Sustainability

This book proposes a holistic transdisciplinary approach to sustainability as a subject of social sciences. At the same time, this approach shows new ways, as perspectives of philosophy, political science, law, economics, sociology, cultural studies and others are here no longer regarded separately. Instead, integrated perspectives on the key issues are carved out: Perspectives on conditions of transformation to sustainability, on key instruments and the normative questions. This allows for a concise answer to urgent and controversial questions such as the following: Is the EU an environmental pioneer? Is it possible to achieve sustainability by purely technical means? If not: will that mean to end of the growth society? How to deal with the follow-up problems? How will societal change be successful? Are political power and capitalism the main barriers to sustainability? What is the role of emotions and conceptions of normality in the transformation process? To which degree are rebound and shifting effects the reason why sustainability politics fail? How much climate protection can be claimed ethically and legally e.g. on grounds of human rights? And what is freedom? Despite all rhetoric, the weak transition in energy, climate, agriculture and conservation serves as key example in this book. It is shown how the Paris Agreement is weak with regard to details and at the same time overrules the growth society by means of a radical 1,5-1,8 degrees temperature limit. It is shown how emissions trading must - and can - be reformed radically. It is shown why CSR, education, cooperation and happiness research are overrated. And we will see what an integrated politics on climate, biodiversity, nitrogen and soil might look like.

Auteur

Felix Ekardt is the founder and head of the Forschungsstelle Nachhaltigkeit und Klimapolitik (Research Centre for Sustainability and Climate Policy) in Leipzig and Berlin. At the same time he serves as a Professor for Public Law and Legal Philosophy at Rostock University (Faculty of Law), and as member of the Science Campus Phosphorus Research Rostock. Visiting Professor at various German and Chinese universities since 2002. His research addresses questions of sustainability in the humanities, focusing on transformation, policy instruments and normativity (ethics and law) on an international, European, national and communal level.

Contenu

1. Fundaments in natural science, economics and epistemology.- 1.1 Sustainability: A definition and the non-sustainability of Western lifestyle: Resource and sink problems.- 1.2 Energy transition: An alleged success story.- 1.3 Sustainability purely technical through consistency, efficiency and wonder technologies - or also through sufficiency?- 1.4 Sustainability, profitability, and the involuntary transition to a post-growth society.- 1.5 Levels of sustainability discourse and transdisciplinary approaches.-1.6 Basic terms, levels of rationality and misunderstandings.- 1.7 Methods beyond empiricism and the duality of quantitive vs. qualitive.- 2. Conditions of a transformation to sustainability - sociological, psychological, biological.- 2.2 Complex interconnectedness of stakeholders.- 2.2 Knowledge and environmental awareness as key factors?- 2.3 Individual and collective factors of motivation: self-interest, values, structures, perceptions of normality, emotions, pathways.- 2.4 Biology and culture behind factors of motivation: brain research, evolution, education, Protestantism, capitalism.- 2.5 Happiness, empirical happiness research, cooperation research, criticism of capitalism and its tendencies overdo it.- 2.6 Politics, corporations, citizens, interest groups and other stakeholders: How change is possible in a ping-pong.- 3. Ethical and legal theory of sustainability - especially of human rights.- 3.1 Why normative questions can be rationally decided - toward a new universalism.- 3.2 Why philosophical classics, postmodernism and cost-benefit analysis are no alternative.- 3.3 A sustainable conception of freedom: Preconditions of freedom, multi-polarity and responsibility for consequences.- 3.4 Misunderstandings: Regulations of a good life, detailed distributional justice, environmental ethics.- 3.5 Concrete decision-making and balancing beyond risk theory and cost-benefit analysis.- 3.6 Institutions and democratic systems beyond an eco-dictatorship.- 3.7 Handling uncertain states of facts.- 3.8 Example: Strong climate protection obligation despite non-egalitarianism and leeway.- 4. Politics and governance of sustainability - the example of newly focussed climate, energy, agriculture and nature protection policies.- 4.1 Sustainability through education and role models?- 4.2 How much containment does capitalism need - sustainability through CSR and sustainable consumption?- 4.3 Political targets and sustainability strategies up until the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.- 4.4 Classic approach to instruments: regulatory law, planning law, subsidies, information.- 4.5 Basic regulation problems: Enforcement, weak targets, rebound effects, shifting effects, ability of mapping.- 4.6 Basic structures of economic policy instruments and their defective implementation so far.- 4.7 New resource and climate governance through newly focussed economic instruments.- 4.8 Sustainability and questions of distribution.- 4.9 Competitiveness, shifting of emissions, global economics: Could the EU become a real pioneer?- 4.10 Integrated solutions for environmental problems such as land use, energy, climate, biodiversity, phosphorus and nitrogen.- 4.11 Either underestimated or overestimated complementary role of regulatory law - the example of biodiversity.- 4.12 Other relevant, however often overrated, instruments, especially information and nudging.- 4.13 Centralised versus decentralised structures.- 4.14 Free trade, global constitutionalisation and the WTO.