As the two week-long climate talks at Bonn, Germany, came to an end on June 18, countries reached a deadlock on the negotiations concerning the Just Transition Mechanism. The points made at Bonn will be discussed further at the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Turkey, later this year.The Just Transition Mechanism (JTM), also known as the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM), was officially agreed upon during COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025. Part of a larger sustainability framework, the term ‘Just Transition’ itself is often attributed to Tony Mazzocchi, a American labour and environmental activist with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, who advocated for workers displaced by environmental regulations and the phase-out of hazardous industries in the 1980s. Since then, the concept has expanded into a major international framework promoting fairness and worker protections in the transition to sustainable economies.JTM was introduced to address socioeconomic disruptions from phasing out fossil fuels by supporting workers and communities by covering human rights, labour, gender equality, and Indigenous rights. It establishes a whole-of-economy framework linking Just Transition to mitigation, adaptation and equity goals, with its success depending on future funding and implementation.In a win for civil society, the text that highlighted the timelines to make the mechanism operational was added to the informal text of the JTM negotiations at Bonn. The timeline has three phases:Phase 1 includes design and negotiation, which will culminate in a decision in COP31. Phase 2 involves institutional establishment and work program development at COP32.Phase 3 (COP33-COP35) is for scaling implementation and reporting on progress.Initially, countries in the Global North had attempted to weaken the JTM. They did so by insinuating that additional decisions and reports could serve as substitutes for the mechanism, an observer said.Anabella Rosemberg, Senior Advisor on Just Transition at Climate Action Network-International, closely followed the negotiations at the mid-year talks that feed into the annual COPs. “Japan, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom are arguing that while we agreed to develop a mechanism, the functions and modalities are to be defined, and their definition is very much like dialogues and reports,” she told The Wire. “Many developed countries are trying to pretend COP30 didn’t happen or that a mechanism can be made out of hot air without institutions. But I’m confident the countries will consolidate the ambitions of the Global South and shift unhelpful positions of developed countries so that we can all benefit from the speedy implementation of the BAM,” Rosemberg noted. In 2022, at COP27, the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) was launched essentially as a dialogue-based platform, to emphasise the sharing of knowledge, regular dialogue at least twice a year, and the sharing of experiences on Just Transition through United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) subsidiary bodies.While the JTWP is still mostly conversational and exploratory, JTM has been introduced as a key element of the JTWP to turn the focus to practical, operational and implementation-driven support for Just Transitions. “There is a tension between evaluating and improving the JTWP and creating the JTM, which is supposed to be implementation-oriented. Parties that don’t want the mechanism spend a lot of time on the WP to avoid having to discuss the JTM,” Rosemberg said, adding that procedural delays prevented the discussions from moving forward. Ironically, India took a leading role in advocating aspects related to finance and equity associated with a Just Transition at COP30, while domestically, the country itself lacks a national policy.India was also vocal at Bonn, particularly in mentioning that one of the main objectives of the JTM “is to identify and explore ways to address the barriers and challenges to achieving Just Transitions both globally and nationally. It is important that we have fair and frank discussions about climate-related unilateral trade measures, assess their impacts, and establish methods of addressing the imposition of such measures themselves, as well as their impacts on developing countries”.Also read: India Urges Action on Declining Climate Finance at Bonn Climate TalksIndia said that the JTWP has built an understanding that recognises development as the core lens for climate action. This approach is especially important for developing regions. These regions have not benefited from earlier economic growth that used up a large part of the global carbon budget. The JTM must support this understanding and help operationalise it. The framework includes how we approach climate action, share the mitigation burden, and achieve the long-term goal of the UNFCCC.“If you look at the trajectory of the debate and negotiations, the real issue is that the transition costs money, and currently, no funds are being allocated to make that happen,” Ashim Roy, general secretary of the India Workers Peasants Council and co-founding member of Trade Union for Energy Democracy, told The Wire.“I don’t think the Government of India has yet come up with a Just Transition policy. So without a Just Transition policy currently, the debate is primarily happening at a global level,” Roy added.Absence of a Just Transition policy in IndiaWhile JTM encompasses the broader economy with wider social benefits, it might help countries with strategies to transition coal regions.“As several countries are taking steps to achieve net zero targets, at an international level it makes sense to have a broader approach that includes Common But Differentiated Responsibilities. To bring that back and connect it to India’s or any other countries’ actual ground realities is a different ballgame,” senior lead for international energy transitions at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, Sandeep Pai, told The Wire.In India’s case, without a specific and comprehensive Just Transition policy, communities employed by coal regions might have to forgo the security of employment, particularly workers from marginalised communities, while leaving the mined land abandoned, prone to pollution, and health risks.For the first time, according to Pai’s 2026 study Systems-level repurposing of coal assets: Insights from South Africa, India and the United States, the concept of a Just Transition was embedded within the Ministry of Coal’s Mining Plan Guidelines for Coal and Lignite Mine, 2025.According to the guidelines, Just Transition “refers to the equitable process of transitioning from traditional coal/lignite mining toward more sustainable and environmentally friendly and socially responsible manners, ensuring that the environment is protected, the land is restored, and affected workers, communities, and regions are supported and empowered throughout the transformation. It involves recognising and addressing the social, economic, and environmental challenges associated with mine closure activities.”Also read: India’s Coal Mine Closure Crisis Threatens Just TransitionThe Ministry of Coal issued initial land restoration guidelines in 2009, followed by revisions in 2013 and 2019 that further stressed the priority of early reclamation, ecological restoration, and reforestation “A Just Transition in the energy realm could take different approaches. Many see coal asset repurposing, from closed mines and plants to new uses like solar, as an essential tool to a Just Transition,” Pai said.According to a 2025 analysis by Global Energy Monitor, more than 63 abandoned coal mine locations in India have the technical potential to support 27.11 GW of solar power generation.