Conference Agenda

The EU’s Green Transition means major changes in choices, emphases, and practices regarding the use of natural resources. In Finland, the Green Transition has meant a rapid reduction in the use of energy peat and the need to increase the production of battery metals and the utilization of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power. Pressure is placed especially on the rural areas which hold most of the natural resources in question. At the same time, conflicts over the governance of natural resources linked to the Green Transition have been increasing in Finland, demonstrating the tensions between sustainability and justice goals.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the spatial dimension of just transitions. However, research on environmental justice and just transition from the perspective of rural areas is still scarce. By combining the rural perspective to the research on environmental justice and natural resource conflicts, this paper looks more in detail to the rural areas under pressure. We ask what does environmental justice mean in rural and for rural areas in relation to the use of natural resources? What type of tensions in relation to the transition can be analyzed? In addition, we explore what type of governance solutions are needed to take the diversity of rural areas into account and to respond to the justice issues related to the Green Transition.

The paper presents the preliminary results of a comparative case study that is based on data collected in seven municipalities representing different types of rural areas in different parts of Finland. The municipalities have current conflicts of different intensities related to the use of natural resources and the Green Transition. Interviews (n=20) and a survey (n=612) were conducted in the municipalities in the winter 2023. The survey was used to map the local views on the use of natural resources, (spatial) justice, and the implications of the Green Transition in rural areas. Workshops for the locals will be held in the municipalities during the spring 2023 to further the knowledge on and look for solutions to the issues arisen from the survey.

In this paper, I explore the role of national sustainability institutions in decision-making with a focus on Germany as a country case study. By sustainability institutions, I understand the manifold formal political bodies installed specifically with the purpose to promoting sustainability in politics. They may comprise councils, committees, commissions or ombudspersons for sustainability, for sustainable development, for the future or for future generations. Governments around the world have installed such specialised political bodies, often in response to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 or the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

In Germany, I zoom in on at least four such bodies at the national political level: the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Sustainable Development in the German Bundestag, the State Secretary Committee for Sustainable Development, the German Council for Sustainable Development and the German Advisory Council on Global Change. My research question reads: Do sustainability institutions influence political decision-making, and if so, how? Against this background, I am particularly interested in the different explicit or implicit logics of intervention that underpin these institutions conceptually. I take Boston’s list of intervention logics of governance mechanisms for the future as point of departure, which includes, first, the constraint of decision-makers, second, the enhancement of long-term analysis, third, advocacy on behalf of future interests, and fourth, enhancement of the government’s capacity to exercise stewardship (Boston 2017, 175). By examining their mandates and functions, I attribute these different intervention logics to the different sustainability institutions in my country case. Methodologically, the case study rests on a combination of document analysis as well as on semi-structured interviews mainly with members and former members of national sustainability institutions as well as experts in the field of sustainability governance in Germany. I apply and adapt an analytical framework developed in previous conceptual work.

With this case study of national sustainability institutions in Germany, I shed light on the design and impact of such specialized political bodies on decision-making as well as on the complementarity and interplay between them. Such analysis helps in estimating and managing expectations towards these institutions’ roles in the transformation to sustainability.

According to government officials, the German coal phase out represents one of the most large-scale attempts at politically steering and democratically organizing a consequential decarbonization process.We critically scrutinize this claim based on our experience as engaged transformation researchers, summarizing 5 years of research in the West and East German lignite districts. We thus give grounded empirical and reflexive insights into the limitations of participatory governance and transdisciplinary research.

Both our research groups [institutes removed] have been involved as transdisciplinary collaborators for policy makers, economic planners and civil society in the Rhineland and Lusatia. We were given a mandate from both "Länder" governments to accompagny local participation and cross-sector collaboration processes (regarding future workshops in Lusatia and the bioeconomy in Rhineland). In this talk we try to give a big picture of both regions and their contrasting governance setups. We look back on several endeavors of qualitative research and transdisciplinary workshops in a comparative way.

Four questions guide our comparison: 1) Which concepts of just transition underpin the federal and regional policies with regard to regional transitions? 2) Which processes of public participation did the governments and civil society launch and in how far did they impact the (il-)legitimacy of the phase out decision? 3) Which innovation policies were launched to bolster the anticipated impact of the coal-phase out on regional economy and technological development? 4) And by which means and with which lessons have we locally integrated in these processes as transdisciplinary scholars?

