Renewables grabbing : Land and resource appropriations in the global energy transition

The global land rush intersects with the global energy transition and the emergence of new renewable energy frontiers demanding vast amounts of land and other resources. This chapter provides an overview of the processes of land and resource grabbing associated with renewable energies and discusses the environmental injustices emerging in the global energy transition. After a brief examination of the multiple drivers of the global energy transition and their specific implications for resource and land grabbing, a sectoral perspective on the four major renewable energy sources describes the emergence of new energy-land frontiers: biofuels, hydropower dams, mega solar power, and wind parks. For each frontier, the chapter points to key resources required and appropriated and discusses the related environmental conflicts and justice concerns that are arising. Close examination of these conflicts provides important lessons for moving toward a socially just energy transition

Deceitful Decoupling : Misconceptions of a Persistent Myth

Decoupling has been and continues to be a discourse used to prolong business as usual growth strategies without confronting systemic and behavioural changes. While decoupling narratives have emerged in the past in the form of its close siblings such as the Environmental Kuznets Curve, green economy, eco-efficiency, eco-innovation, and more recently, the circular economy; scholars, especially from the ecological economics community, continue to systematically challenge decoupling both empirically and theoretically. Many meta-studies have concluded that absolute resource, energy, and emissions decoupling, when internalising for trade and consumption in tandem, results in futile. Therefore, institutionalising decoupling for future policy prolongs the misconception of a persistent myth, propagating a deceitful narrative failing to tackle the urgency of the climate crisis. In this chapter, several recent publications and developments are discussed and synthesised from a unique insight with contributions from the Barcelona school of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology. In conclusion, the chapter presents a case for the rejection of decoupling environmental degradation from economic growth and calls for just, inclusive, and biophysically grounded transformative future

(Counter)mapping renewables: Space, justice, and politics of wind and solar power in Mexico

The ongoing expansion of renewable energies entails major spatial reconfigurations with social, environmental, and political dimensions. These emerging geographies are, however, in the process of taking shape, as their early configurations are still open to democratic intervention and contestation. While a recent line of research highlights the prominent role that maps are playing in directing such processes, the potential effects of countermapping on these evolving geographies have not yet been explored. In this article, we present a countermapping initiative promoting a dialogue between critical geography, political ecology, and environmental justice. Our work is the result of an alliance between Geocomunes—a collective of activist cartographers based in Mexico—and the EjAtlas—a global collaborative project tracking cases of grassroots mobilizations against environmental injustices. We take the case of Mexico\u27s low-carbon development strategy to dissect the spatial expansion of wind and solar mega-projects at both national and regional scales. Our project consists of a series of databases and maps aimed to “fill” the spaces and relations otherwise “emptied” by the state\u27s cartographic tools designed to promote investments in the sector. When presenting our results, we highlight how renewable energy projects in Mexico have so far juxtaposed with local territories, peoples, and resources, in ways that trigger instances of environmental injustice on the ground. We close this article by discussing the role of critical cartography and countermapping in building alternative political–economic projects for the energy transition

A societal metabolism approach to job creation and renewable energy transitions in Catalonia

© 2017. This version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This paper examines the feasibility of renewable energy transition scenarios and employment requirements on a backdrop of the objectives as described by the energy and climate change plan in Catalonia (PECAC 2012–2020). The analysis uses the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach as a framework for bringing together information regarding the demographic change, allocation of working hours, as well as mapping energy flows metabolized through the different compartments of the socio-economic system. Results indicate that the implementation of the energy plan in Catalonia would result in an increase in the overall energy metabolic rate by 2020, meaning 10% more energy is to be consumed per hour available in society. We conclude that this increase is linked to the need for greater primary energy sources for a transition to renewable energy sources, as well as the need for increasing skilled jobs to perform these tasks in the energy sector. For the case of Catalonia, we conclude that this would correlate to a requirement between 8000 and 23,000 new jobs that will imply a shifting in current metabolic patterns should such a transition take place.Peer Reviewe

A societal metabolism approach to job creation and renewable energy transitions in Catalonia

