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- Convenors:
-
Naomi Hossain
(SOAS University of London)
Marjoke Oosterom (Institute of Development Studies)
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- Formats:
- Experimental Mixed
- Stream:
- Infrastructure and energy
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 29 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Fossil fuel subsidies encourage unsustainable carbon emissions and benefit the rich, yet efforts to cut them are unpopular and resisted. The panel invites interventions exploring the contentious politics of fuel subsidies, and of citizen engagement in energy transition policymaking.
Long Abstract:
Fossil fuel subsidies are common and resilient, despite the growing global policy and political elite consensus that they are environmentally damaging, fiscally unsustainable, socially inequitable, and should be progressively eliminated. While global gatherings such as COP26 will debate these issues, the voices of others, such as citizens whose livelihoods depend on affordable fuel, are rarely heard in this context. Mass protests, particularly among low income urban groups, are a common result of energy pricing decisions made in elitist and closed policy spaces. Subsidy reforms are frequently stalled or reversed in response. This panel invites papers or other interventions - e.g. film, photography, activist testimony or campaign strategies - that help make sense of the popular political obstacles to fossil fuel subsidy reform. Contributions are particularly welcome if they shed light on the rationale for and organization of protests against subsidy cuts and/or tax rises (as seen recently in countries as varied as France, Chile, Ecuador, Iraq, Iran, and Haiti). Documentation and analysis of efforts to break the elite stranglehold on energy policymaking, to create and make spaces for citizens to have their say without or in addition to resorting to the streets, would also be welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 29 June, 2021, -Pedro Alarcon (JLU Giessen)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that a significant source of opposition to the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in Ecuador is to be found in peoples’ claim on their portion of oil rent, the expression of a quasi-naturalized right derived from living in a natural resources-rich country.
Paper long abstract:
After failing to renegotiate debt conditions with China, the Ecuadorian government reverted to traditional international financial institutions in a further attempt to cover the fiscal deficit left by the dramatic drop in oil prices that marked the end of the twenty-first century commodities boom (2003-2014). In order to meet targets agreed with lenders, President Lenín Moreno scrapped subsidies on transportation fuels by the beginning of October 2019. Amid nationwide protests, Moreno was forced to repeal the measure after just two weeks of enforcement. Interpretations of the protests have been manifold; this paper presents a further reading based on critical rentier theory, and argues that a significant source of opposition to the elimination of subsidies is to be found in peoples’ claim on their portion of oil rent, the expression of a quasi-naturalized right derived from living in a natural resources-rich country.
Patrik Oskarsson (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) Devanshi Chanchani (Brunel University)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on qualitative research in polluted low-income urban settlements in Chhattisgarh's coal belt, we investigate the everyday jugaad (hack) in securing domestic energy for cooking and heating. Understanding everyday jugaad is crucial to informing policy and a transition to clean burning fuels.
Paper long abstract:
Despite a range of initiatives to introduce cleaner fuels, a large proportion of poor people in India continue to rely on solid fuels for cooking and heating with severe implications for personal and family health. This paper seeks to open up the varied fuel supply strategies that underpin domestic energy use in low-income settings. We draw on long-term ethnographic engagements in four severely polluted low-income urban settlements in central India’s coal belt to investigate how communities, and primarily women, ensure domestic energy provision. As households struggle to balance a range of potential fuels with different benefits and drawbacks, we outline the socio-cultural and economic processes that shape household energy choice. These highly uncertain processes take place within an institutional structure which offers some possibilities, but is overall too rigid to fit the lived realties of low-income residents. While the monetary cost of cooking gas is not always significantly higher than for alternative solid fuels, we find that the full upfront payment is a deterrent. Further, the time spent on gathering or using solid fuels might be the only available savings people can make in a setting of underemployment. Households understand that there are negative health effects from solid fuel smoke, but pollution and health are only marginal considerations for households in routine struggles to save on expenses. We argue that understanding the everyday jugaad (unconventional solution) of household energy provision is crucial to assess the possibilities to shift away from fuels damaging to both human health and the environment.
Neil McCulloch (The Policy Practice) Naomi Hossain (SOAS University of London) Davide Natalini (Anglia Ruskin University) Patricia Justino (UNU-WIDER)
Paper short abstract:
When countries fix fuel prices, they create subsidies. When these become unsustainable, subsidy reforms induce large price spikes that frequently cause fuel riots. Net energy exporters and countries with poor governance are more likely to have large fuel subsidies.
Paper long abstract:
Fuel riots are common around the world. Between 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with prior expectations, we find that large domestic fuel price shocks are a key driver of riots – as these are often linked to international price shocks. In addition, we report a novel result: fuel riots are closely associated with domestic price regimes. Countries that maintain fixed price regimes – notably net energy exporters – tend to have large fuel subsidies. When such subsidies become unsustainable, domestic price adjustments are large, often leading to riots.