Research Updates
New Book: Climate Justice and the University
Jennie Stephens’ exploration of how higher education can advance transformative climate justice.
Amid the worsening climate crisis and intensifying inequities, higher education can play a powerful role in addressing the intersecting crises facing humanity. Institutions of higher education hold untapped potential to advance social justice and reduce climate injustices. However, universities are not yet structured to accelerate social change for the public good. In Climate Justice and the University, Jennie Stephens reimagines the potential of higher education to advance human well-being and promote ecological health.
Drawing on over thirty years of experience working on the climate crisis within higher education, Stephens offers a provocative and pathbreaking vision of how higher education can accelerate the shift toward more equitable, healthy, and stable futures for all. Building on a US and European context, she integrates examples from the innovative landscape of transformative education initiatives around the world.
With climate chaos exacerbating instability of all kinds, reimagining the transformative power of higher education is hopeful and empowering. By inviting readers to collectively reimagine different priorities and structures within higher education, Stephens disrupts long-held assumptions about how universities advance learning and research, suggesting possibilities to shape a more equitable future for all.
Recent Publication
by team member Greg Pierce and his colleagues
“Greg Pierce, research and co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, co-authored a correspondence piece in the April 2025 publication of nature energy on lessons learned from L.A.’s just energy transition initiative. The city’s commitment to reach a 100 percent renewable equitable electricity grid by 2035 was followed by a 2021 study establishing the feasibility of local grid decarbonization pathways which emphasized that only justice-oriented strategies would ensure equity outcomes. Pierce and his co-authors were part of the LA100 Equity Strategies effort, a two-year partnership between the city’s electric utility — the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) — researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, UCLA, and local community-based organizations (CBOs) which was concluded in late 2023. In the nature energy piece, Pierce and colleagues summarize what other cities can learn from their findings and include five key insights that may be helpful for other cities working on a just transition.”
The Climate Justice Universities Union: Reclaiming Higher Education for Societal Transformation
Launched in Autumn 2024 with contributions from our team member Jennie Stephens, the Climate Justice Universities Union is a transdisciplinary collective uniting university workers, students, activists, and community members from across Ireland and beyond. The Union aims to transform higher education into a driving force for climate and social justice, addressing systemic inequalities and fostering meaningful action to confront the planetary crisis.
Born out of shared concerns about academia’s complicity in reproducing unsustainable and inequitable systems, the Union has organized grassroots People’s Assembly-style events across Ireland to answer a critical question: What should higher education institutions do about the climate crisis? These deliberative forums have sparked a movement focused on reshaping research, teaching, and governance to center human and ecological well-being.
The Union’s priorities include ensuring all students graduate with knowledge of the climate crisis, advocating for universities to divest from extractive industries, and addressing economic precarity among staff and students. Guided by a non-hierarchical and collaborative approach, the Union connects people across disciplines and geographies to reimagine the role of higher education in building a just and sustainable future.
Join Jennie in this transformative journey and help shape the future of education as a force for the common good. Learn more at: