Larger Systems: Economy, Environment, Technology

Reflections on Navigating Ethical Complexity at the Intersection of Clean Energy, Mining, and Forest Governance

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My research sits at the intersection of environmental governance, land-use change, and poverty alleviation in forested landscapes of low- and middle-income countries. I study policies designed to protect forests (such as REDD+ programs) and interventions intended to improve rural livelihoods, often in contexts where extractive activities, including mining, exert intense pressure on land, institutions, and communities. Participating in […]

Reflections on Navigating Complexity in the Clean Energy Era workshop: Complexities and ethical dilemmas

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The current geopolitical moment favours a binary, zero-sum logic that papers over complexity. So, now more than ever, I feel it is important to acknowledge and articulate the complexity inherent to green energy transitions around the world. Discussions at our workshop bought this point into sharp relief. Public commentary, and some academic work too, increasingly characterises the […]

The Importance of Governance in the Green Transition

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As the workshop demonstrated, green energy is complex. However, it should not be demonized. What was particularly striking about the presentations was how multiple studies showed that companies from the same country might act completely differently given local law, regulation and political climate. The variation might be under different national regimes, or even under different local regimes. Green […]

Honest Engagement Around the Tensions Inherent in the Clean Energy Transition

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Engaging with this project and participating in the workshop ultimately intensified many of the tensions that shape my research and policy engagement around clean energy. I arrived hoping to leave with clearer answers, some shared framework that would allow me to say: this path is imperfect, but necessary, and here are the concrete steps that make it justifiable and […]

Reflections on Critiques of Green Extractivism: Following “Navigating the Complexities of the Clean Energy Era” Workshop

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The challenges: The background and policy setting: My engagement with these issues builds on three decades of research on extractive sectors and socio-environmental conflicts, from earlier work on ‘conflict commodities’ and the ‘resource curse’ to more recent focus on critical minerals and decarbonization [i,ii]. Throughout, I have sought to bridge environmental justice and human rights concerns with questions of peace and security. A green transition […]

Where the Costs Stay: Scalar Injustice and the Global Pursuit of Clean Energy

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The urgency of the global pursuit of clean energy is beyond dispute. Yet what receives far less attention is how violently unequal the process of producing clean energy actually is, and how unevenly that inequality distributes across the globe. The supply chains that feed the green transition depend on the extraction of critical minerals sourced overwhelmingly from the Global South. At the commodity […]

Reflection Memo: Navigating the Complexities of the Clean Energy Era – Jose Fernando Gómez Rojas

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Based on the applied research we conduct at CREER, our proposal is founded on understanding the dilemmas related to various notions of justice within the framework of business activities in general. In particular, we aim to design methodologies and collaborative understanding frameworks for the identification of negative human rights impacts and the assignment of roles and responsibilities in […]

Reflection Memo: Navigating Complexity in the Clean Energy Era – Samuel George

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I was honored to participate in the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs, University of Denver workshop Navigating the Complexities of the Clean Energy Era. As a documentary filmmaker with a series of pieces on critical mineral supply chains, I sincerely appreciated that my work was taken seriously in this academic community, and it was a pleasure to share what I […]

Reflection on Navigating the Complexities of the Clear Energy Era – Jessica DiCarlo

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Participating in the workshop Navigating the Complexities of the Clear Energy Era offered a much-needed opportunity to reflect on the ethical, political, and spatial dimensions of multiple facets of the global low-carbon transition. Through conversations with scholars and practitioners working in different regions, on different minerals and in various supply chain stages, we covered a wide range of issues, from governance to extractive industries themselves to community-level […]

Reflection on Navigating the Complexities of the Clean Energy Era – Workshop Facilitators

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At our workshop “Navigating the Complexities of the Clean Energy Era,” we convened a conversation examining the risks, opportunities, tradeoffs, and tensions shaping the global energy transition. This gathering was part of a broader initiative, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, aimed at fostering more ethical and reflective approaches to research engagement. Central to this effort was the creation of a space […]