We need an alternative economic system founded on the physical constraints of the living Earth rather than on economic abstractions. To confront the neo-liberal paradigm at its core, we must build a society in which individual sufficiency coexists with public luxury, rather than one based on the paradigm of infinite growth.

As the climate emergency worsens, the wealthiest will suffer from it the least. This is despite the disproportionate contribution of the uber rich in the Minority World – most of whom live obscenely in their opulence – to the continuing climate crisis. In contrast, poorpeople – most of them living in the Majority World – will be hit hardest and most severely by the effects of rapid global heating.

Chapter 9 addresses the kinds of steps that must be taken to make a renewable energy transition feasible from a technical, political, and social point of view and produce meaningful action and confrontation across many levels of government and realms of society.

The climate crisis is due to the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, but we are often told it is “really” about something else: economic growth, population growth, nature deprivation, deforestation or lack of investment in new energy systems. The first is based on multiple misunderstandings, makes little quantitative sense and reverses cause and effect; nor is “growth ideology” a significant impediment to climate action. The second is even more quantitatively implausible than the first. The third is contradicted by actual rural-urban political patterns. Faith in forest carbon sequestration has given rise to a large offset industry, but forests can readily become a net source rather than a sink in a warming world. Finally, while investments in energy efficiency and renewable sources are essential, they are not the same as equivalent reductions in fossil fuels in a world of expanding energy use. This is made clear by the experience of Germany, a world leader in green development and also a regional laggard in reducing emissions. There are many other goals to be pursued, but directly suppressing fossil fuel use is the sine qua non of avoiding a climate catastrophe.

Voluntary or local renunciation of fossil fuels will not keep us within a carbon budget, and direct control along the lines of wartime rationing would be overbearing and inefficient. This leaves either carbon taxes or carbon permits as the main instrument. At a first approximation these are mirror images of each other: raising the price to reduce emissions or vice versa. Under uncertainty, however, taxes make prices predictable but leave emissions unpredictable, while permit systems do the reverse, which should be an argument for permits. Moreover, quantity controls better manage interdependent (multiple equilibrium) economic structures than price controls. Real-world implementation has been poor, as seen in the European Trading System and California’s Cap-and-Trade program. The culprits are weak targets, widespread exemptions, handouts to business and abundant offsets. The dismal experience of the Clean Development Mechanism shows that such offsets function mainly as loopholes. Better would be a system of permits with universal coverage, auctioned rather than given away, and not exchangeable for offsets. It should be accompanied by other policies to mitigate the distortions caused by rapid carbon price increases and to accelerate the development of non-carbon energy sources and non-carbon-using goods and services.

This chapter considers the Nordic record on the environment and global warming, one of the region’s key appeals. While the Nordics have an admirable record of “sustainable development,” it is not without glitches. Norway’s export of petroleum and the Nordics’ penchant for flying are two examples. The School Strike led by Greta Thunberg captures both the strengths and weaknesses of the Nordic approach, and has had a major influence on US environmental policy.

The term ‘green economy’ re-emerged over a decade ago as a buzzword in notably inconclusive discussions across the globe amongst politicians, civil servants, business, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community interest groups, the media and academics. By offering the possibility of integrating economic priorities with more ecologically sensitive and socially just forms of overall progress, the concept of a green economy outwardly seems to provide some guidance and direction for achieving long-term sustainability across a range of tiers of governance and different types of economy. We argue that the notion of a green economy remains elusive and is deeply disputed, often poorly understood and unevenly applied. Hence, it is in danger of remaining both unworkable and marginalised. This chapter traces the development of the concept, not only in Europe but beyond, in order to provide context for the deliberations in Europe. The chapter also outlines contemporary debates, and identifies emerging themes in order to argue that the idea of a green economy, as currently practiced, requires urgent rethinking and application. This chapter also furnishes background for the remainder of this edited volume, in which European case studies are presented that grapple with definitional issues and the practical challenges of implementation.

Many environmental social scientists have seen our role as only empirically describing what occurs, from public opinion to social movements and risk perception. What is to be the contribution of environmental social sciences to imagining and building new low-carbon societies? This chapter reviews the “history of futuring” and its relation to environmental sociology. The rise of the concept of just transitions in particular and societal transitions more broadly have driven a new wave of envisioning of post-carbon futures, which has forced a set of more propositional approaches. We sketch eight positions, including the dominant “natural capitalism” and “breakthrough” ecomodernism, queer and anti-colonial transition thinking, and Geels’ multi-level perspective to design for transition. We review a number of red/green approaches: from “degrowth” and solidarity economics to red/green productivism and state-centered approaches, including the Green New Deal. Together, these represent significant new directions for environmental social sciences: not only describing social change, but also leading it. We argue this reconstructive turn in the environmental social sciences is much needed.