ABSTRACT

This book critically analyses different dimensions in the sustainable transitions outlined by the European Green Deal, focusing on both internal actions and external relations and highlighting the EU’s diverging powers and capabilities in achieving the core objectives.

As with the Green Deal itself, the chapters cover different policies including financial instruments, energy policies, climate policies and external policies and apply the ideal-type logics of appropriateness and consequences to analyse sustainable transformations. The variety of the cases contribute to a broad understanding of how different actors interpret and implement the aims of the European Green Deal, including especially those lagging behind, who, for various reasons, are struggling with the sustainable transition. From examining their policies, the book illuminates the challenges and opportunities they are facing. Overall, the contributions address key questions surrounding the EU’s powers and limits in inducing transformative change and implementing the European Green Deal.

This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of EU sustainability policies, sustainability transitions and green economy, environmental studies, energy policy, energy governance and climate change, public policy, comparative politics and international relations.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction – Making the European Green Deal work

EU sustainability policies at home and abroad

part I|112 pages

Making the European Green Deal work at home

chapter 1|14 pages

The European Green Deal

Shifting the EU's gaze towards the future?

chapter 2|16 pages

Green fiscal systems

Their role in the European Green Deal

chapter 4|16 pages

The keys to the EU's climate neutrality goal

Forest carbon and LULUCF

chapter 5|18 pages

Renovating Europe

How to start and steer a wave?

chapter 7|17 pages

Proper in speech, careful in acts

Slovenia's challenging transition to climate neutrality

part II|84 pages

Making the European Green Deal work abroad

chapter 8|16 pages

Green deal diplomacy towards regional organisations

Assessing the EU's potential diplomatic leverage

chapter 9|19 pages

Protection of the global climate in EU–Russia relations

An assessment of norm strength and logic of action

chapter 10|15 pages

When climate action is strategic

The case of the European Neighbourhood Policy towards Egypt

chapter 11|16 pages

Just transition and the European Green Deal

The case of coal mining in Colombia

chapter |16 pages

Conclusion