In our view, equitable and fair human development can only take place within a just and safe operating space (Steffen et al. 2015; Raworth 2017), recognizing Planetary Boundaries (Rockström et al. 2009). This view is endorsed by the UNDP in its Human Development Report (UNDP 2020) to which some of us contributed. There is growing scientific understanding that “(in)equity and (un)sustainability are produced by the interactions and dynamics of coupled social–ecological systems” (Leach et al. 2018). Real system-wide transformation is needed.

The vision for FAIRTRANS is to contribute nationally and internationally to a fair societal transformations that help to realise the Paris Agreement, based on scientific knowledge and respect for planetary boundaries and social goals. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep global average temperature well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C. From this goal, national carbon budgets can be developed, contingent upon assumptions about negative emission technologies and global fairness principles. The UNFCCC principle on common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities is scale-free but since we assume that the remaining carbon budget is strikingly small, transformation necessitates pervasive strategies and policies, which call for stakeholder and citizen dialogue on how to understand “fair” in a global as well as national context.

Our mission is to develop science-based and fair roadmaps for rapid decarbonisation, consistent with the Swedish carbon budget, through collaboration with key actors from civil society.

FAIRTRANS distinguishes between transformation and adaptation. Adaptation is about adjusting responses to changing external drivers and internal processes and thereby allows for resilience and development along the current trajectory (Folke et al. 2010).  Transformation, on the other hand, implies undermining the resilience of the present system to break with some of the existing structures. This is often referred to as crossing a threshold or shifting to a new regime. Transformative governance seeks to deliberately shift to more desirable regimes by altering the system-defining goals, structures and processes (Walker et al. 2004; Chaffin et al. 2016). The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services defines transformative change as a “fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values” (IPBES 2019). IPBES argues that transformative changes are “more likely when efforts are directed at […] key leverage points, where efforts yield exceptionally large effects: (1) visions of a good life; (2) total consumption and waste” (p. 9). This means “steering away from the current, limited paradigm of economic growth… reducing overconsumption and waste” (p. 10).

Sustaining the resilience of Earth’s biosphere requires far-reaching transformations of the economy, breaking path dependency and shifting toward a new development trajectory defined by a fundamentally different narrative (Hahn & Nykvist 2017). FAIRTRANS focuses on deliberate and fair societal transformations to safeguard a resilient climate system and secure sustained and resilient delivery of ecosystem services. There is a growing recognition of the dramatic socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological changes required to move societies toward more desirable futures (Pereira et al. 2019). Real transformations result from fundamental changes in human and political vision, planning, and action that offer new configurations of social-ecological systems (Westley et al. 2013).

In this framework, the EU Green Deal should become a strategy for transformation. An agenda focused on green growth risks perpetuating, and thereby adapting to, today’s growth paradigm, which impedes a real transformation (Olsson et al. 2017). The empirical fact that economic growth increases resource use and in general increases CO2-emissions needs to be taken into account; each action in the Green Deal needs to be carefully analysed in terms of its effects on the climate, environment, jobs and sustainable development. The growth of green technology enables shrinkage of fossil-intensive technology, but such “creative destruction” (Schumpeter 1942) is met with resistance from major economic actors investing in business-as-usual (BAU) (EASAC 2020). New technologies and green jobs are necessary for the needed climate transformation, but risk being co-opted by the growth paradigm, which generates rebound effects and therefore results in less and slower emission reductions (Hickel & Kallis 2020). The digital transformation is guided by intended as well as unintended policy choices, and involves both threats and opportunities (TWI2050 2019). The converging, step-change innovations of the digital revolution (“the Fourth Industrial Revolution”) needs to be managed by overarching climate policies for the sustainability transformations needed to achieve the Paris accord.