiliations – motivating forms of social solidarity that are neither ethnically nor ‘’tribally’’ defined.

The real test of solidarity is its ability to cohere a common direction, not only in ideas but also in the ability to stick together through trials and tribulations. It is at the point of implementation that things can come asunder. Perhaps you are now in the throes of a transition between puritan ideology and pragmatic tactical shifts, which must be aligned to achieve the ultimate end. Changing gear from utopian ideals to realism requires an adaptive mindset.

The idea of justice in the just transition involves confronting a number of crosshairs. The first is a systemic issue: certain economies simply need a different ethos in order to redefine the social pact between different interest groups in society.

In some places in the world, the idea of justice is neither lived nor embraced in the ethos of the polity, nor in the way the economy engages in the distribution of benefits. Relying on an existing order that does not practise what it preaches amounts to imagining noble outcomes that will not materialise.

The proposition often advanced is that distribution will follow growth, and that investments will naturally cede benefits to local communities. This is a passive notion of achieving justice, in contrast to active redistributive models such as the Rehn-Meidner plan, which labour, business and social democrats devised for Sweden. The plan included extending redistributive methods to wage-earned funds as a way of socialising profits.

We must also note that much of the debate around jobs in the energy transition focuses on the displacement of workers in the coal or fossil fuel industries, but not sufficiently on wage levels and the quality of jobs in the green industries themselves.

Second, transitions are gradual processes, yet the impatience of stakeholders abounds. In some places, transitions require experience. Initially, learning rates are low, so the delivery of outcomes faces arduous challenges in organisation and securing the right capabilities. Implementation can enter the uncertain horizon of change – the never-ending possibilities of fracture and impatience – and foreboding can invite a plethora of voices and opinions that need to be channelled.

Just transition solidarity movements must not delude themselves into thinking that achievements gained through hard-won battles are immovable or that the world stands still. Complacency is the enemy of longevity. Just transition processes must be broad based; while they cannot win everyone, they should secure the support of the most important groups and affiliations in society.

Solidarity at the national level also depends on solidarity between the local and the global.

Global labour is now unified through technology and free movement of capital, so much so that decisions about labour must now take into account the strategies of non-jurisdictional labour – that is, labour over which labour unions and movements have no control, but capital does.

On this account, North-South solidarity is not a given, even though aspirations are universal. We all want to save our planet from the climate crisis, but agreement on how to achieve this and on shared socioeconomic outcomes is not guaranteed. Often, solidarity comes asunder when local priorities take precedence over global ones.