'Energy transitions from below: From climate colonialism to energy sovereignty'

As climate change mitigation gains centrality in dominant global policy agendas, 'transition' talk has gradually been co-opted to become a green capitalist buzzword.

Under the guise of a necessary shift towards a 'renewable', 'low-carbon' or 'sustainable' economy, a host of extractivist and socio-environmentally destructive plans are being ushered in, from biofuel monoculture plantations and fortress conservation projects, to the unprecedented expansion of industrial-scale, corporate renewable energy projects and mineral extraction for building battery and other technologies.

These largely take place in global or national peripheries, affecting disproportionately indigenous and other traditionally marginalized rural communities, while primarily benefiting elite consumption and 'decarbonization' in the global North and other industrial 'cores'. 

At the same time, although they are ostensibly promoted as a necessary substitute for fossil fuels, there is increasing evidence that such technologies are merely adding capacity to an ever growing energy regime, controlled by the same large corporate oligopolies; and that the decarbonization that takes place at the point of energy consumption is being shifted to where the minerals are extracted, biofuels planted, or solar panels and wind turbines manufactured. This has led critical observers to consider such plans as primarily concerned with preserving white and capitalist class privilege in the face of climate-induced upheavals, rather than 'saving the planet'.

Given the urgency of the ongoing, uneven and combined climate catastrophe, it is imperative therefore that indigenous and peasant communities, radical grassroots organizing, and transformative social and climate justice movements, occupy and re-signify the discursive-political space of 'transitions'.

This roundtable discussion invites speakers from across the academic-activist divide to collectively explore such issues.

Three questions

The discussion will be structured around three main questions:

1. What are the main critiques we can make from your respective struggles of dominant discourses and plans for addressing energy transitions and tackling the climate crisis 'from above'?
2. What alternative visions emerge from diverse struggles on the ground, reclaiming and advancing alternative transitions from below, centred on territorial or energy sovereignty, and advancing towards a post-capitalist, post-extractivist, de-colonial and feminist horizon?
3. What strategies would allow such diverse struggles – taking place across geographical, political and social divides – to converge with and reinforce each other, in order to articulate a pluriversal, counter-hegemonic movement facing up to racial-patriarchal-colonial capitalism?

Speakers

• Tatiana Roa Avendaño, CENSAT- Agua Viva, Colombia & CEDLA, University of Amsterdam
• Daniel Chávez, Transnational Institute, Amsterdam
• Marina Weinberg, University of Amsterdam & Worlds of Lithium project
• Teresa Borasino, Fossil Free Culture NL
• Selçuk Balamir, Shell Must Fall & University of Amsterdam (TBC)

The event will be introduced and moderated by Professor Gustavo García López (PCC-ISS and Center for Social Studies, Coimbra) and Diego Andreucci (PCC-ISS).