“For instance, if coal companies like NTPC or Coal India Limited commissioned a solar power plant in eastern coal dependent states or Jharkhand or Chhattisgarh, then that helps the state achieve its Just Transition goals. Even more so, if coal mines or power plants are repurposed for alternate uses, at least 10-30% of directly employed people’s jobs could be saved and some of the indirect jobs could still be saved,” Pai added.Mine closureDue to surging electricity demand, the Central Electricity Authority issued an advisory urging coal-based power plants not to retire or repurpose until 2030. “Studies around the world show that the elephant in the room is the mining sector, not the power sector from a Just Transition point of view. Power plants are very mechanised and don’t employ more than 20% of the workers in the coal sector,” Pai said.On the other hand, mines are a bigger ecosystem with 404 operational units in India. The Ministry of Mines targets closing 147 in the next few years, of which 42 have been shut till date. One of the barriers to restoring land is the confusion regarding land ownership. The government acquires land through special acts such as the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957, and leases it to coal companies. “Once the mine is closed, there are no clear mechanisms to re-lease the land to the company for other applications like solar, leading to long delays and legal bottlenecks,” per Pai’s study.Just Transition cellsAccording a recent paper titled A Sahajiya, Bharatiya Lens of People-centric Energy Transition, “Ultimately, the success of India’s transition away from coal will depend on the ability of the government to use policy to create a situation where Structural Vulnerability is transformed into Capability, Loss is converted into Renewal, and Displacement is turned into Dignity.”Led by researcher Anandajit Goswami at the Ashoka Centre for a People-centric Energy Transition, the paper highlights that the people dependent on mines are facing high degree of uncertainty due to job insecurity caused by the likely closure of the mines they work for. When coal mines close, medical bills remain without a steady income, the paper indicates. With coal mining taking a toll on the health of the villagers, their medical expenses rose by Rs 5000 per year, putting a further strain on their financial resources in Talcher coal field, according to a 2019 NITI Aayog report. The solution could lie in creating Just Transition Cells in coal regions to coordinate regional development with participation from informal coal workers, women and Adivasis. “They must also be involved in participatory mapping, community-led ecological assessments, and included in mine closure planning,” the paper said.There is a caste factor that appears to play a prominent role in the rehabilitation of coal workers, with some workers from Scheduled Castes reporting difficulty in finding any other form of employment. The study highlights the plight of one coal worker who is forced into manual scavenging as an alternative to working on the mines. The constitution of one such body dedicated to promoting the concept of a Just Transition has not yielded much effort to date. Jharkhand’s Just Transition task forceJharkhand, considered the coal capital of India, constituted a ‘Task Force on Sustainable Just Transition’ in November 2022, which has adopted a state specific framework. The task force functions as an advisory body that conducts training for government officials, industry representatives and workers with the goal to mainstream Just Transition in several departments. Research conducted with partners such as World Resources Institute and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has led to the creation of a repository of studies on mining, green steel, iron industries, climate smart agriculture and sustainable mobility. However, its capacity is largely limited as it functions as an ad hoc body. A recent study by think tank Sustainable Futures Collaborative emphasised that there needs to be more inter-departmental coordination for the task force to have an impact. Secretaries of 17 government departments are the point of contact to initiate awareness campaigns. However, the secretaries’ designations keep changing within the government and they generally have unpredictable schedules, making coordination a challenge across the state’s departments. Also read: The Battle Over a Global Energy Transition is on Between Petro-States and Electro-StatesCurrently, the task force has just one full time member – the chairman – retired Indian Forest Officer Ajay Kumar Rastogi. Besides him, there are no permanent staff members, the study said. The Centre for Environment and Energy Development handles the administrative tasks.The 2026 study that took a close look at the functioning of the task force said that “the consultations are limited to high level stakeholders, hindering the participation of grassroots organisations and communities, which bear the brunt of the energy transition. Communities were hesitant to share their experiences and insights due to concerns regarding the shutdown of coal mines, a critical source of livelihood.” Trust has to be built among communities over a period of time and without permanent employees, it will remain an uphill task, the researchers said.Just Transition and renewable energyIndia targets becoming a net-zero country by 2070, with an interim target of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel power capacity for 2030. India is on track to achieve this target with 282.75 GW already installed. However, when renewable energy projects are mounted, marginalised communities are always at risk of being displaced from their land and losing their livelihoods. This is the reality of the Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Project comprising 750 megawatts of solar power generating capacity across 4,000 acres of land in Rewa district in Madhya Pradesh. Villagers who gave up their land are unable to find adequate employment and are migrating to other locations, according to extensive interviews carried out by autonomous environmental organisation Friends of the Earth India in June and July 2022.A case study of the project was published in the report titled Renewable Energy and Land Use, Barriers to Just Transition in The Global South. A villager is quoted in the report saying, “I do not know where else to go. My land has been trapped, and I have tried all avenues to get a resolution, but none of the officials seem to be empathetic to my plight.”While the project itself employs people to run it, marginalised communities such as farmers and pastoralists have been left behind, the report highlighted. Before the project, the villagers depended on the land for their livelihood by growing crops such as wheat, rice and green gram. This was no longer an option, echoed another villager: “We thought the project would give us jobs, but the project is giving jobs to outsiders. And those who are doing the jobs are not even well paid.” Ironically, per the report, the villagers faced energy scarcity without electricity for up to 18 hours a day.Seema Prasad is a freelance journalist based in India, covering health, energy and climate change.