Marcin Baron (p), Adam Polko (p), Michiel Stapper, Ammalia Podlaszewska, Anastasiya Ansteeg, Monika Wieczorek-Kosmala, Tomasz Ingram

Aleksandra Nowakowska

The European Green Deal policies are expected to be deeply transformative at all levels of European governance, especially targeting the regions with a high carbon footprint. However, there are major society-based problems concerning the ownership and implementation of transition plans [Aldana Cohen, 2017; Wachsmuth, Aldana Cohen and Angelo, 2016; Fraune, 2015; Fraune and Knodt, 2018; Carley and Konisky, 2020; Bouzarovski et al., 2017]. Research has shown that citizens want more influence on how the transition to a low-carbon society will take place, but that meaningful ways of deliberation are rare [Lennong, Dunphy and Sanvicente, 2019; Levine, 2017; Stapper and Duyvendak, 2020]. Also, low social acceptance of carbon neutral and environmental policies has been a significant barrier to the implementation of those policies and can lead to political polarization [Bouzarovski et al., 2017; Aldana Cohen, 2016; Segreto et al., 2020].

The paper is based on the EU-funded (Horizon) BOLSTER project that aims to understand how marginalised communities are affected by climate policies and whether involving them in decision-making processes increases the support for transition plans. We will present the interim results of BOLSTER’s research concerning the potentially left behind just transition in the seven EU regions. Challenges related to finding out the practical dimensions of climate justice on the micro (community) level will be pinpointed, based on desk research, structured Individual In-Depth Interviews collected within BOLSTER and go-along methods.

The main research questions are: (1) What are the efficient and feasible ways of identifying the communities marginalised in just transition? (2) What are the main reasons behind their exclusions and the main barriers to acceptance and participation?

The work will contribute to the state-of-the-art discussion of the contemporary understanding of marginalised communities and climate justice. It will offer insights for policymaking regarding this subject.

Aleksandra Nowakowska (p), Agnieszka Sobol, Agnieszka Rzenca (p)

Adam Polko

The purpose of the article is to show the process of equitable transformation implemented in Polish coal regions in the context of the challenges of a place-based policy. The article focuses its attention on the specificity of the transformation areas, the process of public participation and institutional partnerships.
The research method used is a critical analysis of foundational materials (strategic plans and programs created at the national and regional levels, expert reports) and interviews conducted with key actors operating in coal regions.
The authors argue that territorial policy, seen as a new model of regional policy-making, is desirable from the point of view of implementing the Just Transition mechanism. The research conducted (in the two regions: Upper Silesia and Bełchatów Basin) reveals a significant gap between the analyzed transition areas in terms of knowledge and substantive preparation for the implementation of the process. Visible deficits were noted in both regions regarding the programming of the Just Transition process, the formation of information policy and networking with partners.

Jessica Clément (p), Artur Ochojski (p), Lama Alarda, Nathalie Crutzen

Marcin Baron

As the current climate crisis grows, governments adopt new policy packages. In some cases, these policy packages are transformative innovation policies, which are directed to give innovation processes a societally desirable strategic orientation. Put differently, such ‘directionality’ allows to design policy in a way that achieves desirable social outcomes. To define scope and give directionality to policies, new concepts or labels emerge. However, as they must be adjusted according to the territory in which they will be applied, these concepts remain nebulous without a widely shared definition, only a broad framework. These concepts tend to gain their importance when they are taken up at the international level, but their implementation often occurs at sub-national levels of government. This requires a vertical transfer of a concept from high levels to lower levels of government. This paper thus asks, how do different levels of governments take a new concept directed to them from the (supra)national levels guiding transformative innovation policies and implement it on the ground? It focuses on the Just Transition mechanism by the European Commission. Correspondingly, the emerging concept we study is that of the just transition. Two European countries – Belgium and Poland – are studied through semi-structured interviews. In addition to offering novel insights on the emergence of the Just Transition concept in the European context, this paper thus traces how actors shape the understanding of emerging concepts, decide both what level of government and department will manage them, and who is involved in the policy implementation.

Marcin Baron (p), Artur Ochojski (p), Michiel Stapper, Carlos Delclós, Ammalia Podlaszewska, Anastasiya Ansteeg, Jessica Clement, Adam Drobniak, Piotr Rykała

Jessica Clement

"In the last 2-3 years regions across Europe, especially those having a high carbon footprint, have entered a new pathway of policy-making - ensuring a just transition. Territories must be given new opportunities to help them unlock hidden potential for future growth. Even though Wang and Lo [2021] see many scientific perspectives of the just transition, the main worldwide narration positioned just transition as a process mainly in an economic policy. In the paper, we scrutinize the ways in which just transition has been planned across Europe, especially focusing on the four EU regions, i.e. Upper Silesia PL, Halle DE, Hainaut BE, Leon ES. Our objective is to find out whether: the regions limit their policy to the scope of EU funding or go beyond to address more societal issues and truly leave no one behind (RQ1); the policy planning is a participative process, and - if so - if it addresses various possible stakeholders or the usual suspects involved in EU-money-related activities (RQ2); the proposed policy measures are of a novel nature or rather re-introduce the concepts previously used for regional policy (RQ3)? The research is a part of the EU-funded (Horizon) BOLSTER. To answer the research questions we use the stakeholder analysis and policy mapping. This activity is accompanied by desk research concerning policy documents and key opinion sources. The proposed work contributes to an emerging research stream on the relations between welfare, inclusion and transition (e.g. Krause et al. [2022], Stevis and Felli [2020], Heidkamp et al. [2022]). It will offer empirical evidence on the usually conceptual approaches to this issue. "