JUSTDECARB - Just, Fair and Politically Sustainable Decarbonization

Project leader: Meyer, Lukas

Duration: 07.12.2020 - 06.12.2023

Funded by: FFG (Österr. Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft)

 

December 1st marks the beginning of the three-year European research project “Socially Just and Politically Robust Decarbonisation: A Knowledge Base and Toolkit for Policymakers” (in total funded with 1.2 millions Euro in the programme JPI Solstice).

Scientists from four different disciplines in social sciences and humanities, namely philosophy, political sciences, economics and law, are cooperating for this project. The researchers come from and are based in four different countries, those being Austria, the Czech Republic, Norway and the United Kingdom. Their two main research goals can be outlined as follows:

1. Filling critical gaps in our knowledge concerning socially just and politically robust decarbonisation, focusing especially on inclusive processes and redeistributive measures (this being the scientific goal);

2. Developing a toolkit which is supposed to help European decision makers to manage transition processes towards a socially just and politically robust future (this being the goal of scientifically grounded political counseling).

At the University of Graz the participating professors are Lukas Meyer and Eva Schulev-Steindl (professor for public law and political science). Lukas Meyer leads the project at this university.

Further participating institutions include the CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway (which is assigned the task of managing the project as a whole); the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway; the London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom; and the Institute of State and Law of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.

Project description: 

The need to contain climate change is a very urgent matter. However, even modest attempts at this task in diverse European countries are faced with the accusation of having unjust distributional effects which incentivise harmed groups to take political action aiming at halting or weakening those measures. We need to know more about how to transition to low-carbon societies in a way that is not only socially just but that is furthermore perceived as such by the most important agents, so that the transition becomes more politically robust. We identify two aspects of promising transition regimes, which have been neglected in research concerning climate policy instruments up until now. The first aspect concerns inclusive processes through which affected groups are enabled to pursue their interests when shaping and implementing decarbonisation policies. The second aspect regards redistributive measures through which governments  link decarbonisation policies to countervailing benefits. That means more specifically that benefits stemming from decarbonisation, such as newly created socioeconomic opportunities, are diverted to those groups who in the absence of intervention might be exceedingly susceptible to its negatice effects i.e. the burdens coming along with decarbonisation policies.

For information on the current project status, please visit the main page: JUSTDECARB Socially Just and Politically Robust Decarbonization