| dc.description.abstract | The threat of worsening climate change has motivated governments to shape policies towards mitigating the worst impacts by aiming for sustainability. Europe is undergoing a green transition to such ends. Its current iteration of policies, the European Green Deal, require CO2 reduction targets while incentivizing a green growth economy to lead the change. One outcome of such policies is the use of wood pellets as a form of biomass energy. The largest source of Europe’s biomass energy comes from the southern United States.
The thesis explores the sustainability of such a process by asking, “What are the consequences of biomass energy as promoted by European green transition?” Interviews and thematic analysis from a case study in North Carolina, US reveal a chain of contested consequences emanating from policy discourse to local impacts. The community impacts suggest biomass energy is environmentally problematic, economically limited, and socially polarizing. The policy discourse reveals ecological modernization as a development model. This model relies on leadership from key institutions – governance, free markets, and technology and science – to achieve success. Those pathways to sustainability do not address the inherent power and politics within their approaches.
Relying on existing institutions within the ecological modernization discourse limits the transformation potential of the green transition. An additional pathway of citizen-led discourse could challenge the systemic conditions which not only caused climate change, but also address the inequities and injustices alongside it. In centering equity and justice, the transition could become a transformation, in which different discourses guide social relations and well-being. Though not a harmonious process, its importance is that it includes everyone in the realm of discussions, from diagnosing problems to co-creating new pathways. | |
