Abstract
In December 2019, the European Union introduced its Green Deal in which the ecological crisis is prioritized. In doing so, the EU seems to be breaking with its traditional green growth discourse. Does it? In this article, we seek to find out whether and to what extent the EC indeed has such a revolutionary cultural, economic and political agenda in mind with its Green Deal. While the green growth discourse presumes a growth-based economy that must become greener, the degrowth discourse questions the growth model and perceives it as ecologically irresponsible. If the European Green Deal represents a third alternative, then it will somehow succeed in prioritizing ecology without welfare loss. To ascertain to what extent the European Green Deal is that third alternative, three preliminary steps need to be undertaken. The first step consists in a brief exposition of the key features of the traditional green growth discourse, as propounded by the EC and its various allies. Thereafter, the overlaps between the green growth discourse and the European Green Deal are noted. In the third section, the latter’s divergences from that previous model are highlighted. In the final section, the main question of the article is answered. It is also suggested that specific interpretations and implementations of the European Green Deal could possibly turn the original communication into an alternative to both green growth and degrowth.
Highlights
In December 2019, the European Union (EU) introduced its Green Deal, arguing that “tackling climate and environmental-related challenges ( . . . ) is this generation’s defining task” [1]
The question regarding the distribution of power that is, the distribution of influence to determine the ways to achieve a sustainable economy and lifestyle in general is an important criterion to evaluate the extent to which the European Green Deal diverges from the green growth discourse
We have briefly reconstructed the main features of the traditional green growth discourse as propounded by the EU and other powerful governance actors
Summary
In December 2019, the European Union (EU) introduced its Green Deal, arguing that “tackling climate and environmental-related challenges ( . . . ) is this generation’s defining task” [1]. By prioritizing the ecological issue, the EU would appear to be adopting a “revolutionary” pathway to a new European world that is in harmony with the biosphere and possibly marked by some form of degrowth [5]. Its twofold aim is to evaluate the novelty of the EU’s Green Deal that is, to analyze whether it breaks with its traditional green growth discourse or not and to discover potential, unarticulated new avenues for degrowth alternatives in that very same Green Deal. It is suggested that specific interpretations and implementations of the European Green Deal could possibly turn the original communication into a viable European alternative to both green growth (traditionally conceived) and degrowth
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