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Transitions Should Never Be Abrupt

We’ve talked about senior living, climate change communications, some very specific elections and political science theories (Overton Window, Horseshoe Theory), and physician shortages and public health. In almost every newsletter I have referenced the “Just Transition” framework and my long-held belief that it can and should be applied to a very broad part of, if not the entire economy.

As such, today we will go deeper into what the Just Transition has traditionally meant with many newsletters to follow diving into different industries, sectors, and aspects of the framework.

The more I have thought about it, the more I have come to realize that the Just Transition is inherently tied to the concept of Sustaining With Age.

The concept emerged in the 1980s alongside more concerted environmental justice movements and the leading organization on the matter is the Just Transition Alliance. It is a recognition of general global and local development priorities (think access to education, clean water, poverty elimination) that aim to still be achieved alongside an energy transition away from fossil fuels and general economic decarbonization. Whether a concerted effort to transition or natural evolution for efficiency and value creation, there is change and these efforts are meant to make them just and equitable.

The term could easily have supplanted the phrase Green New Deal. While a climate and environmental movement at heart, it is an explicit recognition of economic causes of certain issues and risks of or consequences to solutions. While sputtering a bit in American political lexicon, the EU has moved forward with a fairly significant package that can be labeled a Green New Deal which included a Just Transition Mechanism as a policy framework. The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 are also a Just Transition approach to global development.

To an extent, this framework is a recognition of the importance of process in addition to the substance and content of changes. The publicity-grabbing environmental movement has often been white and reflective of the same structures and systemic harms that are pervasive in our society. Certain NGOs and nonprofits have ballooned and become essentially for-profit corporations. This work recognizes the very-real racial, income, and other dynamics affecting fenceline communities. It can also serve to scale back some global efforts and redirect funding and attention to address hyper-local environmental and health issues.

Others have added on to the idea as the environmental movement broadens and recognition is given to various aspects of economic and social change. That said, there is also risk of diluting the term.

Contrary to some beliefs – responses to the climate crisis on their own will save money and create jobs. This is not even factoring in avoided costs and risk of course from natural disasters, flooding, pollution, and more. Pollution is directly attributable to more than 8 million deaths/year. That is separate from increased heat – just the chemicals and materials spewed by our cars, coal, etc.

New York State’s Climate Act aims to “[ensure] that the advancement of a low-carbon and clean energy economy results in new economic development opportunities throughout the State and supports long-term careers in jobs across all sectors, while simultaneously providing support and tools to the workers and communities who may be affected by the unfolding energy transition.”

The implementation council of the act has a Just Transition Working Group which projects the creation of 200,000 jobs by 2030 in every region of the state, “with a projected 10 jobs added for every job potentially lost in displaced subsectors.” There is discussion too of “reemployment protections,” but we all know it is never that simple.

Extending Within The Climate Narrative

Even those actively working in “green” jobs or with a direct climate connection often leave critical swaths of the economy out of analyses. Policymakers and advocates will be quick to point out solar manufacturing and installation jobs as well as wind technicians. These are all important and growing rapidly, but they are not a one-for-one replacement of oil and gas drilling nor are drilling jobs the only ones impacted by energy changes.

Further, just as not every community has drilling or oil and gas jobs today, they will not all gain a solar factory. This regional concentration of jobs - both those gained and those disappearing - is critical to addressing the changes. Job training programs in various states treat the changes as if they will affect every community, but that is not the case.

Other jobs more spread out in our economy will still exist, like HVAC technicians. However, they will need to be trained on new and different equipment (heat pumps). EVs still need mechanics, but with very different skills - there is no need for an oil change anymore.

The point is: we need to look beyond just manufacturing as a job producer to understand that shifts will occur within existing jobs and the transition of industries in and out of our economy need anything but broad brushstrokes of policy.

Novel Applications Beyond The Climate Narrative

In addition to the extension of the climate narrative of the Just Transition, the entire concept can be extended to all kinds of “transitions.”

The “inevitability” of any given transition is often an open question, but when a critical mass deems them inevitable, we have an opportunity and obligation to act to make them just.

Most would agree that in a future world toll booths will be an economic inefficiency, not necessary and expensive when we have tech to let cars maintain their speed and still pay tolls with no human interaction. If that is going to be the case (already happening in many parts of the northeast), how do we transition besides an abrupt firing of workers? (eliminating toll booths is also a climate issue as emissions are saved when you do not have to slow down or fully stop and get back up to speed again!)

The most likely scenario - I’ll use Indiana as the example since I recently drove through and had to stop often to get a ticket and pay - is a series of strikes, protests, and even political votes to “save jobs” which could win short-term concessions, but are most likely to slow an inevitable process when time, energy, and money could be put into efforts to make the transition most efficient and train workers for other jobs, within the same authority/agency or elsewhere. But since this transition does not directly have reciprocal jobs created when others are lost, it is harder to navigate and easier to outright oppose. I suspect that is why there has not been a push to eliminate them in states like Indiana thus far already.

We could take a very meta-approach and see how time saved on commutes, taxpayer dollars saved, and other efficiencies will benefit the economy and potentially even create jobs, but that analysis does nothing for the toll booth worker losing their job in this process.

There will always be issues and solutions will rarely be perfect, but when a large-scale inevitability is not accepted as happening or likely, we only hurt ourselves collectively. A transition to near-zero tobacco users is another example we will explore in the future.

I ask for your grace and that you show yourself the same as we discuss very real implications of policies, livelihoods, and more, while respecting human dignity. We are playing “g0d” when discussing the ideal organization of our economy and society and associated job losses. This is a really hard topic, but I think it is worthwhile to grapple with.

Who decides what is socially useful, what brings value?

I am holding back another 10k words I had for this so expect more parts to come on this topic in coming weeks!

Further Reading:

Peace,

Kyle