ALT2: Researching Action

Meanings and Principles of Climate Justice

Climate justice treats global warming as an ethical, legal and political issue rather than a purely physical or environmental problem. Its core premise is that the communities least responsible for historical greenhouse gas emissions consistently suffer the earliest, most severe consequences, while having the fewest resources to adapt.

At Higher Level, you must recognise that climate justice has no single, narrow definition. A strong answer explores multiple meanings and framings:

• A human rights framing: Climate change directly threatens fundamental human rights to life, health, food, water and housing. Governments and private corporations therefore have legal duties to prevent predictable harm.
• A historical and global framing: Wealthy, industrialised countries generated the vast majority of cumulative emissions since the Industrial Revolution. This historical imbalance creates an ecological debt or climate debt, obliging richer nations to fund mitigation (cutting emissions), adaptation (preparing for unavoidable impacts) and loss and damage (compensating for harm that has already occurred and cannot be reversed, such as land lost permanently to sea-level rise; formally established in the UN Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in 2022).
• An intergenerational framing: Current political and economic decisions must protect the rights of younger people and future generations, who will inherit the planet and its climate in whatever state we leave it (intergenerational justice).
• A just transition framing: Workers and communities whose livelihoods rely on high-carbon sectors must not bear the economic cost of decarbonisation alone.

Equity versus Equality

There is a vital distinction in policy between equality and equity. Equality means treating everyone identically—such as offering an identical home-insulation grant to every household. Equity recognises that different households start from different positions. An identical grant leaves lower-income families unable to pay the remaining balance, so an equitable policy offers fully funded retrofits to those experiencing fuel poverty.

Intersecting Vulnerabilities

Climate change does not affect everyone equally because climate hazards interact with existing social inequalities:

• Geography: Low-lying coastal districts and drought-prone regions face direct physical exposure to extreme weather and rising waters.
• Socioeconomic Status: Wealthier households can purchase private insurance, modern insulation, and alternative food supplies, whereas lower-income households face fuel poverty and higher risks from uninsulated housing.
• Age and Gender: Older people and infants are physiologically more vulnerable to heatwaves, while globally, women frequently carry disproportionate responsibilities for securing water, fuel and food during environmental disruptions.
• Citizenship and Ethnicity: Indigenous populations and marginalised ethnic minorities often face natural resource extraction on their ancestral lands without genuine consent, while undocumented people frequently lack access to state emergency relief.

How Climate Justice Informs Action

When you apply a climate justice lens to an initiative, three practical questions change how you design and evaluate it:

1. Who is worst affected, and are they leading or actively involved in the solution?
2. Who pays the cost, and can they realistically afford it?
3. Who holds the structural power to fix the issue, and how can they be held to account?

For instance, a campaign for cheaper local bus fares becomes a justice action when framed around low-income workers and students who have no access to private cars, rather than around carbon reduction alone.

Characteristics of Effective Action and Historical Root Causes

A core objective of ALT2 is evaluating whether an initiative tackles underlying root causes or merely manages visible symptoms. A symptom is an outward sign of an issue, such as litter on a strand or traffic exhaust outside a school gate. A root cause is the structural, regulatory, or economic mechanism creating that outcome, such as commercial manufacturing of non-recyclable materials or town planning that fails to provide segregated cycle paths.

The Six Features of Effective Action

Your course sets out six features of effective action. Learn them—they are the checklist you use every time you judge somebody else's action, and the checklist your own Action Project will be judged against. Effective action:

1. Is collective in nature: Organises groups, workforces, or communities rather than relying solely on individual consumer habits.
2. Aims to address root causes: Directly targets the regulatory, economic, or systemic drivers of environmental harm rather than treating symptoms.
3. Considers power, and who has power: Examines who holds decision-making authority, who benefits from the status quo, and how to hold those entities accountable.
4. Is based on solidarity: Works alongside and supports people directly affected by climate issues rather than imposing top-down solutions.
5. Is empowering and invites participation: Involves people and communities beyond the classroom in wider society, building lasting civic capacity.
6. Contributes to and addresses transformation of global inequalities: Actively challenges disparities in wealth, voice, and resource access.

