Speaker
Description
The urgency of the climate crisis and ambitious political aims towards climate neutrality are increasing the pressure to accelerate projects for the post-fossil transformation. In Germany, this particularly affects energy transition projects, such as wind power and photovoltaic systems, whose acceleration is justified by an “overwhelming public interest” in planning. In contrast, environmental protection associations criticize the acceleration because it entails a restriction of environmental assessments and participation rights. While the lesson learned from the conflict over the Stuttgart 21 project a decade ago was to expand public participation, today in the context of the acceleration debate participation is often seen as a delay of transformative projects. The paper therefore addresses conflicts between acceleration and participation in the planning of projects in the context of post-fossil transformation (Skjølsvold/Coenen 2021).
In an empirical part, the results of a case study on the location of the Gigafactory Tesla in Berlin-Brandenburg are presented (Kühn 2023). This is the largest industrial project in Germany for the production of electric cars with a post-fossil drive. Tesla has declared the acceleration of the energy and mobility transition as the company's mission to protect the global climate. Under pressure from Tesla, the factory was completed in a record time of about two years. This high pace was only made possible by numerous preliminary approvals before the final approval. The Tesla case shows that the acceleration of the approval and planning processes was accompanied by an exclusion of proofing location alternatives, democratic deficits in informal public participation and unresolved conflicts regarding regional water resources.
In the final part, the article draws some lessons from the case for planning theory. It turns out that the approach of communicative planning (Healey 1992) with the claim of finding consensus through participation within a deliberative democracy has its limits due to the time pressure and conflicts in post-fossil transformation. In the context of the current acceleration debate, there are increasing signs for a return to rational planning. In this mode of planning, technocratic experts determine the public interest, participation is only used at the lowest level of information and decisions are made by representative democracy (Meyerson/Banfield 1955). This mode corresponds to the emergence of new forms of technocratic management (Raco/Savini 2019). With such a rational planning approach, transformative projects are legitimized by climate crises and easier to push through against resistance from civil society. Finally, the article discusses the alternative approach of agonistic planning (Bäcklund/Mäntysalo 2010), which aims to tame conflicts through a higher level of participation within a radical democracy.
References
Bäcklund P.; Mäntysalo R. (2010): Agonism and institutional ambiguity: Ideas on Democracy and the role of participation in the development of planning theory and practice - the case of Finland, in: Planning Theory 9(4) 333-350.
Healey, P. (1992): Planning through Debate: The Communicative Turn in Planning Theory. In: Town Planning Review 63, 2, 233–249.
Kühn, M. (2023): Planungskonflikte und Partizipation. Die Gigafactory Tesla. In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning. https://doi.org/10.14512/rur.1698
Meyerson, M.; Banfield, E. C. (1955): Politics, planning and the public interest: The case of public housing in Chicago. London: Collier-Macmillan.
Raco, M.; Savini, F. (Eds. 2019): Planning and knowledge: How new forms of technocracy are shaping contemporary cities. Bristol.
Skjølsvold, T. M.; Coenen, L. (2021): Are rapid and inclusive energy and climate transitions oxymorons? Towards principles of responsible acceleration. In: Energy Research and Social Science 79, 102164. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.erss.2021.102164
| Keywords | acceleration; participation; conflicts; planning theories; democracy |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
