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P062


The political power of energy futures within and beyond Europe 
Convenors:
Charlotte Bruckermann (University of Cologne)
Kirsten Endres (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Katja Müller (Merseburg University of Applied Sciences)
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Discussant:
Felix Ringel (Durham University)
Formats:
Panels
Sessions:
Wednesday 22 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon

Short Abstract:

The panel examines how the persistence of conventional energy systems and the rise of renewables affects the complex operations of political power and influences the pace and results of anticipated energy futures.

Long Abstract:

Debates about climate change have long entered political arenas through diplomacy, bureaucracy and regulations as part of worldwide environmental governance. Although global efforts to foster greener energy increasingly supplement resource extractivism, unfolding protests point to the insufficiencies of current measures. This panel asks what political legitimacies and forms of power become possible through renewables' development and the greening of energy systems. From top-down policymaking regarding energy access to grassroots calls for climate justice, this panel interrogates the policies and politics surrounding renewable energy, and the unintended consequences and alliances in its delivery. Ethnographic investigations in this panel will combine the intertwined complexities of greening energy with abstractions of political power at various scales.

Questions could include: How does political decision-making on energy sources unfold, including expanding resource extraction, extending the grid, or developing renewables? What brute materialities of wires, cables, and power plants come into play? How do historic injustices and exclusionary legacies of extraction, production and consumption affect future energy horizons? Do imperatives of greening energy create new role models in energy matters that shift the focus within and beyond Europe? When do debates about local environmental priorities and energy rights undermine or bolster global climate targets? What new forms of precarity and scarcity do large-scale infrastructural impositions by local or international powerholders entail? We welcome contributions that investigate the contradictions and contestations between the persistence of conventional energy systems and the rise of renewables within the complex operations of political power that affect our anticipated energy futures.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Wednesday 22 July, 2020, -