Paper short abstract:

How can post-development and pluriversal thinking help design energy transitions that are decolonial and anti-capitalist? Drawing on the pluriverse and post-development, this talk will argue for decolonizing ‘energy justice’ to ‘make space’ for actual possibilities of pluriversal-justice to emerge.

Paper long abstract:

How can post-development and pluriversal thinking help design energy transitions that are decolonial and anti-capitalist? The hegemonic discussion of energy transitions has concentrated at high levels of government, embraced corporate interests and tied to a unilinear-Modern version of development. The term 'transition' has become a passive revolution, a spectacle even, which aims to reaffirm extractivist and colonial values and principles, legitimizing strategies of dispossession that promote a 'green', 'just' or 'fair' transition, consisting of a technological substitution leaving consumption patterns and capitalist power structures intact. Especially in Global South, the deployment of so-called “renewable infrastructure” megaprojects has begun to raise criticisms of the supposed 'renewability' and 'acceptability' of these projects associated with the demand for space, 'critical' minerals, fossil fuels and the counterinsurgency tactics used to conceal dispossession. Calls for a radical socio-ecological transformations are also questioning the metabolically unequal relations embedded between different places and in colonial-extractive terms that reproduce terra nullius logics and settler-colonial strategies that inaugurate new commodity frontiers as spatiotemporal solutions (or spatial fixes) 'buying time' through 'green' capitalism.

Alternatives 'from below' seeking to reorganize relations with the territory are also resisting the alienation, abstraction and commodification of energy by(re)conceptualizing energy as a territorialized relationship, based other(ed) knowledges. Drawing on pluriversal and post-development frameworks, this talk will argue that ‘energy justice’ must be decolonized by separating its main tenets form the onto-epistemic commitment with a unilinear model of development, ‘making space’ for actual possibilities of pluriversal-fairness based on different onto-epistemic forms of justice to emerge.

Paper short abstract:

Communities affected by RE projects have extensively raised environmental and justice issues and denounced bad practices and crimes. We analyse conflicts and diverging valuation languages around RE projects built and operated by one of the biggest energy companies in Europe, the ENEL Group.

Paper long abstract:

As policies in favour of renewable energy (RE) expand worldwide, energy companies increase their investments in the sector. Their narratives for the energy transitions call for ¨creating a shared value¨ to fight climate change and “open power” for all stakeholders.

However, current policies for the energy transition trigger urgent questions about what values count, who controls and decides, and who defines the solutions in the energy transition. Communities affected by RE projects have extensively raised environmental and justice issues and denounced bad practices and crimes.

In this article, we analyse 15 cases of socio-environmental conflicts and the valuation languages of impacted communities opposing RE projects built and operated by one of the biggest energy companies in Europe, the ENEL Group.

This article builds on the concept of valuation languages developed in Ecological Economics and discusses how values are being framed and defended by impacted communities vs the way the energy company claim the creation of “value” can be a shared and consensual process.

We argue that while the company narrative seeks to build consensus practices around a common value of progress, development and growth, local opposition to RE projects aims to defend a plurality of ‘values’. The results problematise the way the energy transition is being framed and promoted by large corporations and central governments but also shed light on what diverse energy models and practices can look like to meet people’s needs and respect ecosystems.

Paper short abstract:

A discussion of the interactions between hegemonic conceptions of transitions and bottom up proposals, and how financial actors in the global North are shaping the field of possibility for alternative transitions.

Paper long abstract:

Latin America’s “open veins” have long been plundered for their natural resource wealth, often to the benefit economic actors based in the world’s financial centres, most notably London, UK. The imminent green translation, it appears, will extend the region’s extractive frontiers ever further, with decisions made by distant government and corporations in the global North once again looming large on the continent. Whilst there is a well-established literature on extractivism in Latin America and vibrant debates centred on energy transitions are taking place in social movements and universities in the regions alike, less attention has been paid to how new forms of dependency in the twenty-first century. I argue that closer attention needs to be placed on how de-risking strategies, financial markets in sustainable bonds and the trading of transition minerals interact with existent extractive processes and state forms in the region. In this paper I outline theoretical tools that can help us draw connections between London and the Andes, between finance and frontier subjects, between energy transitions and new forms of dependency. In doing so, I aim not to offer definitive answers but tools that academics, social movements and political actors in Latin America alike can use to grapple with the global forces shaping energy transitions. It is only by looking at the global factors from above driving the shift towards green energy that we can find ways to open spaces for alternative transitions that build upon indigenous cosmovisions and epistemologies of the South more generally.

