Summary and video of the conference ‘Perspectives on Just Transition’ February 8

On Wednesday February 8, the European Chair for Sustainable Development and Climate Transition organised the conference “Perspectives on Just Transition”. During their interventions, speakers highlighted the multiple aspects that a just transition needs to address, spanning from the international, to the European, industry and finally individual level.

The conference was introduced with remarks by PSIA Dean Arancha Gonzalez, who stressed the importance of ensuring the transition to a green economy is done in a way that is fair for all citizens and industries. Prof. Marc Ringel introduced the speakers of the evening: Frank Siebern-Thomas, Prof. Phoebe Koundouri, Dr. Sanna Markkanen and Sarah Mewes. The first intervention was from Mr. Siebern Thomas, Head of the “Fair Green and Digital Transitions, Research” Unit, who spoke about the opportunities, risks and challenges that the green and digital transition brings, with specific attention to EU policy action such as the European Green Deal, but also the “Fit for 55” Package or the European Climate Social Fund. He also spoke about the transformation of the labour market and the need to adapt to the new jobs the transition will bring, as well as the financial mechanisms to fund a transition that “leaves no one behind”. Prof. Phoebe Koundouri, Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Global Climate Hub, focused her intervention on the multiple challenges of the transition and the need to build resilient green economies. She talked about the pace of the transition, particularly looking at the global progress with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and highlighted the different situations and challenges across countries.

The third speaker, Dr. Sanna Markkanen, Research Program Lead and Senior Analyst at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), presented on the topic of energy poverty. She began with a conceptualisation of the subject and explaining the difficulties of defining and measuring what constitutes energy poverty.  Moreover, Dr. Markkanen talked about the consequences that living in energy poverty brings, both at the individual but also systemic, national level. She concluded by outlining some of the existing measures to combat this issue and the challenges to implement those. Ms. Sarah Mewes, Co-founder of the Next Economy Lab (NELA), was the last speaker of the evening. She talked about the ongoing transformation of the automobile sector in Europe. She based her presentation on a recent research study funded by the European Climate Initiative, that focused on stakeholder insights to understand the challenges and needs of this transformation.  She opened by explaining the set up of this study and moved on to talk about the just transition pathways for this industry. She finished by explaining the four gaps that the transition must bridge, namely the geographical, time, skills and attractiveness gaps.The conference opened then the floor for questions and discussion. Questions were asked about the impact of the mineral sector industry, the EU policies in place to ensure the transition is fair also outside of the EU or on the income inequality relation role of the transition.

The conference was recorded and is now available on the Sciences Po YouTube channel. Video below: