How to bring resource sufficiency into EU policy and politics? Shifting from emissions to materials

About the masterclass

Climate diplomacy and policies have made significant progress in setting targets for emissions reductions in recent years. But the agenda for resource management and sufficiency has received much less attention and the outlook is bleak. According to International Resource Panel of the UN Environment Program, resource efficiency has not improved since the 1970s, even though GDP has grown fourfold. Resource consumption is projected to double again before 2060 if current trends continue, transgressing all planetary boundaries and accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss.

This masterclass offers the opportunity to experiment with new methods of integrating resource management and sufficiency objectives into policy across Europe. After an opening presentation on the implications of the just published Global Resources Outlook for policy by Dr Heather Grabbe, participants will undertake practical exercises on creating policy arguments for different kinds of governance institutions (eg central banks, national governments, EU institutions) or policy-makers with different responsibilities (eg economic resilience, financial stability, military security).

Meet the speaker

Dr Heather Grabbe is Senior Fellow at the think-tank Bruegel in Brussels, as well as visiting professor at the UCL European Institute and KU Leuven. The focus of her research is the political economy of the European Green Deal and how the climate transition will change the EU’s international relationships and external policies. She is a political scientist who has served as director of the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels, and earlier as deputy director of the Centre for European Reform in London. She conducted academic research at the European University Institute, Chatham House, Oxford and Birmingham universities, as well as teaching at the London School of Economics. From 2004 to 2009 Heather was senior advisor to then European Commissioner Olli Rehn, responsible in his Cabinet for policy on the Balkans and Turkey. She has written extensively on the political economy of EU enlargement, the EU’s external and neighbourhood policies, and the evolution of new policy agendas in climate, digital and the rule of law. Her columns appear in the Financial Times, Politico and other quality media. Heather earned her PhD at Birmingham University, and her first degree in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University, where she also had a post-doctoral fellowship. She is fluent in English, French and Italian, with working level German.

Context

This masterclass is hosted by the UCL European Institute in partnership with the Institute of Sustainable Resources. It is open to their students and students from across UCL. The class runs its series of masterclasses in partnership with European and International Social and Political Studies. 

Discover the masterclass series