The Green Transition - Promise & Pitfalls

Responding to global warming is phrased as a problem of transition. In speaking of a green or a just transition, policy-makers appropriate a concept previously used to describe a variety of societal changes, notably in the 1990s to evoke movement from communism towards liberal democracy and a market economy in Eastern Europe.

The concept of transition carries an alluring promise of peaceful change that can be guided to completion by elites. In its suggestion of linear movement towards a new state of equilibrium, it encourages the definition of the challenge as a technocratic response - rather than something foundational, requiring wholesale societal reorganization. Transition in the 1990s was such a foundational reorganization, and it came with a large democratic mandate. Neither applies today.

What is the cost of mislabelling the greatest challenge of our time? How could we frame our climate change response so that it's both impactful and just? Join us for a purposeful lunchtime discussion.

Lunch Option available
WEEKEND Pass or Day Pass available
*This activity is part of Full Circle Ideas Festival 2024*
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A OUT The Hosts

jonathan White is Professor of Politics at the London School of Economics. His research interests lie in the fields of political sociology and political theory, with a focus on political engagement, partisanship, ideology, ideas of the future, the politics of emergency, the relation between social and political ties. He has held visiting positions at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Harvard, Stanford, the Humboldt University, Hertie School of Governance, Sciences Po in Paris, and the Australian National University. He has also written for The Guardian, New Statesman, OpenDemocracy and Boston Review. White was awarded the 2017 British Academy Brian Barry Prize for Excellence in Political Science.

Andreea Petre-Goncalves was 8 years old when totalitarian Communism collapsed overnight in her native Romania. She saw then how quickly yesterday’s absolute truth can become tomorrow reviled atrocity. She knows that societal narratives can shift fast, and when they do, they make deep system re-set possible. For two decades she worked for international development, human rights, health and sustainability in the eu institutions and international Ngos. In 2019 she set up Flare, a Brussels-based think-and-do tank that experiments with practical ways of shifting the collective ideas we hold of what is normal and desirable. This work builds on 15 years of her researching and writing about societal narrative shifts. She is a Bmw Foundation Responsible Leader and a member of Global Diplomacy Lab.