Ideas in transition? Policymakers’ ideas of the social dimension of the green transition

Abstract

Climate change and its associated mitigation policies have an impact on people’s livelihoods. Therefore, how best to react to such impacts is currently a prominent topic in academic and policymaking debates. The article contributes to this new and rapidly developing academic discourse by identifying different understandings of the social dimension within current paradigms of the green transition and analysing policymakers’ understandings of this dimension in Germany and the European Union. The integration of the social dimension ultimately depends on underlying understandings of redistribution and the state-society relationship. The market-liberal Green Economy approach is dominant in the discourse; its narrow social dimension is mostly seeking to increase the acceptance of climate policy through earmarking revenues of carbon trading. Green Keynesian arguments, which examine structural policies and allow for more integrated approaches of social protection are fighting to be heard. Ideas from the Degrowth sphere gain only fragmented access to the policy debates, as they are often framed as unrealistic and politically unfeasible. An interest-based understanding of the welfare state would be suited to mediate interests within the transformation process and socially legitimise climate policy, but current Green Economy discourses primarily aim for social policy to fulfil an appeasing role.