2022
dr. Erik Swyngedouw
MONDAY 27.6.2022 11:00 - 12:30
“The apocalypse is disappointing”: Enjoying Climate Change and the Deadlock of the Climate Consensus
Over the past two decades or so, the climate has been elevated to the dignity of global political concern. Nonetheless, the climate parameters keep eroding further, demonstrating the paradoxical situation we are in. It confirms that access to and presence of knowledge and facts does not guarantee effective intervention. I shall suggest that enjoyment and its fantasy support structure need to be foregrounded to account for the performative lack of socially transformative politics. I shall conclude by arguing how ‘traversing the fantasy’ might open new ways of approaching the climate condition the Earth is in.
dr. Robyn Eckersley
MONDAY 27.6.2022 14:00 - 15:30
Green State, Climate Justice and Climate Emergency
The critical theory of the green state rests upon an account of ecological democracy that seeks to avoid the deeply skewed and unjust displacement of ecological risks through space and time. This presupposes an intimate connection between ecological democracy and environmental justice. This presentation will examine whether and to what extent the climate emergency movement poses a challenge to the critical theory of the green state and climate justice and just transition movements, and what this means for the future of the state in a heating world. In short, can the prioritisation of climate protection at full speed be reconciled with the demands for climate justice?
Maša Hawlina, Zala Velkavrh and Matic Primc
MONDAY 27.6.2022 16:00 - 17:00
Round table: From state to city – green transitions in cities
Cities are becoming an increasingly crucial space of political change towards a just and climate-neutral society. On one hand, urban space is characterized by a large concentration of problems and challenges - from mobility, public space issues, housing, community and participatory governance, to the negative consequences of climate change and adaptation of cities to them. On the other hand, there are a number of initiatives in cities that face these challenges through bottom-up solutions. What solutions do we know? What is the role of city authorities and the state in this? How to accelerate bottom-up (green) transitions in cities? Panelists: Maša Hawlina (Cooperative Zadrugator and IŠSP - Institute for Housing and Spatial Studies), Zala Velkavrh (Prostorož) and Matic Primc (Organization for a participatory society).
dr. Peter Newell
TUESDAY 28.6.2022 9:00 - 10:30
Power Shift: The Global Political Economy of Energy Transitions
In this talk, I will explore the urgently needed transition in energy systems from the perspective of global political economy. I develop a more historical, global, political and ecological account of key features of energy transitions: from their production and financing, to how they are governed and mobilised around. This is applied to contemporary and historical examples of energy transitions from around the world. I explore the shifts in power relations between and within countries and across social groups and political actors that are required if just transitions to a more sustainable economy are to be realised.
dr. Patrick Devine-Wright
TUESDAY 28.6.2022 11:00 - 12:30
Place and Participation: Positive Principles for Just and Acceptable Energy Transitions
Despite recent advances in studies of topics including social acceptance, energy justice and energy democracy, there remain substantial limitations in the ways that energy transitions are commonly theorised. Prevalent assumptions such as NIMBYism (“Not In My Back Yard”) provide negatively oriented, unhelpful and inaccurate framings of socio-spatial and socio-technical dimensions of change. Drawing on a wide range of examples, this presentation aims to elaborate on positive principles for energy transitions and social innovation centred on the ideas of Place and Participation, and argues why these provide foundations of hope. I will also draw attention to how social scientists can better collaborate with policymakers to co-produce evidence and deliver lasting change. not in my back yard, »ne na mojem dvorišču«), povzročijo, da so družbeno-prostorske in družbeno-tehnične razsežnosti sprememb energetskem področju obravnavane v negativnih, nekoristnih in netočnih okvirih. V predavanju bomo na podlagi številnih primerov podrobneje obravnavali pozitivna načela za energetske tranzicije in družbene inovacije, ki se osredotočajo na ideji »lokacije« in »participacije«, ter razložili, zakaj prav ti ideji ponujata osnovo za upanje na spremembe. Opozorili bomo tudi na to, kako lahko družboslovci bolje sodelujejo z oblikovalci politik pri soustvarjanju gradiv in načrtov ter s tem pri zagotavljanju trajnih sprememb.
dr. Crystal Legacy
TUESDAY 28.6.2022 14:00 - 15:30
Politicised Transport: Solidarities and Political Possibilities in Transport Planning
Who counts in transport planning? Research into transport planning’s post-political condition shows how politics is structured and whose participation matters. Attending to the depoliticised spaces of transport planning exposes the erasure of its publicness and the erosion of participatory practices. In this paper, I draw upon participatory action research with advocacy communities in Melbourne who are contesting these de-political transport trajectories, the politics shaping them, and the crisis of participatory governance. These efforts to re-politicise public-led planning are building solidarities and calling for different transport epistemologies, those grounded in climate justice, whilst cultivating political pathways to reshape who is doing transport planning.
dr. Kersty Hobson
MONDAY 27.6.2022 16:00 - 17:00
Round table: From state to city – green transitions in cities
Cities are becoming an increasingly crucial space of political change towards a just and climate-neutral society. On one hand, urban space is characterized by a large concentration of problems and challenges - from mobility, public space issues, housing, community and participatory governance, to the negative consequences of climate change and adaptation of cities to them. On the other hand, there are a number of initiatives in cities that face these challenges through bottom-up solutions. What solutions do we know? What is the role of city authorities and the state in this? How to accelerate bottom-up (green) transitions in cities? Panelists: Maša Hawlina (Cooperative Zadrugator and IŠSP - Institute for Housing and Spatial Studies), Zala Velkavrh (Prostorož) and Matic Primc (Organization for a participatory society).
