From October 8 to 10 IPE will hold the Green Academy Winter Seminar 2021 on the topic of just transition! You can view the entire program here.
Faced with unprecedented impacts of climate crisis, our societies, and economies and industries in particular, face urgent need for adaptation and deep transformation. This task is extremely challenging as it requires quick collective action toward zero carbon society where nobody should left behind. Yet, concept of ‘just transition’ sometimes fails to meet the urgency as these changes require time for necessary policy shifts and their implementation. Ecological transformation and social protection need to go hand in hand in just transition, for the well-being of all workers and public interest of all citizens. This process requires sensitivity that keeps in mind local specificities and particular interests, and there is no ‘one fits all’ model. Since fair and proportional sharing of all the costs and burdens of this transformation is at core of just transition, we aim to offer a political ecology perspective.
For us as organizers, just transition represents more than mere ecological modernization coupled with green jobs – it also requires fundamental changes of resource governance and public investments into infrastructure. Furthermore, it supports those economic activities that operate within ecological limits and demands changes of ownership in the production cycle on the basis of inclusion and economic democracy.
During the three days of this seminar we aim to discuss opportunities and limit of just transition and explore its transformative potential.
Accordingly, during the seminar we will
- provide introduction into the concept of just transition,
- discuss the role of trade unions and workers,
- discuss the transfer from extractive to regenerative economy,
- explore just transition at European and global level in the context of solidarity,
- link it to recovery plans and the European Green Deal,
- explore opportunities for decent job,
- discuss specific conditions of just transition at the European semi-periphery
Also, we will have the opportunity to dive much deeper into just transition in the transport sector, where we will learn and discuss under which conditions sustainable mobility can become an example of just transition policies.
We see this seminar as one of the milestones in a systemic approach to concepts and practices of just transition in this part of Europe, and an important milestone in establishing epistemic communities in this field.
This seminar is organized by Institute for Political Ecology in cooperation with the Heinrich Bőll Foundation, Prague office, the Green European Foundation in Brussels and the European Climate Initiative (EUKI).