"German manufacturing industries are at the beginning of a fundamental change. In order to be able to achieve the climate goals enshrined in the Paris agreement and in EU and German laws, a “Green and Just Transition” — or as it is called in Germany: a “socio-ecological transformation” — is needed. It requires determined and coordinated action in a multitude of technological, industrial, economic, and labour policy fields. This applies at all levels of politics: from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the European Union (EU) to the federal and state governments and the municipalities. Governments, in turn, need political pressure from societal actors to make progress, especially in the areas of sectoral policy and regional structural and transport policy. Next to a strong climate protection movement and environmental associations, the trade unions with their down-to-earth experience, sector-specific expertise and mobilisation power are particularly called upon here.
In the following, an overview is given of a series of studies on this topic which are the outcomes of the project “Socio-Ecological Transformation of German Industry”. Three of these studies summarise the current state of knowledge on the main trends in technology and economic policy and present the current strategies of the relevant actors in three major industrial sectors - the chemical, steel, and automotive industries. A fourth study highlights the particularly urgent reforms in the field of labour policy in Germany, which would help to link what is necessary in terms of climate policy with what is socially necessary. Three further studies deal with the climate policy framework conditions of the industrial transformation, the significance of the hydrogen strategy and the debate over problems relating to the EU emissions trading system and the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism.
The studies were funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in cooperation with the non-profit association Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik and were published (in German) in 2022, available here. 1 The present synthesis report provides an updated overview of these studies and concludes with detailing the contentious questions faced by trade unions and other societal and political actors on the front lines of this fundamental transformation."

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ISBN (PDF) : 978-3-903343-41-2