Connecting Modern Actions to Historical Root Causes

A root cause is almost always older than the action taken to fix it. When investigating an action, ask what historical decisions created the contemporary problem.

• Irish case — peat extraction in the Midlands: From the 1940s onwards, the Irish State deliberately built the regional economy of the Midlands around commercial peat extraction by Bord na Móna and peat-fired power stations to secure national energy security. That historical policy drained raised bogs—releasing stored carbon and degrading biodiversity—while binding thousands of rural families to a single high-carbon employer. Today's modern action—closing peat power plants and rewetting bogs—creates an acute justice challenge. The workers and towns being asked to absorb economic disruption are the very ones the State directed into peat harvesting decades ago. The Just Transition Fund, retraining schemes and bog-rehabilitation programmes exist to address this historical legacy, not just current carbon totals.
• Global case — cumulative emissions: High-income industrialised nations produced the majority of cumulative atmospheric carbon since 1850. Yet countries across the Global South that emitted the least suffer the most immediate, severe droughts and storm surges. This historical divergence is the root cause behind modern diplomatic demands for international climate finance and loss and damage compensation.

Outputs, Outcomes, and Impacts

When evaluating an action's success, distinguish between three levels of result:

• Outputs: Immediate activities or tangible products (e.g. 600 signatures gathered on a petition, a town-hall meeting held, or a policy document published).
• Outcomes: Intermediate behavioural, regulatory, or infrastructural changes (e.g. a local authority voting to install a dedicated cycle lane or an employer altering travel allowances).
• Impacts: Long-term, measurable structural shifts (e.g. a sustained 15% reduction in commuter transport emissions or a measurable drop in local fuel poverty rates).

Evaluating Research Sources and Secondary Data

Investigating climate action requires gathering and interrogating secondary data—information compiled and published by external bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), the IPCC, local authorities, academic journals, corporate entities, or community NGOs.

The guidelines ask you to assess each source for reliability and quality—and they define that as three things: relevance, accuracy, and bias. On top of that, your course content warns that sources may lack detail, so always ask what a source leaves out.

• Relevance: Does the evidence directly address your specific research question, geographic boundary, and baseline time period (e.g. matching Ireland's 2018 baseline year)? Or is it broad, unrelated commentary?
• Accuracy: How was the data gathered? Look at sample sizes, scientific methodology, and whether the claims are backed by traceable evidence or independently audited.
• Bias: Identify who produced or funded the material. A commercial airline or fossil fuel company highlighting a small carbon-offset scheme has a direct financial interest in delaying binding regulations. Contrast this with independent statutory audits.
• What is missing?: Always interrogate omissions. Does a national emissions total count only what is burned inside the country, leaving out international flights and shipping—and the emissions produced abroad to make the goods we import? Does a travel survey only sample daytime office commuters while missing shift workers?

Triangulation in Practice

Comparing findings across multiple independent viewpoints is called triangulation. Triangulation ensures your judgement does not depend on a single slanted dataset.

Worked Source Evaluation: Comparing Two Sources

• Source A: EPA National Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory Report
• Relevance: Highly relevant to national climate mitigation; tracks sectoral totals annually against legally binding national carbon budgets and the 2018 baseline.
• Accuracy: High; collected according to internationally agreed UNFCCC reporting standards and independently verified by statutory scientists.
• Bias: Low; published by an independent statutory environmental regulator with no commercial profit motive.
• Limitations: Records only territorial emissions (what is emitted within Irish borders), leaving out emissions embedded in imported goods and international aviation.
• Source B: Airline Corporate Sustainability Report
• Relevance: Partially relevant; provides company-level emissions figures, but does not provide national or sectoral context.
• Accuracy: Questionable; claims flights are 'carbon-neutral' based on voluntary tree-planting schemes without third-party audit data on seedling survival rates.
• Bias: High; commercial enterprise with an economic motive to prevent passenger flight taxes and fuel duties.
• Limitations: Offsets do not remove aviation emissions from the atmosphere at the moment of flight, and future carbon capture from trees takes decades to occur.

