A climate for change? The impacts of climate change on energy politics. Issue 3 (3rd May 2020) - Newell, Peter
Abstract: The geophysical phenomena of climate change impact on the existing organization of energy economies and their attendant politics in multiple ways—at times magnifying and at other times dampening pressures on contemporary energy systems. Climate change has been increasingly viewed as a 'threat multiplier'. However, the geophysical phenomena of climate change are socially and politically mediated by actors with uneven power, capacity and divergent interests in order to support either incumbent or alternative energy pathways. While climate change intensifies and magnifies existing tensions and contradictions in global energy politics around the simultaneous pursuit of growth, security and sustainability, it does not do so in any straightforward or unmediated way. Instead, it gives rise to new concerns in relation to the imperatives of de-carbonization and increasing the resilience of energy systems. Understanding the impact of climate change on energy systems requires taking seriously the necessary role of energy within the global political economy and the relationship between fossil fuels and capitalism. It must be analysed both directly through climate change's impacts, and indirectly through the uses of political narratives about climate change to sometimes unsettle, and sometimes reinforce, particular energy pathways.