Environmental debates encompass a wide range of perspectives: from critical skepticism of capitalist growth to techno-optimism, support for green growth, outright denial of issues as well as calls for incremental regulatory reforms. These debates are intensified by increasing geopolitical polarization and further complicated by the large variety of stakeholder groups with different interpretations of sustainability and environmental justice.
This panel seeks to explore pathways for future collaborative environmental efforts across different policy fields in the face of current political divides. We are particularly interested in understanding how environmental policies, such as those related to the energy transition, plastic bans, and electric vehicles, can polarize public opinion and intersect with broader “us vs. them” narratives in socio-political areas like health, trade, migration, and security. We aim to examine the impact of these interactions on future visions of collaborative environmental efforts, bridging gaps often seen between these areas and environmental research in order to develop a more integrated approach. In this light, guiding questions for this panel include, but are not limited to:
- How do stakeholders from policy, industry, civil society, and academia envision transformations towards sustainability?
- In polarized contexts, how can inter- and transdisciplinary research ensure the inclusion of unheard or marginalized voices?
- What strategies can short-term environmental policies use to address current challenges while aligning with long-term societal visions and transformations?
- How can the analysis of long-term environmental policies help develop new strategies to tackle emerging challenges?
- What insights can environmental policy pathways provide about the histories of polarization, cooperation, conflict and reconciliation?
We are a diverse group of researchers working across various policy fields, including energy, chemicals, plastics, circular economy, agriculture, food, and biodiversity. While our primary focus is on long-term policy analysis at the national and EU levels, we also explore international scales, comparative studies, relational analyses, and multilevel frameworks. This panel invites both empirical studies and theoretical contributions from disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds, to enrich our understandings and foster collaboration.