Political and Economic Systems, Power, and Agency

Individual behaviour is shaped and constrained by political and economic systems. Appealing to personal goodwill accomplishes little if public infrastructure fails to offer an affordable, reliable, low-carbon alternative.

Systemic Levers on Behaviour

In an exam, name the mechanism, the body that controls it, and one consequence for an ordinary household. For example: 'The SEAI provides grants for heat pumps; because the grant covers only part of the capital cost, a low-income household may still be unable to afford the balance, which is why fully funded retrofits under the Warmer Homes Scheme are targeted at households in energy poverty.'

Examining Power Relationships and Accountability

When examining an issue, sort power into three distinct forms:

• Decision-making power: Who has the legal authority to say yes or no? A county council over local zoning and bus corridors; a government minister over grant criteria; the Oireachtas over national legislation; the EU over binding directives.
• Economic power: Who controls the capital and resources? Commercial banks, institutional investment funds, developers, large agribusinesses and energy corporations. They can accelerate or stall transitions through investment choices without facing a public election.
• Narrative power: Who shapes what the public perceives as normal, affordable, or extreme? Media outlets, commercial advertisers, social media algorithms, and corporate public relations campaigns.

Then ask the accountability question: how can each holder of power be held to account? Elected politicians are held accountable via elections, parliamentary questions, and local council meetings; public bodies via statutory EPA reporting, ombudsman investigations, and judicial reviews in the High Court; private corporations via state regulations, customer boycotts, union campaigns, and consumer protection laws.

Political Agency is the capacity of individuals, grassroots coalitions, and communities to organise, challenge power holders, demand policy change, and hold institutions to account. Citizens exercise political agency through voting, statutory planning submissions, boycotts, school climate strikes, trade union campaigns, and strategic litigation in the courts.

A Bank of Real Actions Taken by Others

ALT2 requires you to research real actions across local, national and global levels. For Section A of your Action Project Journal (and for written exam case questions), keep concrete, named examples ready:

Connecting ALT2 to the Action Project and Written Examination

Stage 3 of the Action Project (Researching an action taken by others) is ALT2 put into practice, while the analytical and data skills you build are directly examined in the written paper.

The Action Project Journal (40% / 200 marks)

ALT2 provides the content for Section A: Research to inform action of your digital coursework journal:

• Worth 30 marks with a suggested length of 350 words (the entire journal has a strict 1800-word ceiling).
• Section A Checklist (in required order):

1. Project Title: A clear, specific title linked to the annual brief.
2. Research Summary: Key findings from background research on the brief's topic.
3. List of Groups: Multiple real groups or organisations that have taken action on the topic.
4. Selected Group: One specific group chosen from your list.
5. Justification: Clear explanation of why you selected this group.
6. Description: What specific action the group carried out, including where, when, and how.
7. Appropriateness: Analysis of whether the action suited the group's aim and target.
8. Evaluation of Success: Balanced judgement using evidence, outputs, outcomes, and limitations.

Separating 'Appropriate' from 'Successful'

Section A explicitly requires two distinct judgements. Collapsing them into one will lose marks:

• Appropriate asks: Did the chosen method fit the group's stated goal, the target entity, and available resources? A petition directed at a private company with no legal duty to respond is often inappropriate; a judicial review in court is highly appropriate when challenging a public authority's statutory failure.
• Successful asks: Did the action achieve its stated aim? You must evaluate actual outputs, outcomes, and impacts using dated facts or figures, and explicitly acknowledge limitations.

