On the 24th of March, the Global Social Challenges Pillar successfully hosted its first live event: Is a global just transition still possible? A justice & business perspective. All the way from Trinidad, Professor Raphael Heffron gave a keynote speech to 30 attendees in the Erasmus Sustainability hub. Heffron's speech was on achieving a sustainable and just transition to a low-carbon economy, combining a mix of law, policy, and economics.
Legal certainty for investments and exploring existing policies
During his speech, he argued that a law and policy revolution is needed to move towards a just transition. Low-carbon transition requires new investment. To attract these investments, a stable and predictable legal framework is needed. This would provide investors with legal certainty from which new investment opportunities can arise. In terms of a policy revolution, he argued that the focus should not be on establishing new policies. The focus should instead be on exploring existing policies. Failures within these policies should be improved to reorient towards just solutions. Thus, Professor Heffron provided us with an interesting perspective on how a just transition can be achieved, combining law, policy, and economics.
Challenges ahead for a just transition threat
The speech was followed by a discussion led by the discussants' prof. dr. Darren McCauley, Berfu Söbe and Hannah van den Brink. The attendees and professors discussed whether an international organisation, like the UN, can still promote a just transition in an increasingly nation state-driven world. Also, greenwashing was discussed as businesses, governments, and international organisations co-opt the term just transition. On this topic Heffron and McCauley just published a paper, "The 'just transition' threat to our Energy and Climate 2030 targets".
Are you interested to know more about this topic? Read the recent papers by Heffron on "Energy multinationals challenged by the growth of human right". Or the article by McCauley on "Assessing policy barriers to the energy transition in South Africa".
- Professor