We explore climate change adaptation planning from a justice perspective. We draw on the growing literature on the politics of adaptation and on justice theories and highlight the need for incorporating the distributive, procedural and recognition justice dimensions in adaptation planning. Adaptation to climate change is reframed as a set of temporal, spatial and socio-political choices that have significant justice implications.

This paper examines the climate justice narratives that are gradually emerging in the cross-border territory of Chiapas–Guatemala, in an area of high socio-environmental conflict. The religious factor is the driving force behind many of these anti-capitalist struggles, especially from the perspective of liberation theology. The case study is a call for the inclusion of religion in climate and environmental justice theories, as a relevant factor in territories with a colonial past.

When authorities act apparently to protect communities from risks, including those made worse by climate change, there can be other motives at work. Through research in Rio de Janeiro we analyse how a favela clearance policy was brought in after landslides in 2010 with only weak technical justification. Favela dwellers, activists and counter-experts formed a network to contest these moves, challenge the risk assessments undertaken and build a partially successful resistance to an unjust policy.

Taking as an example coastal protection infrastructure under construction in the Venetian Lagoon, we reflect on how environmental justice approaches are useful to analyse the socio-political processes shaping coastal environments and climate change adaptation interventions.

In debates on deep-seabed mining (DSM), contrasting stories on mining carry different degrees of narrative potency and thus of potential discursive influence. We trace dominant discursive positions and their narrative structures to explain their relative success or failure. A successful narrative critique on DSM requires more pronounced depictions of the negative consequences in particular for humans, exposing the politics in policy making and offering captivating stories on alternatives.