- Convenors:
-
Murat Arsel
(International Institute of Social Studies - Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Lorenzo Pellegrini (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
- Format:
- Panel
Format/Structure
Four paper presentations followed by an open discussion.
Long Abstract
Keeping global warming below 1.5 (or even 2) degrees celcius is simply impossible unless substantial portions of existing coal, gas, and oil reserves are permanently left under ground. Doing so would require the resolution of several interconnected problems. How can societal consensus be reached in nation-states rich in hydrocarbon resources to establish a permanent ban on extraction? How can the needs and interests of marginalized communities - such as indigenous peoples - be reflected in how such policies are designed and operationalised? Which resource owners - if not all - are to be compensated for forgoing future earnings from extracting hydrocarbon reserves? How can the gargantuan financial resources needed for such compensation raised and disbursed in a fair and efficient manner? And finally, what are the implications of the successful implementation of unburnable fuels on groups and communities whose livelihoods are intimately linked to hydrocarbon extraction today? These questions all have complex environmental justice implications that needs to be analysed at different geographic, political and temporal scales. The complexity of achieving environmental justice is further complicated by the urgency of the need to enact policies that can leave fossil fuels underground.
Accepted papers
Session 1Presentation short abstract
Fossil fuels must stay underground. Changing course requires fossil fuel-producing countries to forgo substantial rents. We sketch the political economy of fossil fuel supply phase-out matching feasibility with justice, emphasizing the role of compensation and long-term commitments.
Presentation long abstract
The king is naked and after 30 years of attempts to establish an effective global climate policy regime, the ‘world leaders’ have started to acknowledge that fossil fuels must stay underground to make any conspicuous progress towards greenhouse gas emissions reduction. The fact that most fossil fuel reserves are ‘unburnable’ is the corollary of the relationship between the remaining carbon budget and the emissions embedded in existing fossil fuel reserves. Nevertheless, companies and countries are planning to extract quantities of fossil fuels well above those compatible with the 1.5oC, and even 2oC, global warming targets. Changing course will have vast implications for the global economy and require that fossil fuel-producing countries forgo substantial rents – the extranormal profits associated with fossil fuels. Focusing on rents, we discuss the political economy of fossil fuel supply phase-out strategies and how to match feasibility with justice, emphasizing the role of compensation and long-term commitments.
Presentation short abstract
We analyse the Yasuni-ITT initiative's more than two-decade long history in four stages: utopian, mainstreamed, dismmised and resurrected. Our reading demonstrates the limits to supply-side policies by individual nation-states.
Presentation long abstract
This paper chronicles the still-evolving Yasuní-ITT initiative, an example of the increasingly prominent ‘supply-side’ responses to climate change. We analyze the initiative's more than two-decade long history in four stages. In its first stage, utopian, the initiative was the self-consciously idealistic proposal put forward during the early 2000s by radical environmental activists and ignored by institutional actors as unrealistic. The second stage, mainstreamed, following the election of President Correa, the proposal was mainstreamed into Ecuadorian development policy. The plan to leave the ITT oil blocks in the Yasuní National Park was widely celebrated as a hugely significant initiative. In the third stage, dismissed, marked by the failure to quickly secure compensation of lost income it was dismissed by the Ecuadorian state. The proposal was abandoned in 2013 and the Ecuadorian state-owned oil company started the extraction process. In the fourth stage, resurrected, the initiative was supported by a large popular majority in a national referendum (August 2023).
The paper looks at the institutional dynamics of the initiative at the local, national and international level. The necessity to replicate and upscale Yasuní like initiatives is matched with the political economy of extractivism and the risk of policy rollbacks. The key to understanding the challenges of the Yasuní initiative is that the strategy to neutralize rents through conditional compensation ultimately failed. Structural constraints are halting progress and implementation of the initiative demonstrating the limits to action by individual nation-states.
Presentation short abstract
This paper considers competing conceptions and complex implications of Ecuador’s 2023 referendum, in which 58.95% of voters opted to halt oil drilling in Yasuní national park. Key paradigms are (neo)extractivism, direct climate democracy and asset stranding from below.