Marko Peterlin, Marjeta Benčina, dr. Matej Gabrovec
WEDNESDAY 29. 6. 2022 09:00 - 10:15
Going around in circles? Radical transformation in the Circular Economy
In the past decade, Circular Economy (CE) policies and interventions have gained significant traction across multiple scales of governance. For example, the European Commission’s CE Action Plan is framed as ‘one of the main building blocks of the European Green Deal, Europe’s new agenda for sustainable growth’. In response, researchers increasingly pay attention to the CE’s overt and tacit politics, alongside conceptual and empirical blind-spots. This talk will outline some key critical CE debates, focusing in particular on the multiple roles ascribed to citizens within the CE and the potential for realising the ideal of the ‘circular user-consumer’.
dr. Matthias Schmelzer
WEDNESDAY 29. 6. 2022 10:30 - 11:45
The Future is Degrowth: From the Hegemony of Growth towards a Political Economy of Just Futures Within Limits
Economic growth isn’t working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalist modernity, the lecture explains how the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological destructions associated with capitalism and points to desirable alternatives to it. It begins by outlining the hegemony of growth and then moves on to discuss the critique of growth and proposals for degrowth policies. Building on a vibrant field of research, it discusses the political economy and the politics of a non-growing economy. It charts a path forward through policies that democratise the economy, “now-topias” that create free spaces for experimentation, and counter-hegemonic movements that make it possible to break with the logic of growth.
dr. Barbara Muraca
WEDNESDAY 29. 6. 2022 11:45 - 13:00
From boundaries to collectively negotiated conditions for a good life for all
In the face of the global ecological crisis the generally established framework that seems to be consensus-able is the language of limits or boundaries that define a ‘safe’ space for human activity and economy. While a very powerful image, this narrative also bears risks insofar as it leaves out a critical social perspective and neglects relational theories of the complex relations between society and nature. The lecture discusses societal boundaries as conditions for a good life to all in theory and praxis with reference to the pluriverse of alternatives, including degrowth.
dr. Arturo Escobar
14:15 - 15:30
Pluriversal Transitions: An Emerging Narrative from Latin America
This talk examines an emerging narrative of life from Latin America that differs significantly from the dominant anthropocentric perspective of the world and its extractive mode of global development. Conceived from the perspective of radical interdependence, and centred on the notions of territoriality, communality, autonomy, re-existence, and pluriversality, such narrative might constitute a new foundation for social life and for designing worlds relationally.
dr. Guiseppe Feola
THURSDAY 30.6.2022 9:00 - 10:30
Unmaking unsustainability: global environmental change, capitalism, and societal transformation from the grassroots in agri-food systems
Amidst compelling evidence of the unsustainability and continued reproduction of capitalist modernity, it is misguided to assume that sustainability transformation can happen by the mere construction of supposed ‘solutions’, be they technological, social or cultural. We rather need to better understand whether and how existing institutions, forms of knowledge, practices, imaginaries, power structures, and human-non-human relations can be deconstructed at the service of transformation. This presentation will demonstrate the usefulness of a lens that attends to processes of making and unmaking in sustainability transformations through an analysis of two cases of agri-food grassroots initiatives situated in Colombia and the Netherlands, respectively.
dr. Gladys Hernandez
THURSDAY 30.6.2022 11:00 - 12:30
The Transition to the Decarbonised Economy: Cuban experiences for a sustainable future
How can economic strategies bring the current fossil fuel based energy system into a carbon neutral future? How do we go about decarbonizing the economy? The solution to the energy crisis faced by Cuba between 2004 and 2005 was a comprehensive system of actions aimed at ensuring the economic and social development of the country and its transition to a more energy efficient economy and decentralized electricity generation model. The Cuban government has set an ambitious renewable energy target of 24% RES of electricity production by 2030. Renewable energy trajectories in Cuba, through different future energy scenarios utilizing EnergyPLAN tool, identify the best fitting and most cost-efficient options in transitioning towards a less fuel intensive electric power system.
Fotografije: Polona Šavc
Contact
- info@politicalecology-ljubljana.si
Links
LIFE IP CARE4CLIMATE (LIFE17 IPC/SI/000007) is an integrated project, financed by the European Comission's LIFE Programme, the Slovenian Climate Fund and partners' own contributions.
The opinions expressed in this document are those of the author(s) only and should not be considered as representative of the European Union's official position.
English (UK) 
Slovenščina