Global Talk online: From lightbulbs to speed limits

Climate action represents wholesale change. Its impacts on people’s work and livelihoods will be complex: personal circumstances, geographic location, and the sectors affected all create different opportunities, risks and needs for individuals and their families navigating economic change.  

Yet, energy policy and climate action are increasingly characterised by politicisation, populism, and a perceived tension between being 'green' and the cares and priorities of 'working people'. Drawing on recent work on green backlash, Ed Atkins will profile how such a tension has involved inscribing everyday and benign objects and practices of consumption (including light bulbs and vacuum cleaners) with new political meaning - and how such meaning can be navigated in advocating for justice-led climate transitions.   

Discussion with Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer at the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. His work is focused on interdisciplinary research into energy transitions, climate change communication and a just transition.