Beyond Watts and Wheels: Mapping equity and justice in energy and mobility transitions research

Achieving low-carbon and resilient futures requires rapid transitions in high-emitting sectors such as energy and mobility. Yet these transitions raise significant equity and justice challenges, as policies risk reproducing and exacerbating existing inequalities. Despite shared concerns over affordability, accessibility, and exposure to harm, scholarship on energy and mobility justice remains fragmented and sector-specific. This review presents a systematic, cross-sectoral analysis of justice-oriented scholarship across both domains, analyzing 481 peer-reviewed articles published between 2003–2022. Bibliometric and thematic analyses reveal three dominant patterns: (i) conceptual narrowness, with distributive, procedural, and recognition-based dimensions prevailing; (ii) asymmetry in the geography of knowledge production, driven by a small number of central knowledge brokers predominantly affiliated in the Global North; and (iii) institutional and technocratic framings that marginalize power-laden externalities and conflicts. As a synthesis, we introduce the Spatio-temporal, Holistic, and Inclusive Framework for Transition (SHIFT) to advance pluralistic, intersectional, and context-sensitive low-carbon justice agendas.