Keywords

In the last few years, we have witnessed significant advancements in climate action. All major emitters (e.g., the EU, the USA, and China) have established strategies and plans for decarbonisation, and the EU is set to become carbon neutral by 2050 at the latest. However, the latest Emissions Gap Report reveals that climate policies are still insufficient to keep our planet and all its living beings in a safe and thriving space (UNEP, 2023). Therefore, we need to embark on a continuous journey of reimagining: questioning long-held beliefs and paradigms, and increasing the ambition and transformative potential of these policies. The book you have in your hands presents a contribution to this aim from ten interdisciplinary and diverse teams, addressing key policies of the European Green Deal, such as the EU Adaptation Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU Forests Strategy, the Energy Efficiency on Buildings Directive, as well as more controversial issues such as deep-sea mining or carbon dioxide removal.

While addressing different themes, there is an underlying agreement across the chapters that the solutions to the climate and ecological crises require the inclusive and meaningful participation of all actors. “Leaving no one behind” is one of the key pillars of the EU Green Deal and there is ample consensus on its importance (see for instance, Galende-Sánchez & Sorman, 2021; Ostrom, 2014; Perlaviciute & Squintani, 2020). However, there is still a long way to go before this slogan becomes a reality on the ground. Quoting Shery Arnstein (1969, p. 216): “The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you”. Concretely, García Mira et al. (Chapter 8) argue that, despite the implementation of policies such as the Just Transition Mechanism, communities from coal regions do not feel sufficiently engaged in the decarbonisation processes, as there is often a lack of methods or knowledge for how to implement truly inclusive decarbonisation processes. Authors show the need to empower local and disadvantaged communities in the design of compensatory measures, as well as in regional visions, plans, and narratives, and how this can be achieved through the combination of SSH with STEM methodologies like system models or simulations to even out knowledge inequalities if they are implemented smartly. Likewise, Abdel-Fattah et al. (Chapter 9) underline the need for equitable participation in Maritime Spatial Planning that recognises the importance of all relevant stakeholders and pays attention to power dynamics, ensuring a just distribution of positive and negative social and environmental impacts. Plaček et al. (Chapter 10) bring to life a collaborative workshop setting to assess ethical dilemmas and trade-offs in the transition to a low-carbon construction sector and emphasise the importance of recognising the diversity of stakeholders and of public sector leadership.

Another aspect needed to strengthen EU climate policy is further incorporating justice in the design and implementation of policies and strategies, including distributive, recognitional, restorative, procedural, and epistemic justice. To support these efforts, Bobadilla et al. (Chapter 5) argue for the need to further incorporate local knowledge into the EU Adaptation Strategy and present an indicator to measure its epistemic justice. In the international context, the analysis conducted by Portugal-Pereira et al. (Chapter 2) unveils the risks of EU mitigation policies relying on carbon dioxide removal projects in the Global South and how a Eurocentric focus might fulfil the EU’s climate commitments at the expense of vulnerable populations, perpetuating colonial patterns. Instead, Portugal-Pereira et al. argue for EU climate policy to further focus on reducing domestic emissions. In a similar vein, Suarez-Visbal et al. (Chapter 3) highlight the need to make vulnerable and marginalised voices part of the conversations about the governance of the transition towards circularity in the textile sector and avoid and repair the harm to workers in the Global South who make most of the clothes consumed in the EU. Both Portugal-Pereira et al. and Suarez-Visbal et al. (Chapters 2 and 3) show that EU policy cannot be seen within a European context only, as it inevitably has global consequences that need to be considered.

