The Will to Decarbonize: Problematizing European Just Transition Governance

ABSTRACT In December 2019, the European Commission launched the European Green Deal (EGD) and hereby ramped up the climate ambitions of the European Union. Responding to a mounting sense of climate urgency, the European Commission proposed a comprehensive reform program to make the EU's economy climate neutral by 2050. In this paper, we trace the practical work undertaken to ensure that Europe's green transition is just and leaves no one behind. To that end, we turn to the Just Transition Platform, an online portal coordinated by the European Commission. By analysing the many guidelines, checklists, and event reports produced by this platform, we trace the problem objects towards which the EU's just transition efforts are directed, what practical techniques are deployed to act upon them in order to transform them, and ultimately, how they define what it means to be a modern and green European.