This group takes a labour perspective on paths to socio-ecological transformations by focusing on energy transitions. Action research is used to open and strengthen spaces for critical debates around just transition in the labour movement and beyond. It has developed a framework of principles to guide the political debates and research on transformative, just energy transitions. At the same time this methodology is meant to contribute to building egalitarian and emancipatory coalitions of workers’ and eco-social movements in the energy sector, and beyond, across the Global North and South.
Challenging the Status Quo: Reclaiming Just Transition
The group both challenges the current profit driven discourse and policy agenda of just transition and reclaims it as a strategy for a transformation away from the current mode of production and consumption and towards one that enables the flourishing of people in nature. It develops the strategy by offering alternative articulations of just transition in concrete situations – including case studies in South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago. It also seeks to explore spaces and constraints to a political project of transformative just transition anchored in public ownership.
What we do: Mapping Power and Production in Energy Transitions
The working group has completed three research papers, which provide important insights in the debates about just transition. The contextual analysis on critical minerals sheds light on how contemporary environment and development discourses are shaping the critical mineral value chains and the challenges they pose to transformative, just energy transitions. Meanwhile, the case studies from South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago illustrate the way that broader neoliberal forces are shaping energy transitions by entrenching the commodification of energy and by creating new paths for accumulation through critical minerals. These trends exacerbate existing inequalities and undermine any shift to low-carbon economies. Recognising the enormous obstacles to an energy transition centred on people and nature, the research emphasises the need for a public pathway approach to energy transition. Pushing for such a vision would require identifying existing spaces for political pressure and building broad-based movements to expand and connect these spaces. Importantly, a political project of transformative just transition can only sustain its potential if it is able to generate an impetus for change in all sectors of the political economy as well as in mental conceptions of the world.
What’s next? Building Political Education for Just Transition Movements
The working group will translate the lessons and reflections from of the project, as well as from various engagements of the group members, into an open access educational package, including an online course, for the political education of activists from labour, environmental and other social movements.
Publications and products:
As a group, we focus on research and education to mobilise around and advocate for a truly just transition from below.
We have produced three central publications:
- Global Synthesis report on critical raw materials, green extractivism and the principles of justice
- South Africa case study: Investigating the closure of coal power plants from a labour perspective
- Trinidad and Tobago: Proposals for a just energy transition from below
These are available on our publications site.
