Colloquium on Deceleration, Paradigm Shifts, and Transitions

COP21 ten years on: how green are the regions?

27-28 November 2025, Brest (France)

Drawing  Louise Sawtschuk

The COP 21 on climate change was held in France in October 2015. The Paris Agreement was adopted at this COP with the objective of keeping global warming below 2°C or 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. The timely Climate Change, Spatial Planning/Development and Urban Transition Colloquium held in Brest (France) the same year, had also observed low levels of mobilisation in the urban planning/development and urbanism sector and recognized the need for an urban transition that would change the way we build, live and travel (Calthorpe, 2013; Desse et al, 2017). So where are we 10 years on? What changes have been made at the regional level to apply the pathways defined at COP 21? According to the latest United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, 2024) report, we are entering a critical climate moment: if the trends of the last decade continue, temperatures could rise at least 3.1°C by the end of the century. This means that to avoid exceeding the 1.5°C climate threshold, there needs to be a 42% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared with 2019 levels. The next COP 30 on climate, which will take place in Brazil in November 2025, will not include the United States who have once more withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. In this context, the sociology study and research laboratory LABERS will host a colloquium at the University of Brest (20-22 November 2025) as part of its Regions and Cultures research area: “Deceleration, Paradigm Shifts, and Transitions / COP21 ten years on: how green are the regions?” (Ralentir, bifurquer, « transitionner », 10 ans après la COP21, quelles transformations écologiques dans les territoires ?). The important thing here is to describe the dynamics and pathways of ecological changes – those already initiated and those to come – from the multi-level perspective of discourse, institutions, sectors and social groups.

Why do regional policies still keep the environmental objectives at bay which have already been identified and defined for over a decade? Have we really managed to slow things down (Parrique, 2022)? And is deceleration enough? Should we not be pushing the paradigm shift further to drive regional change? What are the drivers of change in the different sectors? Have the crises of the last decade affected previously-agreed pathways (regression, acceleration, stagnation)? Have certain decisions influenced public policies and changed individual and collective practices towards an ecological transition? Has a supporting ecosystem for transition developed? How do different social groups perceive and respond to the challenges inherent in ecological changes?

This colloquium will try to provide some answers to these questions. Submissions are welcome in four thematic areas:

1)    Expressions and discourse in ecological transitions: descriptive and political issues.

2)    Institutional commitments and levers for changing the ecological pathway.

3)    Current state of sectoral change at the regional level: obstacles, levers, opportunities, inequalities, failures, conflicts, and possibilities.

4)    Differences by social group in the reception, appropriation and implementation of ecological changes in individual and collective behaviours.

RESEARCH AREA 1 – Expressions and discourse in ecological transitions: descriptive and political issues. Vocabulary used to analyse and describe responses to climate and environmental disruptions.

Submissions can question notions such as transition, sustainable development, mitigation, adaptation, and resilience, as well as the various terms used to explain the countermeasures to human-induced ecological degradation. Each term comes with its own implications, advantages and inconveniences for the actors who use them. The term “sustainable development” that was widely used in the 2000s, has gradually been replaced by “transition” in academic, technical and political discourse. In the political domain, it was already question of a “transition to sustainable development” when the Brundtland report was published in 1987. However, the term “transition” subsequently disappeared from use and was replaced by “sustainable development”, which struck a social, environmental and economic balance that did not call into question the neoliberal capitalist model.Although “in transition” suggests a social programme or the idea that society needs to be changed, it tends to trivialise and downplay the urgency of the situation and is often used to legitimise “techno-solutionism” (Mallet, 2024). In the case of energy, for example, the notion of transition tends to overlook the fact that energies are cumulative rather than substitutable (Fressoz, 2024). The notion of “risk” is gaining ground in our ways of talking about and analysing climate problems that should be addressed by adaptation, mitigation, and resilience policies. The term “crisis”, meanwhile, perpetuates the illusion that at some point things will “get back to normal”.

Submissions can focus on finding the “right concept” from a stakeholder perspective: the interplay of power between individuals and their different opinions on the objectives to be met and the methods and means employed to achieve them, as well as the appropriate terms and the when, how, and with who of their use. Similarly, the concept of the Anthropocene, which has been circulating for the past decade, was invalidated in 2024 by the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In addition, it has already been subject to criticism and rendered obsolete by proponents of the Anglocene, Capitalocene or Plantationocene terms that are intended to describe the historical, social, economic and cultural aspects of this era (with emphasis on the destructive, polluting, energy-consuming, productivist, extractivist, colonial, racist, gendered, aesthetic aspects of the processes underway). What words best convey the complexity and seriousness of the environmental situation? When and by whom should these words be used? And how can regional actors draw on them to encourage real paradigm shifts that will decelerate and limit the impacts of our production methods and lifestyles (sometimes referred to as thrift, simple living, or degrowth approaches).

RESEARCH AREA 2 – Institutional commitments and levers for changing the ecological pathway.

