Bridging Disciplines for Climate Justice: A Conversation with Rebecca Marwege

As the climate crisis accelerates, so does the urgency for equitable solutions and a just transition. But effective action requires a shared understanding—a goal often hindered by the very academic structures designed to produce knowledge. A new book, Climate Justice Now, slated for release in March 2026, aims to break down these barriers. 

The book, co-edited by Rebecca Marwege (an assistant professor of environmental politics at the American University of Paris), Nikhar Gaikwad (assistant professor of political science) and Joerg Schaefer (Professor in the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory), grew from a workshop series Marwege and Gaikwad started during the pandemic. "When I started my PhD... I met up with Nikhar, and Nikhar was telling me that, together with Page Fortna, he was planning to organize a workshop series on climate change and the social sciences," Marwege explains. What began as discussion among social scientists soon snowballed into an interdisciplinary research network housed at the Columbia Climate School. 

This network became a useful meeting ground for scholars who might not have otherwise crossed paths. "It was actually really nice because I had never heard of Lamont before," Marwege recalls, highlighting the gap that often exists even within a single university. The network brought together political scientists, atmospheric scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, legal scholars, and humanities experts from fields like English literature and philosophy. The interdisciplinary nature of the network allowed for a deeper, more holistic understanding of the climate crisis. "It's much easier if you have a person that you can talk with to really understand an issue outside of your field," she says.

The primary goal of Climate Justice Now is to make these vital conversations, and the resulting insights, accessible to a broader audience. "The goal of the book was... to make the conversations that we had in the network accessible to people outside of it," says Marwege. While much of the literature rightly focuses on frontline communities, this book turns the lens inward, examining how different academic disciplines approach the concept of climate justice.

With chapters on everything from the politics of climate justice and urban studies to migration and environmental health, it provides diverse case studies from New York City to West Africa. "We want everyone to find something in it that will be interesting for them," Marwege notes. "It provides a lot of resources to... illustrate and teach about the problems that we have."

Marwege also emphasizes the crucial role of the university in the climate justice movement. She sees a dual mandate: first, to be an institution "purely focused on academic research" with the resources to tackle difficult questions without distraction, and second, to engage in "community outreach and to benefit the communities that you're interacting with."

In a political climate where the term "climate justice" can be polarizing, Marwege remains focused on the facts of the issue. "The issue of climate justice is not going to disappear," she states firmly. "The impact that [climate change] has on already marginalized communities is also not going to go away, even if people talk about it differently."

Climate Justice Now: Crossing Disciplines to Combat Our Planetary Crisis will be published by Columbia University Press in March 2026 and is available for pre-order here.