Beyond developmentalism in sustainability transitions: thinking with post-development in the global north

Narratives around sustainability often rest on an implicit model of development, contrasting the capacities of the Global South versus North, or different regions within Europe, who are then seen as leaders or followers within the race to transition away from carbon-intensity. Against such tendencies, there is a need to deconstruct this story of carbon governance from the ground up, questioning the abstractions involved and attending to the everyday politics and tensions present in sustainability transitions. Drawing theoretically from ideas of buen vivir and the critiques of post-development, we initiate a conversation bringing global south solutions to global north problems, especially focused around how to centre the local. We draw on experiences of transition across different local levels to argue for more grounded, particular and contested visions of what it will take to reach a sustainable future. In this, we point to the diverse challenges faced by grassroots actors in their attempts to move towards a sustainable future, problematizing and disrupting easy narratives of European energy transition progress, or Western high emissions lifestyles. In problematizing such a trajectory, we argue that ideas from post-development can contribute towards sustainable futures, rooted in the recognition and valuing of local knowledge and practice.