Depoliticised environmental policies: Low-carbon action in the Paris urban region

In this article, we explore the politics of urban-regional energy and climate action. The article is based on a six-year interdisciplinary project combining qualitative social sciences surveys and quantitative urban modelling to explore the complex mix of national, regional and sub-regional land use, transport and building energy efficiency policies that play a key part in energy and climate action. It offers a three-step assessment of the dynamics of low-carbon transition processes in the French capital region, Île-de-France. First, we present the orientations of the regional strategy, highlight the extent to which this strategy prioritises infrastructural developments and document the gap, especially in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, between stated ambitions and observed outcomes. Second, we foreground three main factors contributing to this gap: piecemeal infrastructural solutionism, unaddressed tensions in regional policies and overlooked dynamics of practices. Third, we argue that these shortfalls all derive to a large extent from variegated forms of depoliticisation. In the conclusion, we briefly discuss the implications of these findings for (a much-needed democratic repoliticisation of) environmental or sustainability policies more generally.