Abstract

CMCC and RFF jointly organized a session entitled “Policies to support workers and communities in the transition to clean energy economies in the US and the EU” during the last EAERE Conference (EAERE 2020, virtual). At the session, participants laid the basis for cooperative work around the topics of how to promote an equitable clean energy transition for workers and fossil-fuel dependent communities, with particular focus on the design and implementation of specific transition policies.Over the past year, many political and policy development were implemented. Over this period, the participants to the EAERE 2020 policy session worked to draft research papers and policy briefs analyzing how several policies both in the US and in Europe could support a Just Transition towards carbon neutral societies.
This policy session will showcase the progress made by the different research teams “one year after”, including the research jointly carried out over the past year and other activities pursued within ReNEWT (Research Network on Energy Workforce Transitions), a research network on equitable transition which was strengthened over the past months (https://www.renewt.org/).
The different teams will discuss their novel contributions to the understanding of, and the debate around, the principal socio-economic challenges facing coal and carbon-intensive regions today. The session will highlight successful strategies which have emerged in recent years and the principal differences between regions and countries that are coping well and those that are not. The debate will then be linked to recent policy developments, including a discussion of the Just Transition Fund and Just Transition Mechanisms within the broader context of the European Green Deal. Panelists will also highlight the implication emerging from the COVID19 pandemic on energy transition in carbon intensive regions. Discussions will further push the debate, started last year, around how to devise more effective ways of involving citizens and better understand energy-related views and attitudes, ultimately leading to greater social acceptability as well as more durable governance arrangements and socioeconomic benefits.

Participants

• Petrescu, Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Founder and President of Pur si simplu verde (Simply Green). She will contribute with a discussion of Just Transition challenges in Romania
• Look, is senior research associate at Resource for the Future (RFF). He will discuss and summarize three research papers on policies used in the US which can potentially support the Just Transition
• Dumas, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute. She will present the outcomes of research on the Just Transition in the UK.
• Brauers, Research Associate and doctoral student at the Technical University of Berlin (TU Berlin). She will present the outcomes of research on Just Transition in Germany, including the proposal on the Coal Commissions.
• Mailleaux. Advisor on climate, energy and industrial policies at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). He will provide insights from the point of view of trade unions.
• Śniegocki, Head of the Energy, Climate and Environment Programme. He will focus on sustainable transformation and its effects on economic development, regional and industrial policy in Poland.
• Verdolini, Professor of Political Economy at the Law Department, Università degli Studi di Brescia and she is the Head of the Sustainable Innovation Unit at the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment. She will chair the session.

Policy Session Organizers

This policy session is jointly organized by the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE), the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), Resources for the Future (RFF).
Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC, whose mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. RFF is committed to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policy solutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy. RFF is organized into two programs. The Energy and Climate Program focuses on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, advance a reliable and clean energy system, and ensure a healthy environment – while balancing the need for economic growth. The Land, Water, and Nature Program focuses on the management of key land, water, and marine resources that support a thriving economy and society, while ensuring healthy and productive natural systems and building resilience in a changing climate.
The Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) is a non-profit research institution established in 2005, whose mission is to investigate and model the climate system and its interactions with society and the environment to guarantee reliable, rigorous, and timely scientific results to stimulate sustainable growth, protect the environment, and to develop science driven adaptation and mitigation policies in a changing climate. CMCC is organized in eight research divisions: Advanced Scientific Computing; Climate Simulations and Predictions; Economic analysis of Climate Impacts and Policy; Impacts on Agriculture, Forests and Ecosystem Services; Ocean modeling and Data Assimilation; Ocean Predictions and Applications; Risk Assessment and Adaptation Strategies; Regional Models and Hydrogeological Impacts; Sustainable Earth Modelling Economics.
In 2018, RFF and CMCC jointly established the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE), whose mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. The Institute collects 26 researchers and faculty members spanning many disciplines, from economics, to applied math, operations research, environmental sciences. EIEE is committed to being a central focal point for research insights and policy solutions within Europe, and connecting that work internationally by promoting collaboration between the Founders and with the wider research and stakeholder communities.