Presentation long abstract
On 20 August 2023, 58.95% of voters in Ecuador chose “yes to Yasuní”, in a pioneering referendum on whether to keep oil underground inside Yasuní national park. A world first in oil drilling halted through direct climate democracy, merely obtaining a referendum took ten years of political and legal struggles by grassroots campaigners. In 2007, Ecuador’s then-President Rafael Correa launched the Yasuní-ITT initiative, which sought to pre-emptively suspend oil extraction from the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oil field in return for $3.6 billion from the international community for “net emissions avoided”. The project failed; only 0.37% of the target was raised. Correa cancelled the initiative in 2013, catalysing a decade of grassroots and Indigenous resistance. Drilling began in 2016, intensified from 2019, and was legally challenged by grassroots Yasunídos, who found eventual popular success in the sí vote. The complex contours of this longstanding struggle render it a pertinent case study to investigate two pervasive, converging phenomena: (neo)extractivism and ‘asset stranding’.
Building on the literature on the post-extractivist, geopolitical and asset stranding dimensions of the Yasuní-ITT Initiative and its failure, this paper extends the focus to the grassroots campaigns against drilling following Correa’s 2013 abandonment of the Initiative, which culminated in the vote to stop drilling in 2023. Specifically, I consider the meanings of the 2023 referendum and broader Yasunído struggle, and how they intersect with (neo)extractivism and asset stranding. I address research gaps on the 2023 referendum specifically, and on dialogues between the concepts of (neo)extractivism, asset stranding and direct climate democracy.
Presentation short abstract
We analyze 70 successful fossil fuel resistance cases from the EJ Atlas, using interviews to uncover strategies, challenges, and success factors. Findings will appear in an interactive global map and an accessible storybook weaving stories together with artistic expression.
Presentation long abstract
While communities, especially in the Global South, bear the consequences of an escalating climate crisis they did not cause, fossil fuel companies continue expanding extraction. Their drilling, digging, shipping and burning rips people and their lands apart, destroys cultures and livelihoods. The history of fossil fuel extraction is a harmful one, yet history is also full of people who rose up against these fossil giants, said „no“, organized, fought back and won.
This project looks at and draws lessons from grassroots resistance that has successfully stopped fossil fuel projects. From the Ogonis fighting Shell in the 1990s to Los Angeles neighborhoods fighting urban drilling in the 2020s, we collect approximately 70 successful resistance stories on a map using data from the Environmental Justice Atlas. The map will be openly accessible through the EJ Atlas website and will enable diverse movements and actors to connect with and learn from each other. Additionally, we select ten of these cases to interview members to better understand the strategies, challenges, and conditions that led to success. These stories will be presented in a storybook that weaves together narratives, poetry and art, reflecting the creative forms of resistance that sustain many movements.
The outcome is an interactive map of possibilities and an accessible storybook designed to spark hope and solidarity across geographies especially in times of a global fossil rollback. Through this submission we hope to inform and inspire climate justice movements around the world in their fight to leave fossil fuels in the ground.
Presentation short abstract
We quantify the barrels, embodied emissions, and monetary value of all fossil fuel reserves that need to stay unextracted to mitigate the climate crisis, linking them to their corporate and state owners. The study reveals the scale of vested private interests in derailing action for climate justice.
Presentation long abstract
Every single fraction of a degree of global heating leads to exacerbated and unequally distributed human suffering. Every barrel of oil, gas, or coal that stays in the ground will get us closer to climate mitigation objectives and climate justice ideals. But there are vast particular interests that stand to lose much power if fossil fuel reserves are left stranded. Among these interests, one can be easily quantified: the financial value of lost investments and revenues linked to fossil fuel extraction. In this study, we take Rystad Ucube's database, the best available industry data, mapping all oil and gas reserves and linking them back to their corporate or state owners. Taking into account the capital investment, the expected operational costs, a range of future oil and gas price estimates, and the price of capital, we calculate the current net value of the known oil and gas reserves around the world. The same analysis will be produced for coal in collaboration with Global Energy Monitor. The study will produce a ranking of the companies and states with the most stranded assets around the world. The financial stakes these actors stand to lose if fossil fuels are left in the ground can serve as a quantification of their conflict of interest to justify their exclusion from climate and energy policymaking institutions, where the phase-out of fossil fuels should be discussed.
Presentation short abstract
The carbon budget for 1.5 °C will be exhausted by 2028, requiring not only halting new fossil fuel projects but also decommissioning many existing ones. We estimate the economic impact of leaving 58% of reserves unextracted and outline strategies for a just transition.
