September 2022
Dr. Gareth A S Edwards, Associate Professor, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, UK gave the Human Sciences Research Group (HSRG) weekly talk on Key challenges to implementing a “just transition” and achieving climate justice in Australia and India on 14 September.
Dr. Edwards talked about his research on the international political economy of coal. His research is concerned with understanding and theorising justice in environmental governance dilemmas. During the session, he talked about the critical trends in coal consumption, production and trade and the significant challenges encountered while trying to implement a “just transition”, using examples of Australia and India. Dr. Edwards began by talking about the history of coal and how it was the central part of the industrial revolution in the West. However, as we know, coal is a form of ‘dirt energy’ as it produces a number of profoundly harmful environmental pollutants that harm public health. So the West has slowly moved away from coal being its primary energy source. On the other hand, the consumption of coal has increased in third-world countries, especially in Asia. He then spoke about the concept of “Scope 3 Emissions”, which are indirect emissions produced in the use or consumption of a company’s goods and services. The idea then leads us to the ethical question of “who is responsible?”. This is because whoever is responsible will have to lead the action against climate change. For example, Australia is the largest exporter of coal on Earth and is indirectly responsible for most of the coal emissions in the environment. Thus a lot of people claim that they should be the ones who act first. On the other hand, the Australian government denies any accountability and even says that it would be immoral for them not to export coal as it would deny a source of energy and thus a chance at developing countries that need it. Dr. Edwards also cites a speech of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, where he talks about how the developing countries still need conventional energy to grow. Modi also says that global efforts should be geared at making it clean rather than denying countries like India access to energy sources like coal. This leads us to the idea of implementing a “just transition”, which was first proposed in the US. This concept claims that nations and businesses need to transition towards greener, resilient and climate-neutral economies and societies to tackle climate change, pollution, etc. However, many people are employed in these industries and would be significantly impacted if they closed down. So, we need to make it “just for all” so that no one is let down and those whose livelihoods get affected are also taken care of. The talk ends with the speaker saying that implementing a just transition is the responsibility of all nations. However, currently, not enough attention is being paid to the topic, mainly because of global politics, as no one is ready to take the blame for climate change. All in all, the session was highly engaging and thought-provoking. An elaborate Q&A session followed, thus marking the success of the event.