Green and just transition in South European countries: Policy reforms and political challenges

Abstract

Green and just transitions involve massive economic investments, social reforms and cultural transformations, while also involving radical changes and innovations in a broad range of public policies. One of the most important challenges that decarbonization strategies face is the need to balance ecological and social priorities, so as to convert conflicts and trade-offs between potentially competing objectives into coherent and mutually complementary policy packages. Meeting this challenge has been particularly demanding for Southern European countries due to their high vulnerability to climate change risks and the related economic, social and environmental costs they will have to pay, being at the same time badly affected by the recent waves of economic, social and migration crises. Although the academic debate on the eco-social dimension of green transition has bourgeoned over the last decade, especially in relation to the European Green Deal and NextGenerationEU, limited and fragmented knowledge exists on the related policy reforms as well as on the political context and underlying power struggles among political actors across European countries. The panel invites conceptual and empirical contributions exploring policy innovations and institutional reforms that have been implemented across Southern European countries to address social and economic challenges of green and just transitions, especially in view of the current EU decarbonization agenda. Both comparative and case studies from a variety of disciplines and analytical angles are welcome, particularly those seeking to address the eco-social linkage across the policy and politics domains.

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