Paper short abstract:

Analyzing the role of hydropower projects in creating the crises of 2021 flash floods and 2022-23 sinking of Joshimath town in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand Himalaya, India, the paper will discuss how these projects are detrimental to social and ecological justice, based on people's voices.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing from doctoral and post doctoral field work of several years in the state of Uttarakhand in India, the paper will bring in people's responses to the hydropower projects promoted as part of energy transition policy of the India in the Himalayan state. The questions that people were raising regarding these projects have become sharper and more urgent given the series of disasters in the Chamoli district, in the Joshimath region, also known for the Chipko movement.

The paper will discuss how the damages brought upon by the February 2021 flash floods, and 2022-2023 sinking of Joshimath town and the neighboring villages are associated with the construction practices of the hydro projects, thus, raising questions about the implications of these projects for social and ecological justice. In addition to such disasters, the impacts are visible in multiple ways, including depopulation trends, dwindling agricultural produces and water shortages, and thus, there have been consistent protests against the projects.

The paper will explore, through examining villagers' Court petitions, field interactions and press coverage, the basis of their protests and questions that they raise about their rights, projects' accountability and the dominant notions of development and environment that become a basis of promotion of these projects in the Himalaya. It will discuss how the expert opinions and villagers’ concerns get obliterated by the project proponents, while also denying them their right to know of the causes of crises they are facing, and that often gets relegated to climate change, and as natural disaster.

Paper short abstract:

The paper demonstrates the influence of normality and social capital on acceptance or rejection of renewable energy technologies, which are crucial, but (often) overlooked, to promote effective and meaningful ‘just’ energy transition pathways in the global South.

Paper long abstract:

In the global context of reducing carbon emissions and shifting towards sustainable modes of urban infrastructure, strategies that provide decentralized access to renewable energy technologies for the urban poor are increasingly promoted. However, while innovative energy technologies are introduced in order to support global targets for sustainability and service-delivery while also directly benefiting low-income households (e.g. by reducing the monetary costs of energy), there is widespread evidence that low-income urban dwellers do not always readily accept these technologies. Typically, the urban poor are blamed for failing to adopt new technologies, with little consideration for underlying socio-cultural causes. Using examples drawn from qualitative research in low-income settlements in India and South Africa, this paper demonstrates the role of socio-cultural attitudes and practices in affecting social acceptance of domestic solar energy interventions. Focusing specifically on perceptions of normality and practices of social capital, both of which are connected to collective social influence, the paper reveals how these concepts affect the socio-cultural acceptance of new energy technologies amongst low-income urban dwellers in the global South. Furthermore, we argue that adopting a socio-cultural perspective is a crucial, but (often) overlooked, aspect of scholarly and policy analyses of, and strategies for, energy transitions in the global South.

Paper short abstract:

In the context of low-carbon energy transition in Greece, claims of socio-environmental injustice contradict official pronouncements about sustainability. Examining both 1. the institutional framework on RES and 2. a large-scale wind farm case study, procedural justice is strongly questioned.

Paper long abstract:

Over the last years wind farms are proliferating across Greece and are being promoted by the central policy as the sustainable solution for climate change mitigation. At the same time, the development of large-scale renewable energy projects under market-based governance raises questions about the uneven distribution of economic and environmental costs and benefits and about the insufficient inclusion of local communities in the decision-making process. This paper focuses on the procedural aspects of the state-led wind park expansion in Greece and examines the role of local and societal actors in the policy-making and planning processes, through a parallel analysis of the institutional framework and the case study of a large-scale wind park within protected natural sites on the island of Ikaria. Drawing upon political ecology and environmental justice literature (Swyngedouw; Walker; Apostolopoulou) the dimension of procedural justice is highlighted and Agyeman’s concept of “just sustainability” is introduced. Following this understanding, the paper investigates to what extent state-promoted wind park expansion in Ikaria is in line with sustainability and environmental justice principles. The main research methodology is the document review of the key legislation and regulatory framework for RES in Greece with emphasis on the governance and procedural aspects (decision-making and licensing procedures, public deliberations etc.), supplemented by review of the local press for the examination of the emerging socio-environmental conflict in Ikaria. The aim is to stress the active involvement of local communities in decision-making processes as a crucial factor in building equitable energy transition systems.