Climate Change and the Transatlantic Relationship
Lived Experiences of Transformation: Convey, Connect, and Think Ahead
Lead Article for
The Transatlantic Student Summit Fellowship Program 2022/23 (TSS+)
Friedrich W. Opitz, Program Director TSS+, fwo@dai-sachsen.de
Why and how should we address climate change? The ‘why’ is straightforward: Because climate change fundamentally threatens livelihoods, societies, political systems, and cultures in the transatlantic space and beyond. We have some answers on how to address climate change, too: drastically reducing carbon emissions, or in other words, decarbonizing our societies. However, we need many more answers in finding out how to successfully shape and implement the transformations necessary to make life more sustainable.
The Transatlantic Student Summit Fellowship Program (TSS+) connects advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the American Midwest and Central Germany to work on issues of high relevance for transatlantic relations. In multidisciplinary settings, they engage with global issues and their regional implications. Accordingly, this year’s theme will be Climate Change and the Transatlantic Relationship. We understand climate change as a multitude of crises. We expect challenges but also chances from climate change for the transatlantic relationship, and argue that the lived experiences of certain regions in the transatlantic space can play a crucial role in successfully shaping the transformations necessary to address the climate crises.
Exchanging Global-Regional Perspectives to Shape Transformation
Globally, climate change poses questions for the international order and the transatlantic relationship. For a long time, the ways in which humans interact with their environment has been underrepresented in more orthodox conceptions of geopolitics, economics, other academic fields, and societal discourse. Yet it centrally concerns issues of high politics like security, energy, finance, technology, and trade. Still, climate change exceeds those realms.
Regionally, climate change will result in very heterogeneous consequences. These come to the fore when thinking of natural disasters, of course. But these are also apparent when thinking about the sociology of the process, changes in culture, ways of living together, social cohesion, and political participation—thus very central aspects also for the future of liberal democracies in the transatlantic space.
Various regions in Europe and the US—from Central Germany to the American Midwest—are still processing the painful impacts of transformations in recent decades. These include deindustrialization while opening up for global market integration, but also falling behind regarding the means to partake in politics and societal discourse. At the same time, residents’ lived experiences of transformation in recent decades offer a great pool of perspectives to learn from in shaping future change.
Similar to globalization, climate change poses a fundamental task for readjustment—if not bigger. Together with the TSS 2022 Fellowship Cohort, we seek to learn what climate change means for transatlantic relations from multidisciplinary and regional perspectives. We understand climate change as a multitude of crises. We expect challenges but also chances from climate change for the transatlantic relationship, and argue that the lived experiences of certain regions in the transatlantic space can play a crucial role in successfully shaping the transformations necessary to address the climate crises.
Climate Change—a Multitude of Crises
Currently, multiple competing crises add to the challenges posed by the climate crisis. The global pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine add meaning and urgency to the issue of climate change. When taken together with the surge of illiberal populist tendencies in the past decade, these developments disclose fundamental problems for international cooperation—be it with regard to security, economic relations, migration, or even system rivalries. In recent years, the debate increasingly pitted the liberal world order built up after World War II against authoritarian-leaning political cultures from China to Russia and a wave of populist politics from Brazil to Poland, from America to Great Britain. (cf. Cooley, Alexander, and Daniel H. Nexon. “The Real Crisis of Global Order: illiberalism on the rise.” In Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2022. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-12-14/illiberalism-real-crisis-global-order)
At the same time, certain regions and populations within transatlantic societies show the for many unexpected return of political geography. Support for movements that promote illiberal policies flourishes in constituencies which express resentment as a result of feeling left behind by the structural changes of recent decades. (cf. McQuarrie, Michael. "The revolt of the Rust Belt: place and politics in the age of anger." The British Journal of Sociology 68, no. S1 (November 8, 2017): 120-52.https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12328.; Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. 2016. “Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have- Nots and Cultural Backlash.” https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/getFile.aspx?Id=1401; Linkon, Sherry Lee. 2018. The Half-Life of Deindustrialization: Working-Class Writing about Economic Restructuring. Class : Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.) The debate involves the very building blocks that are also relevant for any model of global cooperation: what are the most pressing challenges, which values should receive priority, what sort of institutions should be promoted, what are the interests of participants, and whose interests should be pursued? We can see those debates resonating in places like Saxony, Germany. We can also see them in West Virginia or Ohio. Critically, these questions are most relevant in finding out how to address climate change successfully.
