The Divisive Politics of the Green Transition: Europe’s Unmet Challenge

Summary:

The climate transition will entail political change as much as technological innovation. This is an undervalued but important lesson from both the Glasgow Climate Change Conference (COP26) and the current crisis unleashed by rising energy prices across Europe. Democratic governments will inevitably face increasing stresses, with far-reaching social and political effects. Yet they appear ill-prepared to manage them.

The climate agenda is still being defined in ways that underplay the political challenges—even as European democratic systems are now moving into the thorniest political thickets of the ecological transition. Governments need to widen democratic buy-in for the difficult decisions that lie ahead: national conferences on the political and social elements of the transition could help them do so.