Sustainable development as a concept and practice has been debated among academia, policymakers and practitioners for over four decades. While the nature and meanings of the debate have changed based on dominant development ideologies and policies, situating climate change within the larger debate is still incomplete. The neoliberal techno-market based solutions for addressing climate change have fallen short of achieving the aims of mitigation, at the same time creating new livelihood challenges for marginalized social groups and indigenous communities the world over, particularly in the global south. Scholars are currently exploring ideas and practices that could potentially bring about transformational change that could lead to addressing social and environmental justice and livelihoods and climate change simultaneously. Degrowth is one such idea that is being floated and engaged with by scholars of different ideological persuations. How can academics, policymakers, practitioners and communities work towards achieving transformational change through degrowth and/or other practices? What are the cutting-edge theories that could inform such policies and practices? What kind of ideological shifts could be envisaged and practiced? What kind of policy shifts could be discussed? While we agree that the global and the local cannot be dichotomized, the challenges to sustainable futures and transformational change need to be addressed at both global and local levels each informing the other. The ‘local’ is indeed as fraught with unequal power relations and struggles over resources and ideologies as the ‘global’. This panel invites theoretical and empirical papers addressing these questions and ideas. Papers based on studies and practitioner experiences in transformational projects and programmes, studies on resistance from below, ideological struggles and engagements, educational experiences and engagements, bottom-up experiences/successes from no-regret measures, alternative policymaking efforts and related work are welcome.

This panel is organised by the EADI Working Group on "Climate-Resilient Development and Transformational Change"