Nevertheless, achieving justice also requires taking into account the diversity of the people and ecosystems within the EU. Lara-García et al. and Turhan et al. (Chapters 6 and 11) highlight specific vulnerabilities of Southern Europe (i.e., heatwaves and wildfires), underscoring that “one size does not fit all” in EU policies (for an in-depth discussion on this topic regarding EU research policies please see Varjú et al., 2023). Dealing with these complexities essentially requires both the sensitivity of SSH methodologies and the power of STEM methodologies to understand, describe, and simulate complex socio-technological systems. In line with cross-sector complexities, Lara-García et al. (Chapter 6) advocate for the recognition of the climate crisis as a public health problem and highlight the links between inequalities, exposure to heatwaves and health risks. This chapter calls for the EU Renovation Wave to consider an integrated approach in prioritising funding through interdisciplinary assessments, where again STEM and SSH need to go hand in hand to build infrastructure that supports living in a hotter world. Turhan et al. (Chapter 11) discuss the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 and the challenges it faces to adequately deal with increased climate-related risks across a diversity of forest ecosystems, especially in the Mediterranean. As extreme wildfire events are expected to continue, traditional fire suppression management strategies need to be revised to avoid the “firefighting trap” (Collins et al., 2013). The authors call for a value-based approach that acknowledges forest–climate relations and activates synergies between mitigation and adaptation strategies within the EU Adaptation strategy.

The solutions to the climate crisis require us to reimagine and transform our cultures, our societies, our economies, our technologies, our scientific approaches, and our political systems. Therefore, climate policies need to question long-held beliefs and practices. In this sense, Menatti et al. (Chapter 4) propose to rethink the current (neocolonial) trends of knowledge transfer from Global North to Global South and instead focus on mutual learning and translation of knowledge and experiences across different geographies. Concretely, the authors present different examples of how Southern Europe could benefit from translating long-term practices in India to face heatwaves and extreme temperatures. The authors suggest this shift requires a different conceptualisation of adaptation as “processes which proactively engage with disrupting climate events and involve adopting situated and relational long-term practices relating people and their ecological, social and historical environments”. Seeland et al. (Chapter 7) advocate the need for societal indicators in carbon accounting to promote social sustainability and end the prioritisation of economic indicators such as economic growth (i.e., GDP Gross Domestic Product). Many authors have similarly argued this notion for years and the EU Parliament hosted a Conference on the topic (Parrique, 2022; Raworth, 2018). Turhan et al. (Chapter 11) propose a multispecies rather than an anthropocentric approach to deal with climate risks, thus recognising the innate value of both humans and non-human living beings and placing us as part of nature, not apart from it (Fremaux & Barry, 2019; Kopnina & Washington, 2020). Lastly, Suarez-Visbal et al. (Chapter 3) highlight the need to challenge current business models and practices sustained in overproduction and overconsumption and the need to go to the root causes of the socio-ecological crises.

Overall, this book has combined insights from an extensive set of disciplines, including Political Science, Biology, Architecture, Geography, Philosophy, Marine Sciences, Engineering, Psychology, Energy Systems Modelling, and much more. Despite evidence that scientific knowledge and STEM are not enough to deal with social-ecological crises, there is still insufficient integration of diverse knowledges and disciplines into policy development (Crowther et al., 2023; Foulds & Robison, 2018; Turnhout, 2024). Therefore, this book aims to underline the value of SSH for climate policy and governance, and how interdisciplinary efforts of STEM and SSH jointly unlock results in innovative and robust methodologies and policy recommendations.

For instance, Menatti et al. (Chapter 4) advance an interdisciplinary framework for knowledge integration based on conceptual comparative analysis and creative games to uncover epistemic differences and develop collaborative skills for mutual learning, translation, and, ultimately, co-production. Lara-García et al. (Chapter 6) show how geography and architecture can be combined to develop multi-criteria assessments of vulnerability to heat in urban environments, integrating social, biophysical, and building indicators. García Mira et al. (Chapter 8) combine SSH and STEM leading to different, innovative outcomes that neither of the perspectives would have been able to achieve on its own: When a lignite power and heating plant in a region in Greece was to be shut down, the initial plan was replacing the heating need by gas boilers which was also embraced by the citizens. However, in a combination of SSH citizen engagement and energy systems modelling and simulations, alternative fossil-free scenarios were developed. In sum, interdisciplinary approaches together with the inclusion of different knowledge systems bring a more holistic outlook to complex climate challenges.

Climate policy is one of our most powerful tools in the most crucial years to address the climate crisis and ensure the well-being of present and future generations. For climate policies to be genuinely transformative, they need to embrace justice and diversity—of voices, of contexts, of knowledges, and of disciplines. We are facing one of the most complex collective action problems to date, and the solutions necessarily involve all of us.