A Just Transition for Social Justice
SOLIDAR stands for a Just Transition to a climate-neutral Europe!
A new SOLIDAR project titled “Just Transition for Social Justice” has just started and will run throughout all of 2021. Touching upon all pillars of SOLIDAR’s work, this project will aim to place Just Transition at the centre of European recovery through the creation of an alliance among progressive stakeholders in Europe and aiming to firmly link the social and environmental agendas. The initiative is supported by the European Climate Foundation.
The project is composed of an ambitious set of activities of different nature:
Content development and information gathering
One of the project’s activities consists in the production of a desk study that presents European-level and national initiatives on Just Transition in Europe. Together with the research already in development at SOLIDAR on Just Transition in other global regions, we will publish a useful collection of examples and best-practices from all over the world. In addition to the study, with the help of SOLIDAR’s member organisations, we will develop five National Monitoring reports and three Case Studies that document civil society’s involvement in ensuring a Just Transition. All the content produced will be used to support the development of other project activities, including the production of educational material and the formulation of a Joint Declaration.
Building a Just Transition Alliance in the progressive family
We believe that transformative change is only possible by pulling our efforts together and creating strong alliances. To ensure that Just Transition is at the centre of European recovery, we will create a Just Transition Alliance that includes other members of the progressive family, as well as social and environmental NGOs and other like-minded actors. Thanks to everyone’s input, we will achieve a common understanding of what Just Transition is and entails and we will develop a Joint Declaration that outlines the Alliance’s main principles and objectives for a Just Transition in Europe. In addition, building such an Alliance will provide the opportunity to develop a common agenda of actions and develop a shared Roadmap. During the second part of 2021, the Alliance will further develop its messages and generate a set of policy recommendations and a Blueprint that will be presented at major events at the end of the year.
Building the capacity of decision-makers and CSOs on Just Transition
The material developed at the beginning of the year and the statements agreed upon by the Just Transition Alliance will be the object of individual meetings with Members of European Parliament, EU Commissioners such as Frans Timmermans and Nicolas Schmit, as well as EU member states representatives. These meetings will have the objective of increasing decision-makers’ understanding of Just Transition and improving their competence on the matter, as well as to gain further support for the Alliance. During the summer, we will also organise three Just Transition Academies, which are training opportunities for members of SOLIDAR. While one Academy will be Europe-focused, the other two will have a more global dimension. With the support of already developed training modules and other educational material, participants will learn how to integrate Just Transition in their everyday work and take part in policy dialogues on the topic.
Organisation of high-level events on Just Transition
We will organise flagship events on Just Transition in the framework of the Porto Social Summit in May and the Global Progressive Forum and COP26 in November. By putting the spotlight on this topic, we hope to advance the progressives’ position on the relevance of a Just Transition. Moreover, SOLIDAR members will hold national and regional civil dialogues on Just Transition, create new national and regional alliances and thus influence policies at all levels. Lastly, we will add a Just Transition component to other SOLIDAR events taking place throughout the year, as well as bring the Alliance’s vision of Just Transition to events organised by third parties.
Online communication campaign
In order to increase the visibility of the topic of Just Transition, inform members and partners on it, disseminate the outcomes of the Alliance and obtain further support for it, we will run an online campaign that will include information (articles, publications, studies etc.) and educational tools on Just Transition from all over the world.
Keep an eye on the SOLIDAR website for updates on this project!
