Just transformation: The places, politics and ethics of fossil free society

Stones at the Swedish westcoast.

In 2017 the Swedish Parliament adopted a new climate policy framework that lays the foundations for an ambitious decarbonization of all sectors in Swedish society. The aim of the framework is to turn Sweden into the first fossil-free welfare state by 2045.

In this project we study how Sweden can make the fossil free transformation inclusive and just. Our study is located in three Swedish cities – Lysekil, Slite and Luleå – that depend on fossil-intensive industries and infrastructures for local employment and tax revenues. Through interviews and creative workshops with civil society, municipal officers and industry representatives, we examine how the fossil-free society is imagined by local actors and imbricated in the (re)making of subjects, places, and conditions of life.

The project is led by researchers from Linköping University, in collaboration with the University of Newcastle (UK). The research group combines expertise in climate politics and governance studies, transformations research, and ethnographic studies of nature, culture and identity.

Podcast

Publications

More than one story: remaking community and place in Sweden’s transition to a fossil free society

Anna Bohman, Clifton Evers, Eva Lövbrand. Local Environment: the International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, p. 1-13, 2024.

Go to publication

Omställning, exhibition catalogue

Clifton Evers, 2023

Download pdf

Transitioning unions: what constitutes a just transition for Swedish trade unions?

Johan Gärdebo. Oxford Open Climate Change, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2023.

Go to publication

In the Shadow of an Oil Refinery: Narrating Just Transitions in the City of Lysekil

Eva Lövbrand, Veronica Brodén Gyberg. In: Governing toward a green decarbonized state: The interplay between state and non-state actors in Sweden (in press) / [ed] Bäckstrand, K., Marquardt, J., Nasiritousi, N., and Widerberg, O. (eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023, 1.

Go to publication

Catalyzing industrial decarbonization: the promissory legitimacy of fossil-free Sweden

Veronica Brodén Gyberg, Eva Lövbrand. Oxford Open Climate Change, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2022.

Go to publication

Contact

News

Organisation