We can read the term ‘climate change’ in a variety of ways: ecologically, economically, and with regard to security, but also politically and culturally. This is why we chose to title this year’s Transatlantic Student Summit “Climate Change & The Transatlantic Relationship.” Perhaps these manifold interpretations are also why Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz recently spoke of a “Zeitenwende” in Germany—a profound change in times. While Scholz used the term to announce a historic increase in Germany’s defense spending, Robert Habeck, Germany’s climate minister, went even further and rendered the transformations connected to the current multitude of crises more holistically. At the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos, Habeck spoke about changing fundamental logics in global affairs in order to react sustainably to the current multitude of crises and to save the liberal global order. However, with the global order steeped in insecurities, how can societies catch up geopolitically with the geophysical realities of a heating globe?
Also for more authoritarian leaning political cultures, climate change has arrived at the forefront of high politics. Arguably, Russia’s regime feared shrinking markets for its exports of fossil resources leading up to its more interventionist foreign policy in recent years. Here as well, the above-mentioned multitude of crises offers a chance to point out the interconnectedness of the issues involved. How do we go about approaching comprehensive global challenges? Top-down, with “a big stick” that promises swift solutions and views global politics as a zero-sum game and cracks down on any domestic dissent? Poland, Belarus, Ukraine—the East of Europe have been at the forefront of these conflicts, with Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine signifying the momentary trough of this process.
Challenges and Chances from Decarbonization in the Transatlantic Space
Of course, following traditional notions of climate change, issues of ecology, sustainability, and biodiversity are no less urgent. Countless natural disasters in recent years have reminded many in America and Europe that an ambitious climate policy is more urgent than ever. Accordingly, political leaders are under increased pressure to actually implement the goals established in the Paris Agreement of 2015. The European Union has been claiming a leading role in the fight against climate change for a long time and, in 2019, adopted the “European Green Deal,” which aims to transform Europe into the first “climate-neutral” continent.
Partially, these developments are also due to heightened public pressures from transnational social movements like Fridays for Future. The articulated urgency to act has also translated into high politics discourses, as evidenced by the appointment of a climate minister in Germany, the mainstreaming of the American ‘Green New Deal,’ and the Biden administration’s proposed climate policy. Despite recent setbacks (The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v EPA drastically limited the federal governments regulatory power to reduce emissions. At the point of this writing, it yet remains to be seen to what effect this ruling unfolds. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/will-us-supreme-court-epa-ruling-rein-federal-regulators-2022-06-30/), these examples correlate with the growing significance of younger audiences and their perspectives for transatlantic relations, as leaders and activists like Greta Thunberg have changed the climate of the debate and pushed for decarbonizing societies also with generational arguments—it is the world we as young people will have to live in.
In 2022, The German Supreme Court ruled in favor of young climate activists and declared the efforts to address climate change by German politics so far as unconstitutional. “Unconstitutional” insofar that it shifted the climate burden of making painful transformations to future generations. In addressing climate change, the process of decarbonizing societies encapsulates many of the plentiful transformations involved. It entails reducing greenhouse gas emissions while increasing energy efficiency in sectors like energy production, transportation, agriculture, steel, or chemical production. However, the process of decarbonization also goes beyond these more conventional notions.
Decarbonizing societies will affect the ways we live together, our concepts of mobility, our cultures of consumption, our creation of value, and our ways of doing politics. As some regions will benefit from decarbonization, others will lose industries, jobs, and livelihoods. Against this backdrop, in both the US and Europe, one of the most pressing questions is how to implement the goals set in the Green (New) Deals. In both cases, domestic and regional perspectives, as well as the speed and scope of transformation, matter. Their deliberative political cultures carry the potential to determine the path towards “net-zero” inclusively.
However, we can also see how calls for more authoritarian measures in society and the economy resulted from previous transformations and can be found expressed in the current surge of populism. If people perceive themselves on the losing end of structural change, it can result in critical polarization and destabilization of societies. At the same time, experiences and perspectives of people in regions are crucial to understand the complexities of transformation and its implications.
Lived Experiences of Transformation
What do we mean by the lived experiences of transformation? From research into so-called “emotional communities” experiencing structural changes like deindustrialization, researchers show how working with peoples’ experiences can benefit our understanding of how knowledge, but also identities and resentments, are produced in times of change. (cf. High (2003); Rosenwein 2016; Williams (1985); Scott (1991)
Learning about the sociocultural implications of economic change can contribute substantially to more quantitative inquiries into structural change, and also help to identify risks for social cohesion and political stability. All of a sudden, looking at the developing median incomes can be contextualized within disruptive experiences of closing industries, breaking up social networks and ways of life.
For example, the region of Central Germany—largely comprising the federal states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia—underwent a remarkable transformation in the past 30 years. For many residents, the experiences of deindustrialization translated into large pools of political resentment. Within this milieu, populist parties gained a steady foothold and spurred nostalgia, protectionism, and paralysis. Indeed, developmental policies in the former communist east often worked on a trial-and-error basis, including many broken promises and false hopes.
