Cybernetic Environmental Hubs for Just Energy Transition: A Viable System Model Framework for Governance in the Global South

Just energy transitions in the Global South unfold under conditions of institutional fragmentation, fiscal constraints, and high socio-ecological turbulence, making governance capacity a critical bottleneck for effective decarbonization and climate justice. This study proposes the Cybernetic Environmental Hub (CEH) framework, which extends the Viable System Model (VSM) to sustainability governance by integrating AIoT-enabled environmental monitoring, Early Warning Systems, decentralized data governance, and justice-centered institutional design. Methodologically, the article is primarily a conceptual framework paper accompanied by an illustrative single-site qualitative case study designed to probe the plausibility and diagnostic utility of the proposed architecture rather than to generate statistical generalization. The research combines theoretical development with participatory territorial diagnostics in the Caribbean Mining Corridor, where socio-ecological challenges were collected through participatory innovation workshops, thematically coded, and mapped onto the five VSM subsystems to identify systemic “variety gaps.” The analysis indicates that fragmented operational initiatives coexist with weak meta-systemic coordination, limiting adaptive capacity in energy transition processes. The CEH architecture is proposed to address these deficiencies by embedding AIoT sensing, federated learning, blockchain-based coordination, and Early Warning Systems within recursive governance structures and is grounded in a real cyber-physical deployment of around 90 monitoring stations across Albania, La Jagua de Ibirico and Algarrobo. The study also introduces a Territorial Governance Maturity Model (H1–H3) to diagnose systemic learning capacities and transition readiness across technological, institutional, data governance, and justice dimensions. The findings suggest that cybernetic environmental hubs may function as socio-technical infrastructures supporting coordinated, adaptive, and justice-centered energy transitions in the Global South, while comparative empirical evidence remains an agenda for future work.