Affective climate injustice and infrastructural Apathy: Rethinking public pedagogies for climate engagement

This conceptual paper introduces the notion of affective climate injustice to highlight an often overlooked dimension of climate injustice: its emotional contours. Affective climate injustice refers to the suppression, devaluation, or unequal distribution of emotions—such as grief, anger, or care—that disproportionately burden marginalized and climate-vulnerable communities. The paper further reconceptualizes climate apathy—variously expressed as privilege, silencing, and exhaustion—not as an individual shortcoming but as an infrastructural affective condition produced through socio-political, material, educational, and cultural arrangements. By bringing these two concepts into dialogue, the paper challenges dominant approaches that privilege knowledge transfer or resilience-building while overlooking the emotional and relational consequences of climate change. The analysis concludes by arguing that public pedagogies grounded in these insights can help cultivate new forms of collective engagement and support more just and transformative responses to the climate crisis. • Affective climate injustice highlights an often overlooked dimension of climate injustice. • Climate apathy is not an individual shortcoming but an infrastructural affect. • Public pedagogies of affective climate justice challenge climate apathy.