Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South Balancing Urgency and Justice

1. Urgency Vs Justice: A Politics of Energy Transitions in the Age of Anthropocene

Ankit Kumar, Auke Pols, and Johanna Höffken

2. Insights from an Assemblage Perspective for a (Better) Understanding of Energy Transitions: Facing the Challenge of Sustainability in Lebanon’s Energy Crisis

Dana Abi Ghanem

3. Constructing an Inclusive Vision of Sustainable Transition to Decentralised Energy: Local Practices, Knowledge, Values, and Narratives in the Case of Community-Managed Grids in Rural India

Anna Melnyk and Abhigyan Singh

4. Bolivia’s Energy Transition in Harmony with Nature: Reality or Delusion?

Paola Villavicencio-Calzadilla and Romain Mauger

5. Scalar Biases in Solar Photovoltaic Uptake: Socio-Materiality, Regulatory Inertia and Politics

Siddharth Sareen

6. Energy Transitions in a Post-War Setting: Questions of Equity, Justice, and Democracy in Sri Lanka

Gz. MeeNilankco Theiventhran

7. Energizing Change: Clean Cooking and the Changing Social Position of Women

Mini Govindan and Rashmi Murali

8. ‘Women Don’t Ride bicycle[s], Only Men Ride Bicycles’: Gender and Justice in Mobility Transitions

Mary Greene and Anne Schiffer

9. Energy Transitions in the Global South: Towards Just Urgency and Urgent Justice

Biography

Ankit Kumar is a Lecturer in Development and Environment at the University of Sheffield, the United Kingdom.

Johanna Höffken is an Assistant Professor in Innovation Sciences at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), The Netherlands.

Auke Pols is a Lecturer in Responsible Innovation and the Ethics of Technology at Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands.

"This book makes a deep-diving contribution to an important issue: how to ensure rapid climate action by transitioning energy systems whilst recognising this as a deeply socio-ethical process. The editors distinguish between urgency and justice to explore questions that everyone involved in energy transitions research or practice must engage with." -- Rob Raven, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University, Australia

"Kumar, Höffken, and Pols have assembled an outstanding collection of essays that situates the energy transition firmly within the Anthropocene. [They] put justice at the core of the energy transition. They do this by showcasing the dynamics and politics of energy transition in a diverse set of geographical contexts. The multi-site insights from this collection show that the energy transition generates new forms of carbon colonialism. The book also reveals multiple inequalities embedded in energy transitions, as shown, for example, in gendered patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Accessible and engaging, this book will inform the growing work of critical energy scholars, whether they are seeking to understand how to activate just energy transitions or trying to avoid the mistakes of the past." -- Vanesa Castan Broto, Urban Institute and Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

"This important collection on just transitions in the global South casts a new empirical light onto an otherwise shadowy area of inquiry. The chapters bring to attention the complexity and nuance needed to understand the implications for the energy transition on materials, land, labour, and nature-cultures. This book offers new empirical insights for why justice needs to be at the centre of climate mitigation efforts with the world’s most vulnerable, and why moving fast without careful thought and participation – building with haste – could reproduce the same old inequities, this time in the name of decarbonisation. The authors give us much to think about and wrestle with – a truly timely collection for this moment." -- Dustin Mulvaney, Department of Environmental Studies, San José State University, USA