© 2017. This version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This paper examines the feasibility of renewable energy transition scenarios and employment requirements on a backdrop of the objectives as described by the energy and climate change plan in Catalonia (PECAC 2012–2020). The analysis uses the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach as a framework for bringing together information regarding the demographic change, allocation of working hours, as well as mapping energy flows metabolized through the different compartments of the socio-economic system. Results indicate that the implementation of the energy plan in Catalonia would result in an increase in the overall energy metabolic rate by 2020, meaning 10% more energy is to be consumed per hour available in society. We conclude that this increase is linked to the need for greater primary energy sources for a transition to renewable energy sources, as well as the need for increasing skilled jobs to perform these tasks in the energy sector. For the case of Catalonia, we conclude that this would correlate to a requirement between 8000 and 23,000 new jobs that will imply a shifting in current metabolic patterns should such a transition take place.Peer Reviewe

Assessing risks of low-carbon transition pathways

ISSN:2210-422

The desirability of transitions in demand: Incorporating behavioural and societal transformations into energy modelling

Quantitative systems modelling in support of climate policy has tended to focus more on the supply side in assessing interactions among technology, economy, environment, policy and society. By contrast, the demand side is usually underrepresented, often emphasising technological options for energy efficiency improvements. In this perspective, we argue that scientific support to climate action is not only about exploring capacity of “what”, in terms of policy and outcome, but also about assessing feasibility and desirability, in terms of “when”, “where” and especially for “whom”. Without the necessary behavioural and societal transformations, the world faces an inadequate response to the climate crisis challenge. This could result from poor uptake of low-carbon technologies, continued high-carbon intensive lifestyles, or economy-wide rebound effects. For this reason, we propose a framing for a holistic and transdisciplinary perspective on the role of human choices and behaviours in influencing the low-carbon transition, starting from the desires of individuals and communities, and analysing how these interact with the energy and economic landscape, leading to systemic change at the macro-level. In making a case for a political ecology agenda, we expand our scope, from comprehending the role of societal acceptance and uptake of end-use technologies, to co-developing knowledge with citizens from non-mainstream and marginalised communities, and to defining the modelling requirements to assess the decarbonisation potential of shifting lifestyle patterns in climate change and action.ISSN:2214-629

Addressing disparities in European Social Sciences & Humanities research on climate, energy and mobility: insights from a Call for Evidence survey and analysis workshops on the challenges and opportunities of working in Southern and Central & Eastern Europe [version 1; peer review: 3 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

Despite the efforts of the EU, disparities remain in terms of the participation of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) researchers from both Southern and Central & Eastern Europe in research collaborations, as compared to Northern and Western European scholars. To better understand these disparities, the EU Horizon Europe SSH CENTRE project ran a Call for Evidence over December 2022 to March 2023. Specifically, respondents were asked about the challenges they faced in conducting SSH research on climate, energy and/or mobility, as well as the ways in which these challenges could be addressed. The Call’s online survey was focused on maximising diversity, and it gathered views and experiences of 137 Southern and Central & Eastern European SSH researchers. The sample was balanced across genders (71 men, 66 women) and the three main themes (82 energy, 88 climate, 53 mobility), and included at least one respondent from each of the 27 target countries. The highest numbers of respondents were from Hungary (19) and Spain (21). To ensure that interpretation and analysis of the data was grounded in regional contexts, we ran two parallel analysis workshops hosted in a hybrid format (combining online and in-person participants): one in Pécs for Central & Eastern European SSH researchers (34 participants); and one in Bilbao for Southern European SSH researchers (26 participants). These workshops focused on discussing the relationship between SSH-STEM disciplines, analysing the institutional contexts, and discussing the implications for domestic and EU research funding relations. During the workshops, data collected through the survey was collectively analysed and the most important reflections were gathered into a common structure of ‘Challenges’ and ‘Ways forward’. Key messages from the workshop are being distilled in a Position Statement that focuses on the common elements while also emphasising possible differences between Southern and Central & Eastern Europe

Finance, energy and the decoupling: an empirical study

This paper investigates the empirical and theoretical basis of the decoupling between energy throughput and economic growth, with a critical view of the use of the decoupling concept as a policy priority. We provide an analysis of the historical trends of the metabolic pattern of European economies over a period of 18 years focusing on the changes in energy throughput and financial assets. The results show that energy consumption per hour of labor has remained constant, suggesting that no significant changes in production processes or technology have taken place in the productive sectors of the economy. The contribution of this paper is to establish a bridge between the economic analysis of financialization and the societal metabolism analysis of the economic process from a biophysical point of view. We argue that this bridge is crucial to draw attention to the biophysical consequences of financialization (a relative decoupling) and critically assess the pertinence of policies aimed at encouraging the decoupling in the context of increasing inequality