In all four aspects we claim that the political cultures of both regions vary drastically. Given the past legacies of Rhenish and Lusatian industry as well as differently situated power constellations between industry, trade unions, environmentalist and party politics, we argue that the regional phase outs were not only challenges of spatial justice, but also of temporal justice: Amidst a protracted structural change process, the main opportunities for transformation were condensed in just a few years since the federal governments "coal commission" in 2018/19. Under considerable pressure, short-term projects were launched and long-term questions about democracy and sustainability were largely treated as unpragmatic or too time-consuming. We describe how civil society in both regions responded to the perceived attempts of external control and problematic participation, showing how, nonetheless, the phase out process unintendedly revived local democracy. Altogether the story of German coal regions is an ongoing litmus test for democratic decarbonization.

Justice is increasingly recognised as a key part in the governance of global environmental change, not least in relation to low-carbon transitions. In addition to the unequal effects of climate change itself, also the actions responding to it, risk having unequal implications for different regions and social groups, potentially exacerbating existing inequalities or creating new ones. As a response to these challenges the concept of a just transition has gained traction. In line with increased advocacy of the term in policy debates, there is a recent trend of including a reference to just transition in legislation governing low-carbon transitions. In contrast to the growing literature on just transition policies, research on the different legislative approaches for guaranteeing just climate action remains absent.

The philosophical and policy literature on just transition illustrates the complex moral and political questions that need to be addressed when the justness of transition policies is to be determined. Questions arise as to what type of justice the actions aim to achieve, for whom the transition should be just and against what the justness of specific actions should be evaluated. With a view to these conceptual challenges, combined with the influential role legislation plays within low-carbon transition governance, it appears increasingly relevant to scrutinize how just climate action is conceptualised and operationalised through climate legislation.

Answering to this research need, this paper undertakes a comparative case study of the legal conceptualisation of a just transition in three framework laws on climate change: The Scottish Climate Change Act (2019), the Irish Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act (2021) and the Spanish Act on Climate Change and Energy Transition (2021). The cases have been selected through a comprehensive review of framework laws on climate change, with the aim of including diverse legislative approaches in both the conceptualisation and the operationalisation of just transition. The case studies are based on a legal analysis of the selected laws, their preparatory documents and related enforcement policies, complemented by semi-structured expert interviews with relevant public officials to strengthen the primary analysis. The comparative exercise will moreover assess the theoretically relevant conceptual and institutional similarities and differences in the legislative approaches. The paper arguably contributes with significant new knowledge on the legislative practices within just transition governance. Through the comparison, it further draws conclusions relating to the strengths and weaknesses of different legislative approaches and points to the critical questions going forward.

In recent years, the public discourse on the phase-out of carbon-intensive technologies and practices has come to a near consensus that a “just transition” is required. Yet, this term seems to have as many meanings as there are stakeholders using it. While enabling a constructive discourse, the variety of meanings underneath the surface of the just transition paradigm may also conceal conflict. While some actors employ versions of the just transition narrative to accelerate a transformation away from fossil fuels, others might employ seemingly similar narratives to delay the transformation by stipulating that only a slow transition can be just.

To shed light on the varieties of “just transition” and its strategic employment we employ a policy narrative analysis to study and compare the political discourse in four European coal+ regions: Ida-Virumaa (Estonia, oil shale), the Rhenish mining region (Germany, lignite), Silesia (Poland, hard coal) and Western Macedonia (Greece, lignite). Specifically, we will be addressing the following research questions: Which narratives are characterising the political discourse around just transition? Which (in)justices are being invoked? Which patterns, similarities or differences are recognizable between regions?

We found that hopeful narratives describing structural change as an opportunity to reinvent the region are prevalent in all regions. Strong narratives of resistance only prevail in Silesia and Ida Virumaa where a phase-out decision has not yet been adopted. In terms of injustices, we find surprisingly little evidence that injustices related to the immediate effects of the transformation (e.g. lay-offs and compensation for workers and companies) play an important role. Instead, the aspects related to the historical injustices produced by the legacy industrial system prevail. And perhaps most importantly, questions about access and allocation of the opportunities of the imminent transition are key and should be addressed more explicitly.