Leaving no one behind: Ensuring a fair sharing of the costs and benefits of the transition to sustainabilityPresentation to EESC, 27th of June 2019Céline Charveriat, Executive director, IEEP

One key challenge:achieving well-being and social justice within planetary boundaries.

Sources: Kate Raworth and IEEP (2018)

• Pricing and availability of essential goods and services (food, energy, mobility, lifestyles)

• Impact on income opportunities (employment, wages and livelihoods)

• Pricing of assets (e.g. cars, housing)

• Social norms• Well-being and health• Transitory or permanent

effects

Sustainability transition

Understanding the distribution of net costs and benefits

Uneven exposure,

resilience to shocks and

capacity to seize opportunities

Households• Degree of poverty• Gender• Household composition• Rural/urban• Age• Country and region (incl. Outermost

regions)• Sector of occupation• Minorities/indigenous peoples

Communities and local authorities (wealth, diversity of

economy, social and cultural cohesion)

Public and private sector (sectors, size, financial health)

Countries (inside and outside

of the EU)

Compared with BAU

Generations (youth but also

the elderly)

Key risks of unfair sharing of benefits and costs

• Ignoring individual and/or collective responsibility= “polluter pays”

• Socialisation of costs and privatisation of benefits

• Not utilising diverse capacities for change to the fullest

• Increased poverty and inequality (exclusion from benefits and bearing disproportionate costs-transitory or permanent)

• Creating new tensions and conflicts as well as mistrust (intra and inter-countries) because of unfairness of process and/or outcomes

• Risk of reduced capacity for change, delays and backlash

Non-delivery of SDGs

www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu

Leaving no one behind: What solutions? (1)

• Building upon and adapting key principles (Polluter pays, Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Capacities, burden sharing)

• Identifying losers and addressing negative impacts ex-ante rather ex-post and with solutions based on their resilience capacity

• Participatory and inclusive process for the transition—importance of social contract

• Right pace: Not back loading change but recognising absorption issues

• Feedback loops and rapid learning

www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu

Leaving no one behind: What solutions? (2)

• Close the knowledge gap regarding interlinkages between poverty, multidimensional inequality and sustainability;

• A prosperity model truly decoupled from the use of natural resources whose central aim would be to increase social justice and wellbeing;

• Using regulation and economic instruments (taxation, procurement, etc…) to promote a European Social and Green New Deal

Leaving no one behind: What solutions? (3)• Put the most vulnerable and poorest first, e.g.:

• Agree on plans to reduce air pollution prioritising communities with the most severe levels using poverty maps to understand interlinkages;

• Move away from cheap food policies in lieu of social policies, with new approaches to rebalance the cost of food where healthy and sustainable products become cheaper and more accessible to lower income consumers;

• Push for ambitious, green social housing policies (access to energy, energy efficiency, quality housing, access to nature);

• Free public transport, starting with the poorest areas

Leaving no one behind: What solutions? (4)

• An ambitious cohesion policy at the service of the transition

• Promoting win-win policies • Promote the social economy within the

sustainability transition (e.g. circular economy, energy transition, foster cooperatives);

• Preventative health care based on nature protection

• Ensure greater policy integration: Extend the concept of the "just transition" (beyond coal) and build an effective European Social Pillar in support of it.

• Process and institutional innovation at all levels (including access to justice)

www.ieep.eu @IEEP_eu

Key references:

ccharveriat@ieep.eu

• Mutafoglu, K. & Schweitzer, J. P.(2017). Nature for Health and Equity. Briefing produced by IEEP for Friends of the Earth Europe.

• Andrew Farmer, IEEP (2018).Tackling pollution is essential for meeting SDG poverty objectives, Published by UNEP, perspectives, issue n.27.

• IEEP (2018). 30X30 actions for a sustainable Europe, #think2030 paper.• E3G (2018). Ensuring a just and fast transition to a competitive low-carbon economy for the EU?

#Think2030 paper.• EEA (2018) Unequal exposure and unequal impacts: social vulnerability to air pollution, noise and extreme

temperatures in Europe.• EC (2018) Reflection paper towards a sustainable Europe by 2030.• IPES (2019) Towards a Common Food Policy for the EU.• Oxfam (2015) Extreme carbon inequality.• Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel (2015) Carbon and inequality: from Kyoto to Paris• Danny Dorling. July 4th, 2017. Is inequality bad for the environment? The Guardian.