Can We Make a Just Real Green Deal?
Uchita de Zoysa (July 2023)
During my recent engagements in Europe, I had a better opportunity to experience the pulse of stakeholders of the region on the EU Green Deal. On returning home, the main question that sprouted in my mind was “is the green deal just for all?”. A regional meeting with over fifty EU CSOs in Brussels calling for a ‘Real Deal’ confirmed that even within Europe it does not provide a just deal to all. Stakeholders also underscored the double standards applied on green standards for European products sold in developing countries. However, do the European stakeholder assessments and propositions represent the thinking for a just green deal in other parts of the world? Particularly, the perception of what is just for the Global South that prevails amongst EU stakeholders may not actually align with the realities and think of those living in the countries of the South. So, what could be the way forward a commonly acceptable just green deal for a transformation towards sustainable development?
In search for a way forward, I am keen to explore several pathways that converge with the European stakeholder context. Particularly the thematic discoursing of a just transition, sufficiency, and policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD) could provide the main thematic tracks of mutual interest between Europe and the South. Also, in the imminent failure of achieving the SDGs, some groups are already asking the question of what the next sustainability agenda is going to look like. Therefore, building foresight into a more just real green deal that advances the global sustainability agenda is pertinent.
The discussion on a Just Transition in the Global South appears to be of great concern amongst European stakeholders. While the focus appears to revolve heavily around the energy and global finance system, issues of equitable opportunities for wellbeing and prosperity continue to dominate the Southern focus. The tone and agenda for a just transition should not be set by multilateral agencies and the rich countries if climate negotiations end in commitment. A collective North-South-East-West dialogue is essential for a just transition and must have equitable space sharing in the deliberations.
An interest on Sufficiency surprisingly is sprouting in Europe after decades of investment and insistence in a linear efficiency agenda. The irony is that the same organizations that shot down the concept of sufficiency and helped convert Southern nations to adopt efficiency appear to be chartering a new sufficiency discourse. Those who have campaigned for sufficiency for decades even from Europe appear to still be struggling to get their voices heard. Pathways through Sufficiency, underscored by the concepts of adequacy or contentment and self-reliance or self-sufficiency, are expected to strengthen resilience of consumption and production systems as well as economic and financial systems of a country. Sufficiency continues to be practiced across many parts of the world and will not have a single narrative but have common and shared principles. As reminded by some European activists, if a new sufficiency narrative in Europe is to be evolved, it would need to revisit its historical dependency and exploitation of resources from its former colonies and post-colonial extended strategies. Sufficiency would also challenge the growth-based development models promoted in the developing countries as well and compromises on lifestyle aspirations will be imminent for all. If discoursed honestly and adopted effectively, sufficiency would be able to address many issues including commitment to climate action and resourcing sustainable development. The discoursing of sufficiency needs to transgress beyond a small group of sustainable consumption and production policy researchers and administrators and must be centrally located in the just transition process.
European stakeholders may have conducted the best research on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) and these have enriched researchers across the world. However, has this research resulted in significant transformation in Europe and other parts of the world? The failure of the SDGs is rooted in the lack of political will for PCSD with the trends of resource exploitation and linear growth based economic and trade practices continuing to flourish creating more poverty and less equity. Isolated examples on PCSD do not amount to the pace of destruction of the earth systems. Also, it’s hard to have transformation towards sustainable development if only a handful of countries adopt the PCSD strategies. A single model for PCSD will not work in different geographical and societal contexts across the world to achieve sustainable development. But a global financial architecture that supports critical transformation is necessary for countries in the South to adopt PCSD. Therefore, more investigation beyond reforming the multilateral banks and lending mechanisms needs to be conducted.
Global Sustainable Development Report 2023 (GSDR) clearly stating that the world is far off track in achieving the SDGs makes us think more of a next level global sustainability agenda; not to rush into replacing the 2030 agenda, but to find a just transition that can support the transformation in the coming years. However, just like any other region, the official SDG reviews in Europe appear political justifications while stakeholder reviews continue to provide the political critique. Even the GSDR takes a linear approach in assessing the individual targets than providing an integrated analysis of the total impact amongst the 169 targets. As demonstrated by the Sri LankaVoluntary Peoples Review (VPR), adopting Independent Monitoring, Evaluation and Review Mechanisms using a Micro-Macro Assessment Methodology could help advance PCSD. Also, an Integrated Climate Sustainability Agenda that brings together the climate change and sustainable development global agendas into a single discoursing, financing, and political drive is important.
The EU Green Deal is a significant policy and political approach but has many gaps as highlighted in the alternative Real Deal presented by a collective of European CSOs. While the internal deficiencies or negative impacts of a green deal on Europe can be well reviewed by its own stakeholders, the greater impact on the rest of the world surely needs an honest engagement with external stakeholders for a just and real green deal. If the independent think tanks, foundations and CSOs in Europe can extend their platforms and programmes, particularly to Southern counterparts, they would find a sincere response and reciprocation towards building a collective voice for a sustainable world. The multilateral event and programme landscape in the coming months and years also provide ample opportunity to make a greater impact if we can find a collective way forward. The proposition, therefore, is to seek opportunities for collaboration on a just real green deal between European and Southern entities towards evolving a New Narrative on a Peoples Planetary Futures!
About the author: Uchita de Zoysa is a thinker, author, strategist for the local to global climate sustainability transformation with over 30 years of experience working in the public, private, and civil society sectors. He represented Sri Lanka during 2016 and 2017 as the Chief Negotiator for the UN SDG Process in his capacity as Ministerial Advisor on Sustainable Development. In 2018 he established the Sri Lanka Stakeholder SDG Platform and is the Chief Architect of the SDG Transformation Lab, Chairman of Global Sustainability Solutions (GLOSS), Executive Director of Centre for Environment and Development (CED). He is the Author of ‘It Has to be Climate Sustainability’, Lead Author of the publication ‘LOCALISING THE TRANSFORMATION IN THE NEW NORMAL: A Domestic Resource Mobilization Framework for Sustainable Development Goals in Sri Lanka’ and the Chief Editor of the ‘Independent Peoples Reviews on the SDGs’ including the ‘Voluntary Peoples Review on the SDGs”.
(Please send your comments and suggestions to: uchitadezoysa@gmail.com)
Posts
