Professor Minas Co-authors New Comparative Study of EU & Chinese Climate Change Regulation

STL associate professorStephen Minashas co-authored a new article on the topic “Navigating a just transition through the climate emergency: What role for finance and technology”. Thearticle, co-authored with Dr Matt Kennedy, ARUP Ireland and the Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, and Dr Karsten Krause, German Environment Agency, is published in the journalIrish Studies in International Affairs.

Each of the three authors has served in the Technology Mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in various capacities. STL students Loftus Zhang and Elvis Geng provided research assistance for Dr Minas’ contribution to the article.

The article discusses recent developments in the concepts of ‘climate justice’ and ‘just transition’, and examines how these concepts are being implemented through regulation in the European Union and its Member States, in China and through international cooperation. The article focuses on regulatory frameworks for finance and technology as contributors to achieving a ‘just transition’.

Dr Minas and Dr Kennedy first presented the paper at the April 2020 virtual conference of the Royal Irish Academy on “The global politics of climate emergency”. Keynote speeches at the conference were given by Mr Simon Coveney, the then-deputy prime minister of the Republic of Ireland, and Mrs Mary Robinson, president of the Mary Robinson Foundation and former president of Ireland.