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Growing global awareness of the climate crisis and the need to switch from fossil to renewable energy (RE) has led to growing interest in acquiring land to generate it. Tropical and subtropical rangelands are prime targets for producing RE. Investors, governments and project planners often regard rangelands as "empty", yet pastoralists, hunter-gatherers and cultivators have long used these areas as a common pool resource, through multipurpose use of the land, for their livelihood s. Globally, large-scale land acquisition for RE projects often displaces local people from their land, contrary to their traditional rights, disadvantaging especially pastoralists by blocking access to and fragmenting pastures. This reduces pastoralists' ability to use herd mobility to deal with climatic variability and change and to support their livelihoods. Moreover, project planners rarely manage to obtain locally meaningful free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for using pastureland to produce renewable energy. Even where communities have a chance to negotiate placement of energy installations, they typically enjoy little bargaining power or subsequent benefits, not least because governments and developers may greatly underestimate the value of pastoralism in terms of food production, economic value and ecosystem services and therefore afford low value to rangelands. We analyse the impact of land acquisition in rangelands for RE in Kenya and Mongolia, especially in relation to considerations of climate and energy justice. We explore possibilities of multifunctional land use as part of a 'just transition' that combines pastoralism with generating RE. We identify the type of research needed to help local people gain evidence about the value of their production systems and their contribution to ecosystem services, putting them in a better position to negotiate sharing of l and for and benefits from RE generation.