DISRUPTIONS

Over US $1 trillion per year is being mobilised by a plethora of public, private and institutional actors to combat climate breakdown. While mitigation and adaptation efforts are critical to achieve decarbonisation, the emerging portfolio of renewable investments, infrastructure projects and wider 'green transition' initiatives are rife with political and socio-economic ramifications that risk producing new winners and losers in the global economy.

Organised at Newcastle University, Disruptions brings together an international network of experts working on the politics of energy transition, renewable infrastructures, and related questions that tie climate change initiatives to the contemporary political economy of global capitalism. We interrogate the politics of energy transition and explore how they are disrupted, contested and accommodated by social forces across the world.

Specifically, the workshop will explore:

• the impacts of renewable energy infrastructures on land ownership, local ecosystems and resource allocation/distribution
• the relationship between public institutions and private investors
• the ways in which renewable energy projects reproduce existing relations of power and forms of inequalities
• the ongoing entanglements of fossil fuel investments and renewable energy infrastructures
• the politics of urban transformation and reorganisation in line with climate adaptation strategies
• the international politics of grassroots mobilisations and climate change mitigation initiatives from below