COVID-19 and the climate-energy nexus

Analysing the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the climate-energy nexus, raises three important questions. First, what does this global health and economic crisis mean for the future of fossil fuels, particularly oil? Because of the drop in economic activity, greenhouse gas emissions have plummeted, but how can we ensure a structural decline that is aligned with the Paris Agreement? Third, how can we embed the ideas of a “just transition” within the broader post-pandemic “green recovery”? This policy brief offers a glimpse of the direction away from fossil fuels that our global energy system must take to govern the post-pandemic worl

Toward a global coal mining moratorium? A comparative analysis of coal mining policies in the USA, China, India and Australia

To stop global warming at well below 2° C, the bulk of the world’s fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground. Coal is the fossil fuel with the greatest proportion that cannot be used, and various advocacy groups are campaigning for a ban on the opening of new coal mines. Recently, both China and the USA implemented temporary moratoria on the approval of new coal mining leases. This article examines whether these coal mining bans reflect the emergence of a global norm to keep coal under the ground. To that end, we review recent coal mining policies in the four largest coal producers and explain them comparatively with a framework based on interests, ideas and institutions. We find that the norm of keeping coal in the ground remains essentially contested. Even in those countries that have introduced some form of a coal mining moratorium, the ban can easily be, or has already been, reversed. To the extent that the norm of keeping coal in the ground has momentum, it is primarily due to non-climate reasons: the Chinese moratorium was mostly an instance of industrial policy (aiming to protect Chinese coal companies and their workers from the overcapacity and low prices that are hitting the industry), while the USA’s lease restrictions were mainly motivated by concerns over fiscal justice. We do not find evidence of norm internalisation, which means that the emerging norm fails to gain much traction amid relevant national actors and other (large) coal producing states. If proponents of a moratorium succeed in framing the issue in non-climate terms, they should have a greater chance of building domestic political coalitions in favour of the norm

Taking away a 'social licence' : neo-Gramscian perspectives on an international fossil fuel divestment norm

The international fossil fuel divestment norm formulates a standard of appropriate behaviour to withdraw investments from fossil fuel assets and reinvest them into climate-friendly solutions. Its ultimate objective is to take away the industry’s “social licence to operate”. In other words, the norm fundamentally questions the legitimacy of an industry because of its major impact on climate change. This paper offers a neo-Gramscian view as to how a radical divestment norm seeks to delegitimise the role of fossil fuels and the industry in society and how it only partly succeeds in doing so. This analytical interpretation of norm diffusion offers a rich understanding of the discursive and relational aspects of energy transitions and how societal consent to elite practices—and not just their coercive power—is pivotal in successfully maintaining or transitioning away from a fossil fuel-based society. I trace the origins and analyse the current state of the campaign and argue that four drivers are key to understanding norm diffusion: (legitimacy of) norm entrepreneurs; framing and discursive contestation; political opportunity structures; extant normative environment. I conclude that although there is certainly room for counter-hegemonic norm articulation, the constraining effects of a liberal social order, epitomised by liberal environmentalism, reduces its radical aspects to a passive revolution