Advancing the understanding of challenges, policy options and measures to achieve a JUST EU energy transition

Project Information

AdJUST

Grant agreement ID: 101069880

DOI

10.3030/101069880

EC signature date 10 June 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 3 355 311,25

EU contribution

€ 3 331 617,50

Coordinated by

FONDAZIONE CENTRO EURO-MEDITERRANEOSUI CAMBIAMENTI CLIMATICI
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - AdJUST (Advancing the understanding of challenges, policy options and measures to achieve a JUST EU energy transition)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

AdJUST is a transdisciplinary European consortium whose objective is to achieve a step change in societal understanding of the distributive repercussions of the transition to climate neutrality, and to identify effective and actively-supported policy interventions to accompany climate action so that no-one is left behind. To do this, AdJUST combines research approaches from complementary disciplines with a continuous social dialogue, ensuring that the project practices open science, models procedural justice, and builds understanding, trust and capacity among citizens and other stakeholders concerning the transition to climate neutrality. AdJUST engages European public bodies, industry, civil society and researchers—i.e. the quadruple helix—to design and promote a shared vision, inspiring them towards the common goal of achieving climate neutrality. It relies on state-of-the-art economic assessment tools, statistical analysis, and research approaches from other Social Sciences & Humanities (SSH) disciplines—including political science, business management, public administration, political theory, philosophy and ethics—to generate methodologically-sound research results on the full range of challenges of the just transition. These comprise technical, economic, and social/equity dimensions for firms, workers, households and public bodies, and the potential distributional impacts of the EU Green Deal, NextGenerationEU and Fit for 55—EU Packages henceforth.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

WP1 contributes to the overall project’s objective by finding a common understanding of Just Transitions, that includes multiple stakeholder perspectives. It increases the relevance and legitimacy of the project research through systematic stakeholder engagement and dialogue; it provides a common ground for all research-related dissemination and communication activities in the project.
WP2 employs quantitative and qualitative tools (e.g. surveys, interviews, climate-energy-economy models and econometric analysis) to showcase the challenges and opportunities associated with the transition for EU firms, sectors and labor markets.
WP3 quantifies the social distributional impacts and explores possible co-benefits of climate policy on households and individuals, combining analysis at the EU level and in the focus regions.
WP4 analyses the capacities and motivations of public bodies to formulate and implement policies and projects to decarbonize the economy in a just and timely way; it identifies what can be done to increase their ability to do so.
WP5 synthesizes project findings, monitor and maximise the project's.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

AdJUST breaks new ground by developing a new analytical tool to map varying conceptions of just transition and using it to build a shared, actionable vision for a Just Transition that inspires stakeholders, policymakers, researchers and people across Europe (WP1).
Beyond state-of-the-art: AdJUST is grounded in the belief that embedding justice and equity consideration in EU and member states’ policies, stimulating profound and multidimensional action, requires first and foremost a shared, actionable vision of what a just transition looks like (Meadows, 1996). AdJUST will develop a new analytical tool to identify differences and commonalities in conceptions of “just transition”, and their implications for communications and policy (T1.1).
AdJUST will generate novel results on the full scale of economic impacts that climate action (currently implemented, planned or potential) will have on Europe’s firms (WP2) and households (WP3) (with workers considered in both); it identifies available strategies and policy responses to manage negative impacts and political barriers, turning them as far as possible into co-benefits and opportunities (WP5).
Beyond state-of-the-art: AdJUST assesses the impacts of current EU Packages-including the Just Transition and Social Climate Fund—and some of the key policies advocated in the shared vision developed.
AdJUST will generate novel insights on the capacities and motivations of public bodies to formulate and implement policies and projects to achieve a just transition (WP4). This will include understanding how households and firms perceive the credibility and legitimacy of governments’ proposed policies given existing institutions and procedures, and opportunities for institutional and procedural reforms.
Beyond state-of-the-art: AdJUST develops a novel theoretical framework that characterizes the institutions relevant to a just transition, emphasizing the actions that different institutional actors need to perform and the institutional capacities needed to perform those actions (T4.1). This will be an important output for all stakeholders, delivered in the form of an online tool, to help them navigate the just transition.
AdJUST will identify actionable solutions to promote the transition while managing negative distributional impacts and addressing political barriers; it will co-design these with stakeholders (WP1), disseminate them and promote exploitation by decision-makers at all levels (WP5).
Beyond state-of-the-art: AdJUST is a R&I action generating novel results whose exploitation will ultimately not only promote scholarly debates, but most importantly impact real-life decision-making and policy choices (T5.2 T5.3).

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