What Is A Just Green Transition?
Hybrid Debate Series
The seminar series is hosted by CBS Professor Lindsay Whitfield, Director of the Observatory for Just Green Transitions, and co-organized by CEU Democracy Institute and the Centre for Business and Development at CBS. The Observatory for Just Green Transitions is a collaboration between the Central European University in Budapest and Vienna, Copenhagen Business School, and a cross-continental network of institutions and scholars at the forefront of studying the political, socio-economic and geopolitical dimensions of green transitions.
The seminar series seeks to foster debate for the purpose of finding solutions that defy black and white positions. It provides a platform for discussing the nuances around how democratic politics is shaping the speed, distribution and societal acceptance of the green transition across multiple geographic scales as well as how economic strategies to compete in new green technologies can and is changing global capitalism. The seminar series emphasizes the intersection between democratic politics and economic goals. It is organized in five sessions around a series of questions, with panellists invited to discuss and debate these questions.
The seminars are hybrid and take place at Dalgas Have 15. All times are CET.
To access the online link, please register here.
Sessions:
March 17, 15:30-17:00, Dalgas Have 15, Room Ø.0.89
Is Green Capitalism an oxymoron?
Contributors to the 2025 Forum in Development and Change on The Political Economy of Renewables Capitalism (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14677660/2025/56/4-5) will debate three different views on the greening of capitalism. The first is that the development of capitalism historically inextricably linked to fossil fuels and cannot be ‘greened’. The second is that the pursuit of economic, environmental and social justice can only happen if we abandon our obsession with economic growth, regardless of the underlying energy mix. And third, there are opportunities to leverage the green transition for more just and environmentally sustainable capitalist economies.
Participants:
- Murat Arsel, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam
- Nikita Sud, University of Oxford
- Lindsay Whitfield, Copenhagen Business School
- Moderator: Jacob Hasselbach, Copenhagen Business School
April 8, 14:00-15:30, Dalgas Have 15, Room C.0.33
Does the green transition open pathways out of the periphery?
Within the debate on whether the green transition is a ‘just’ transition, one perspective argues that green energy transitions deepen polarization and dependencies between rich and poor countries. In this view the decarbonization of rich economies happens at the cost of deeper social and environmental exploitation in peripheries. The opposite perspective argues that even latecomers could leverage energy transitions by inserting themselves strategically in new energy infrastructures and cleantech value chains. The panelists at this seminar will debate these two perspectives, considering whether the green transition opens windows of opportunity for countries in the global South to be first or fast movers in the new green (or greened) industries. In doing so, it moves beyond asking whether the green transition is ‘just’, to asking whether it can change the hierarchy of productive relations in global capitalism.
Participants:
- Ilias Alami, University of Cambridge
- Aldo Madariega, Diego Portales University, Chile
- Elvis Alvenyo, University of Johannesburg (online)
- Stine Haakonsson, Copenhagen Business School
- Moderator: Lindsay Whitfield, Copenhagen Business School
April 16, 14:00 to 15:30, Dalgas Have 15, Room C.0.33
How do we square democratic rights with green industrial policies?
To tackle the climate crisis, a transition from fossil fuels to renewables and the generalization of electrification are scientifically consensual policy options. However, the material needs of renewable energy-based energy systems (eg. solar panels), electromobility and energy storage (eg. batteries) require ever more mining of critical raw materials with severe environmental, social and economic impacts on local communities. Furthermore, the global energy transition is increasingly shaped by geopolitical competition. As strategic rivalry between the United States and China intensifies, securing access to critical raw materials has become a central policy concern. As access to mineral markets tightens, industrial policy has emerged across both mineral-producing and mineral-consuming states as a response to rising uncertainty, risk, and demands for economic sovereignty. The panelists in this seminar debate the tensions and contradictions that are arising over critical raw materials based on their research and different perspectives.
Participants:
- Jojo Nem Singh, University of Sussex and ERC project on Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals (https://miningfordevelopment.eu/)
- Henry Sanderson, Author of Volt Rush (https://www.henrysanderson.net/)
- Karin Buhmann, CBS and Project leader of Frontiers of Natural Resource and Sustainability Governance for a Just Green Transition (https://frontiers.cbs.dk/)
- Moderator: Lindsay Whitfield, Copenhagen Business School
April 30, 13:00-15:00, Dalgas Have 15, Room Ø.0.89
In conversation with Andreas Malm on The Long Heat: Climate politics when it’s too late
The world is crossing the 1.5°C global warming limit, perhaps exceeding 2°C soon after. What is to be done when these boundaries, set by the Paris Agreement, have been passed? Schemes proliferate for adaptation or for new technologies to turn the heat down at a later date by removing CO2 from the air or blocking sunlight. The Long Heat maps the new front lines in the struggle for a liveable planet and insists on the climate revolution long overdue. In the end, no technology can absolve us of responsibility for our planet and each other.
But what will this climate revolution look like? How will it play out across the global North and South? Is there room for a Leftist global democratic movement in the context of the Far-Right’s green backlash? The panelists will discuss these issues after Malm’s presentation of his book The Long Heat.
After Malm’s presentation, there will be a panel discussion with
- Andreas Malm, University of Lund
- Stefano Ponte, Copenhagen Business School
- Isabel Froes, Copenhagen Business School
- Moderator: Lindsay Whitfield, Copenhagen Business School
May 11, 10:00-11:30 (please note the morning time), Dalgas Have 15, Room Ø.0.89
Can developmental environmentalism be democratic?
The challenges of democratic regimes to nudge or coerce economic and political elites who benefit from fossil fuel production systems has revived interests in authoritarian environmentalism as a credible alternative. However, it is not clear that democratic or authoritarian political regimes are the key variable. Coining the term Developmental Environmentalism, scholars of China and South Korea show that the pursuit by governments in these countries to move away from fossil fuels has been driven by a combination of the need to find new growth drivers and be first movers in new technologies with geopolitical issues of dependence on oil imports and political legitimacy problems linked to pollution from fossil fuels. Thus, developmental environmentalism seems to be driven by political legitimacy which defies categorization as democratic or authoritarian. The panelists will debate these issues from the perspective of Europe and Asia.
Participants:
- Donato di Carlo, London School of Economics and Political Science
- Elizabeth Thurbon, UNSW Sydney (joining online)
- Cornel Ban, Copenhagen Business School
- Moderator: Lindsay Whitfield, Copenhagen Business School