Contributions can trace the evolution of the guidelines up to COP 21, for example through the succession of COPs since 1995, and those since 2015. Cross-references or comparisons of content with other texts produced at other levels, such as national conferences (the 2007 Grenelle Environment Forum in France) or more local ones (drainage basins, bioregions defined according to democratic and ecological criteria, areas with specific characteristics, such as the Pacific islands and the Amazon rainforest, or indigenous peoples living in particularly vulnerable areas) will be used as a means of analysing the progress and limitations of policy texts and guidelines.

Regressions may be observed for some measures, and new developments and progress for others. Explaining the reasons behind these variations is one way of understanding collective attention or denial of ecological degradation, particularly climate change.

In addition to the general framework texts themselves, this research area also focuses on turning the guidelines into concrete public policies and the commitments into tangible actions. In France, for example, there are master plans and PCAETs (regional climate, air, energy plans) that determine urban planning/development choices, taxes and eco-taxes, as well as funding and incentives for the adjustments needed as part of the implementation of another as yet undefined model.

This research area also covers the gradual structuring of an ecosystem and the engineering and technical expertise surrounding the transitions (French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME), Centre for Studies and Expertise on Risks, the Environment, Mobility and Urban Planning (CEREMA), local authority services, design offices, professional associations), which are likely to influence the development of public policies and new standards for citizens, businesses and local authorities. Transition support has developed over the last decade and is particularly evident in the “fresks” serious game (on climate, possibilities, mobility, football, responsible digital technology, food, etc.), the effects of which have yet to be examined.

RESEARCH AREA 3 – Current state of sectoral change at the regional level: obstacles, levers, opportunities, inequalities, failures, conflicts and possibilities

This research area will explore the pathways of change that have or have not been carried out over the last decade in the different sectors, such as energy, mobility, biodiversity, agriculture, education, urbanism, health, and sport. Contributions must describe the obstacles and opportunities that help to explain (positive or negative) temporal and spatial changes in the environment: periods or events (economic or health crises), geographical (rural vs urban), cultural or political disparities. The energy sector plays a key role, with fossil fuels accounting for around two thirds of France’s energy consumption for the last thirty years (91% for the transport sector). This observation highlights the ongoing challenges of decarbonising the energy system. There has clearly been a worldwide shift towards “clean energy” over the last decade, but is an energy transition really underway (Fressoz, 2024)?[1] Deceleration and paradigm shifts call for the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) across multiple sectors and scales. For example, the decarbonisation of the transport sector requires a change in practices towards simpler living (shorter distances travelled, longer travel times over these distances). The transition to sustainable mobility (via e-vehicles, urban electric vehicles and shared transport) mainly hinges on developing short supply chains and changing how logistics chains are organized (Beyer et al., 2022). The necessary changes directly concern regional planning/management through Zero Net Artificialization (ZAN) and ecological restoration (EU Nature restoration law). More broadly, reducing greenhouse gases means changes in urban planning/development and lifestyles (Flipo, 2020). What changes have been made in educational practices or awareness-raising activities? And what concrete results have been achieved? Submissions may also incorporate a more general reflection on how there are certain paradigms that structure some of these changes, such as the notion of “green growth” (Tordjman, 2024). There will be a focus not only on failure, regression and conflict, but also on possibilities and the inspiring initiatives that are being rolled out across the regions.

RESEARCH AREA 4 – Differences by social group in the reception, appropriation and implementation of ecological changes in individual and collective behaviours.

This research area assumes that different social groups do not appropriate COP challenges and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the same way. Submissions can describe these differences and analyse their impact on individual and collective agency. Four types of relationship with ecology have been identified; they differ according to social class (more or less socially advantaged) and to whether the type of capital is more of a cultural or economic nature (Comby, 2024). A first group, with strong economic capital, adheres to a reformist ecology of individual gestures, including alternative forms of consumption (purchasing electric cars, insulating one’s house, etc.), without giving up occasional indulgences (travelling by plane for holidays, etc.). The upper and middle classes, which tend to have cultural capital, readily adopt a more radical, anti-capitalist and disruptive stance. For the middle classes and the long-established working classes, there is a massive rejection of environmental discourse. This rejection can be interpreted as the symbolic violence from the dominant classes towards the working class and as a potential threat of downward social mobility. This does not, however, exclude common-sense ecological practices. Finally, the most vulnerable social groups generally show less interest in ecological issues, even though in reality they are practicing constrained simple living. Beyond this typology of social classes that considers both material living conditions and social distinctions, this research area aims to encourage further study from an intersectional perspective of the capacities, wishes, adherence to or distance from climatic injunctions, as well as the practices and lifestyles of the different social groups, linking the various forms of domination and inequality: differences in terms of age (Loriot collective, 2024), gender (Pruvost, 2021; Gaillard, 2021), attachment to place of residence (Rubert, 2023), etc.

Since COP21, how have lifestyles and everyday practices changed in a socially differentiated way? Moreover, how have representations and opinions been renewed, translated into electoral behaviour, climate-sceptic stances or climate anxieties, and support or rejection of ecological social mobilisations and movements?

The call for projects will be open from 17 February 2025 until 30 April 2025.

Abstracts (3,000 characters) for submissions of oral communications or posters can be submitted via this link: https://ralentir-cop21.sciencesconf.org/submission/submit?lang=fr