Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the struggles around the Greek "fair energy transition" by unpacking different notions of fairness. Explaining their often contradictory political/moral underpinnings implies the combine understanding of energy, value and financial extraction.

Paper long abstract:

In the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit the conservative prime minister of Greece announced the sudden suspension of all existing coal-based power-plants by 2023. Although the share of the once predominant lignite in the energy mix had been significantly reduced in the past decade, the plan for such a violent decarbonisation left the coal-mine communities in extreme agony. On the one hand, the shutdown of a labour intensive industry will substantially raise the unemployment rates in an already crises-ridden society. On the other hand, the green plans for installing mega-photovoltaic parks, seen both as an investment opportunity and as cryptocolonialism, has created contradictory responses and deep animosities around the distribution of ecological and economic benefits for the local population.

This paper will discuss the organized struggles and infrapolitics for a so-called "fair energy transition" in the main coal region of Greece (Kozani), by unpacking the power relations among different notions of fairness. I will argue that explaining the political and moral underpinnings of such struggles implies the combine understanding of different kinds of extraction: energy extraction from nature (and its environmental impact), value extraction from labor (in energy production) and financial extraction (in form of green rents, credit and taxes).