Making The European Green Deal Work

This book critically analyses different dimensions in the sustainable transitions outlined by the European Green Deal, focusing on both internal actions and external relations and highlighting the EU’s diverging powers and capabilities in achieving the core objectives. As with the Green Deal itself, the chapters cover different policies including financial instruments, energy policies, climate policies and external policies and apply the ideal-type logics of appropriateness and consequences to analyse sustainable transformations. The variety of the cases contribute to a broad understanding of how different actors interpret and implement the aims of the European Green Deal, including especially those lagging behind, who, for various reasons, are struggling with the sustainable transition. From examining their policies, the book illuminates the challenges and opportunities they are facing. Overall, the contributions address key questions surrounding the EU’s powers and limits in inducing transformative change and implementing the European Green Deal. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of EU sustainability policies, sustainability transitions and green economy, environmental studies, energy policy, energy governance and climate change, public policy, comparative politics and international relations.

European Commission president-designate Ursula von der Leyen has made climate change a top priority, promising to propose a European Green Deal that would make Europe climate neutral by 2050. Th e European Green Deal should be conceived as a reallocation mechanism, fostering investment shifts and labour substitution in key economic sectors, while supporting the most vulnerable segments of society throughout the decarbonisation process. The deal’s four pillars would be carbon pricing, sustainable investment, industrial policy and a just transition. First: a meaningful carbon price should be established for all sectors, by strengthening the EU emissions trading system (ETS) and by pushing EU countries to increase the price for emissions not covered by the ETS. To ensure a robust mechanism against carbon leakage, a carbon border tax should be prepared. However, such a measure will be extremely politically challenging, and the EU’s future climate policy should not rely on its successful implementation. Other instruments should therefore be put in place fi rst, including subsidies for low-carbon exports and stricter environmental standards importers would have to comply with to access the EU market. Second: the carbon price should be complemented by a sustainable investment strategy that pushes companies to switch technologies and promotes behavioural change among citizens, off setting any rising costs they face because of higher carbon prices. Green investment should be promoted by shifting current EU funds towards this purpose while enabling EU countries to support green investment, and by incentivising private investment through regulatory measures and through support for European promotional banks. Third: European industry should be strengthened through support for disruptive green innovation; by creating the conditions for innovative, green, European companies to flourish (for example through new product standards and via carbon-based contracts for difference to ensure competition between companies for the most effi cient technologies); and through measures to export the European Green Deal on the back of a reform of EU neighbourhood and development policy. Fourth: the adverse social consequences of climate policies should be taken into account and minimised in each European climate policy proposal. Unavoidable impacts should be addressed by targeted compensation measures. The scope of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund can be broadened and the mechanism adjusted to aid the transition in coal-mining regions.

The European Green Deal aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. This is not going to be an easy journey. To be successful, the European Green Deal will have to foster major shifts in the European industrial structure, including transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy and from combustion engine cars to electric cars. Shifting economies from brown to green would be a major, historic socio-economic transformation. In this context of broad, paradigmatic, change for European industry, a 'green industrial policy' will be fundamental to Europe's climate change ambitions. But what is green industrial policy? What market failures must it address? Unlike traditional industrial policy, green industrial policy must be directed to twin goals of climate protection and social welfare. Green industrial policy initiatives in the European Union so far, however, have been piecemeal and fragmented. This Blueprint examines how past mistakes can be avoided and how the EU can develop a coherent green industrial policy that will serve the goals of the European Green Deal.

The COVID-19 pandemic gives an opportunity to relaunch global economic systems with a better balance between the social and environmental dimensions. There is a need for a scientifically-based step towards a strong Green Deal: a Climate Pact for the EU. Based on a bestselling French book, this English translation provides a summary of the facts on the climate issue, the solutions available and their costs. It outlines the political advantages and challenges current policy, practice and thinking at a time when populist leaders are transforming politics worldwide. This timely book will contribute to a renewed political vision for the EU, the European Economic Area, the UK and Africa.

Catastrophic climate change overshadows the present and the future. Wrenching economic transformations have devastated workers and hollowed out communities. However, those fighting for jobs and those fighting for the planet have often been at odds. Does the world face two separate crises, environmental and economic? The promise of the Green New Deal is to tackle the threat of climate change through the empowerment of working people and the strengthening of democracy. In this view, the crisis of nature and the crisis of work must be addressed together—or they will not be addressed at all. This book brings together leading experts to explore the possibilities of the Green New Deal, emphasizing the future of work. Together, they examine transformations that are already underway and put forth bold new proposals that can provide jobs while reducing carbon consumption—building a world that is sustainable both economically and ecologically. Contributors also debate urgent questions: What is the value of a federal jobs program, or even a jobs guarantee? How do we alleviate the miseries and precarity of work? In key economic sectors, including energy, transportation, housing, agriculture, and care work, what kind of work is needed today? How does the New Deal provide guidance in addressing these questions, and how can a Green New Deal revive democracy? Above all, this book shows, the Green New Deal offers hope for a better tomorrow—but only if it accounts for work’s past transformations and shapes its future.

Drawing on a range of expert contributions, this book explores how the European Green Deal is being deployed in practice and observes how the EU tries to promote the protection of the environment in third countries. This book begins by assessing the state of the art in terms of the key conceptual issues and analyses sectoral initiatives that are particularly relevant for the deployment of the European Green Deal external dimensions. These include the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the EU’s regulatory action in the control of maritime emissions, the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, the Deforestation Initiative, the Zero Pollution Initiative, the From Farm to Fork Initiative, and the Climate Neutrality and Clean Energy Initiative in the context of the Energy Charter Treaty. Next, the authors deal with horizontal aspects of the European Green Deal that also have external dimensions, such as the Green Deal Diplomacy, the Green Public Procurement, funding measures, initiatives related to corporate sustainability and due diligence, and the implementation and enforcement of EU environmental law. This volume concludes with a cross-cutting analysis, focusing on how the EU can strengthen the impact of its normative power on international environmental governance, while also noting its limitations. Deploying the European Green Deal will be of great interest to students and scholars of international and EU environmental law and environmental policy and governance. Chapter 10 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Contributing to the emerging literature on the geopolitical and foreign policy implications of decarbonisation and energy transition processes, this book sheds light on the future of the European Union’s (EU) external relations under decarbonisation. Under the Paris Agreement on climate change, adopted in 2015, governments are committed to phasing out the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases over the coming decades. This book addresses the many questions around this process of decarbonisation through detailed analyses of EU external relations with six fossil-fuel exporting countries: Nigeria, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Qatar, and Canada. The authors systematically examine the six countries’ varying dependence on fossil fuels, the broader political and security context, current relations with the EU, and the potential for developing these towards decarbonisation. In doing so, they put forward a series of findings that should hold across varying circumstances and provide a steppingstone to enrich and inspire further research on foreign policy, external relations, and international relations under decarbonisation. The book also makes an important contribution to understanding the external implications of the 2019 European Green Deal. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of European environmental and climate policy, climate diplomacy, energy policy, foreign policy, and climate/energy geopolitics. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ 9781003183037, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.