At the same time, significant parts of the area are actually regaining prominence as hubs for innovation and future growth, relying on a population that shows resilience and a certain stubbornness to push forward. A majority of people and places constitute a central German landscape that is open-minded and full of knowledge and opportunities for shaping coming transformations more inclusively and sustainably.
Lived experiences from structural changes can also be a pool of ideas to create impactful change. They can also mean a critical lens for reflection to assess the feasibility of new development proposals to shoulder the transformations ahead. A recent study by Berlin-based think tank DPZ found a majority of 56 percent of the population in Central Germany’s lignite communities are in favor of phasing out brown coal. (cf. https://www.progressives-zentrum.org/publication/die-uebergangenen/) While welcoming this new transformation, only 25 percent expressed satisfaction with the development of the region in recent years. There is profound fear of falling further behind that translates into resenting politics. (54% express similar fears of being left-behind. Almost half of people in structurally-challenged areas cannot name a party or politicians that would care for them (ibid).) Beyond the demand for better paying jobs and an actually working digital infrastructure, people wish for visionary strategies that render orientation, incorporate social perspectives, and, most importantly, are participative.
We believe the same to be true for regions in the U.S. The American Midwest can be seen as a similarly transformative area in recent decades. People have seen their neighborhoods change, their communities falter, jobs vanishing, and their children moving away. While infamously labelled the “Rust Belt,” many areas have transitioned away from a universal sense of decay and rally behind new initiatives to “revitalize former industrial heartlands” also in an attempt to re-strengthen democracy and encounter populist movements. (cf. https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/research/report/vital-midwest-path-new-prosperity)
To foster further acceptance for transformation, crafting narratives together with affected populations can be key—in the American Midwest, Central Germany, and beyond. For developing inclusive strategies, residents should be incorporated into developing and consolidating projects that contribute towards a transformation that is sustainable—both ecologically, as well as economically, socially, and politically.
To Convey, Connect, and Think Ahead
“The whole way that we do business, that we live and that we have grown accustomed to in the industrial age will have to be changed. We will have to leave that behind us in the next 30 years and we have to come to completely new value chains”
(German Chancellor Merkel, 2020).
Research into previous transformation critically matters for addressing current and future challenges. Especially in light of the climate crisis, the speed and scope of transformation needs to be both quick and profound. At the same time, acceptance for the measures taken is another critical factor in shouldering changes sustainably—at least for deliberative democratic systems. Here we are again with more systematic questions that concern the global order and affect decision making: either to address individual preferences, or to choose more top-down-oriented approaches that crack down on any dissent?
Teaming up (inter-) nationally and multidisciplinary with other similarly affected regions will remain most promising for administering successful change that is needed given the above-named “multitude of crises.” In the transatlantic sphere, a plethora of regions faces similar challenges. Conveying, connecting and thinking ahead the lived experiences of transformation is a recipe to enrich the deliberative process of shaping transformation.
Establishing a culture of open exchange for learnings and best practices promises a positive-sum game and can incentivize strategic cooperation and mutual growth. Exactly such synergies are needed to tackle truly global challenges ahead, like decarbonization. Mediating gains and losses and steering the transformations involved collaboratively can be a key chance for the transatlantic relationship. This includes pushing forward technological innovation. Critically, it also includes innovating political participation and new academic inroads, for example from cultural research into economic change, and regional analyses to benefit inquiries in how to address global challenges.
In this spirit, as a TSS+ Fellowship group we will be travelling from Central Germany to the American Midwest. Our trip will bring us in contact with policy makers, researchers, activists, and students from Chicago, Detroit, Columbus to Athens, Ohio. Over the course of the trip and into later parts of 2022, we will collect multidisciplinary perspectives on climate change and the transatlantic relationship. Those will be published via policy recommendations, podcasts, and a conference in December 2022.
About the Program: The Transatlantic Student Summit (TSS) and the integrated Fellowship Program (TSS+) connects undergraduate and graduate students in the American Midwest and Central Germany to work on issues of high relevance for transatlantic relations. In multidisciplinary settings, fellows engage with global issues and their regional implications. This year’s theme will be Climate Change and the Transatlantic Relationship. Learn more at www.dai-sachsen.de/tss
About the Author: Friedrich W. Opitz fosters exchange between global and local perspectives, currently as Program Director and Interim Deputy Director at the German-American Institute Saxony in Leipzig (DAIS). This means moderating dialogue at the intersection of academia, politics, and civil society, and hopes to promote inclusive structural development that incorporates the perspectives and experiences of residents in regions on both side of the Atlantic. Friedrich holds an MA in International Relations with a focus on International Economics from Technical University Dresden, and a BA in American Studies from Leipzig University. For researching the interplay of transformation and populist movements in the past decade, Friedrich spent extensive time in Ohio, the French Alsace, and Central Germany. He has been before with the Berlin-based think tank Das Progressive Zentrum.