Referencing Rules for the Journal

• Reference twice: an in-text citation in the body of your text, and a complete entry in Section D: References and bibliography.
• No single formal referencing style is mandated, but you must provide enough detail for an examiner to verify the source.
• Print sources: Author, publication title, year, and page or chapter (e.g. (p. 57, McLeskey, 2013)).
• Online sources: Author/organisation, title, hyperlink, and the exact date accessed.
• Audio/Video: Include the timestamp of the exact excerpt used.
• AI Tools: You must acknowledge any artificial intelligence tool used to gather information or draft plans. State the tool name, date accessed, a brief explanation of how you used it, and either the shareable URL or the exact prompt used. Using unacknowledged AI text constitutes plagiarism.
• Word Count Benefit: In-text citations and the Section D bibliography are excluded from the 1800-word limit.

The Written Examination (60% / 300 marks)

The final exam paper (Section A 60 marks, Section B 160 marks, Section C 80 marks at Higher Level) assesses learning across the course and the application of that learning to authentic, real-world issues. Expect to work with unseen stimulus materials—such as national emissions charts, planning disputes, transport datasets, and community case studies. Unlike the coursework journal, formal URLs and citation lists are not required in the examination room, though naming evidence sources (e.g. 'according to the EPA') demonstrates strong academic practice.

Command Verbs in the CASD Examination

The specification sets out a precise glossary of action verbs. Answering Higher Level questions effectively requires knowing what each verb demands:

• Explore: Observe and study something in order to establish facts (used for examining the diverse meanings and principles of climate justice).
• Explain: Give a detailed account including reasons or causes. Providing a simple list of facts without showing why or how will not earn full marks.
• Discuss: Offer a considered, balanced review that includes a range of arguments or factors; your conclusions must be stated clearly and backed by evidence.
• Analyse: Break down evidence or an issue into its parts, identify the relationships between them, and interpret the information to reach a conclusion.
• Examine: Consider an argument or concept in a way that uncovers underlying assumptions and power relationships.
• Evaluate (data): Collect and examine data to make a judgement; show how the evidence supports or refutes a conclusion; and explicitly identify the limitations of the data.
• Evaluate (ethical judgement): Collect and examine evidence to make a moral or justice appraisal; show how evidence supports or undermines that judgement; and identify the limitations of the evidence.
• Outline: Give the main points, restricted to essentials. Avoid long narrative essays when an outline is requested.

Golden Exam Rules: An evaluate answer is incomplete without a stated limitation. A discuss answer is incomplete without both sides and a reasoned conclusion.

Key terms

Climate Justice

An ethical, legal and political framework treating climate change as a human rights issue, recognising that those least responsible for emissions suffer the worst impacts and have the fewest resources to adapt.

Distributive Justice

The fair and equitable sharing of environmental burdens, financial costs, and benefits across different social groups, regions, and nations.

Procedural Justice

Fairness, transparency, and inclusivity in decision-making processes, ensuring affected communities have a genuine voice, access to information, and legal standing.

Intergenerational Justice

The principle that decisions taken today must protect the rights, resources, and ecological stability inherited by younger and future generations.

Root Causes

The underlying structural, economic, political, or institutional drivers of an environmental or social issue, contrasted with visible surface symptoms.

Effective Action

Action that is collective, targets root causes, considers power relations, acts in solidarity with affected groups, empowers wider community participation, and transforms inequalities.

Political Agency

The capacity of individuals, grassroots groups, and communities to organise, challenge decision-makers, demand structural reforms, and hold institutions to account.

Secondary Data

Quantitative or qualitative information gathered, compiled, and published by external organisations (such as the EPA, SEAI, or research institutes) rather than collected first-hand.

Source Bias

A systematic slant or prejudice in research material arising from commercial self-interest, political ideology, or organisational affiliation.

Triangulation

The practice of comparing multiple independent sources, datasets, or research methods to verify claims and arrive at a balanced, justified conclusion.

Outputs, Outcomes, and Impacts

Outputs are immediate activities or products (e.g. a protest march); outcomes are short-to-medium-term changes (e.g. policy amendments); impacts are long-term systemic effects (e.g. measured emissions cuts).

External Cost

An environmental or social cost generated by economic production or consumption that is imposed on third parties and not reflected in market prices.