Presentation long abstract
Global warming has already reached 1.3 °C above pre-industrial levels and is projected to exceed 2.4 °C by 2100 unless urgent action is taken. To maintain a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 °C, the remaining carbon budget of 130 GtCO₂ will be exhausted by 2028 at current emission rates. This scenario requires not only halting new fossil fuel projects but also prematurely decommissioning a significant share of existing oil and gas operations. Using Rystad Energy’s UCube database, this study estimates the economic implications of leaving developed reserves unextracted. Active and under-development projects contain 1,381 GBOE, equivalent to 593.9 GtCO₂. Meeting the 1.5 °C target demands that 58% of these reserves—around 801 GBOE—remain in the ground. Premature decommissioning would result in US$ 20.78 trillion in forgone benefits and affect US$ 7.29 trillion in capital expenditures, posing major financial risks for companies and investors. We discuss strategies to manage these risks, including ending fossil fuel subsidies, reforming investment treaties, and removing incentives that artificially lower production costs. The paper argues against compensating corporations for stranded assets, advocating instead for support to workers and communities to ensure a just transition. Finally, we call for massive investments in clean energy to guarantee affordable access and accelerate the global energy shift. While the costs of early termination are substantial, they are outweighed by the societal benefits of avoiding climate damages, estimated at US$ 69.6 trillion by mid-century.
Presentation short abstract
The COP30's final text failed to even fossil fuels, yet 85 countries supported a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap. This paper discusses the process and outcomes of the Colombia-led First International conference gathering states, organizations and communities to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Presentation long abstract
Despite unprecedented momentum, the final decision text of COP30 in Brazil ultimately failed to even reference fossil fuels, exposing persistent political resistance to addressing the primary driver of climate change. Yet this apparent ‘dead-end’ sharply contrasts with the strong support—expressed by 85 countries—for a coordinated roadmap to phase out fossil fuel production. This paper examines both the tensions and opportunities revealed through these negotiations by analyzing the process and (upcoming) outcomes of the Colombia-led First International Conference to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground to be held on 28-29 April 2025. Bringing together states, international organizations, Indigenous peoples, and environmental justice movements, the conference marked a significant attempt to reshape global climate governance around production-side commitments. Based on previous supply-side work and participation in COP30 and the Colombia conference, I first trace how environmental justice organizations, particularly from the Global South, advanced new frameworks and strategies for a rapid and equitable decline in fossil fuel extraction, emphasizing historical responsibility, community rights, and just transition principles. I then examine obstruction efforts against a fossil fuel phase-out (entrenched producer-state alliances, energy-security narratives, corporate lobbying, technocratic “delay”). Third, I discuss the pathways emerging from the Colombia conference, including coordinated supply-side transparency mechanisms and political strategies ahead of the upcoming pre-COP meetings and COP31 in Istanbul. By exploring these convergences and fault lines, the paper considers whether this new diplomatic space can catalyze more ambitious, justice-centred pathways to reshape the future of global climate governance and keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Presentation short abstract
Drawing on the court case KlimaSeniorinnen vs Switzerland at ECtHR, I examine the political ecology of climate litigation against states. I show how the court produced a contradictory judgment and I propose asset stranding litigation as a more meaningful path for climate litigation against states.
Presentation long abstract
Drawing on the court case KlimaSeniorinnen vs Switzerland at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR 53600/20), I examine the political ecology of climate litigation against states – climate movement’s latest and last hope to address runaway climate change. Klimaseniorinnen v. Switzerland is notable not only because the ECtHR recognized climate mitigation as a human rights issue, but also because it set a precedent by endorsing a national carbon budget in combination with an extraterritorial, consumption-based approach to state responsibility. Given that Switzerland has already exhausted its carbon budget (or is about to), the court has effectively produced a contradictory judgment. I show how this judgment can only be reconciled with a carbon budget if the court 1) accepts an overreliance on offsets and carbon dioxide removal which would lead to further climate delay and deterrence, or 2) effectively demands a political economic transformation far beyond the temporality and scale of economic lockdowns imposed during COVID-19. I highlight how these issues have been largely sidelined in the heated public debate that ensued after the judgment and I show how environmental NGOs try to navigate these contradictions by asking the Swiss government to repay its carbon debt to the Global South through climate mitigation finance and projects abroad. I conclude by proposing that a more meaningful path for climate litigation in the era of overshoot climate politics (Malm and Carton 2024) against states could be centered around the litigation of fossil fuel asset stranding.