Geopolitics and decarbonization: global actors and local impacts

A research project funded by Mistra Geopolitics aims to find out how key actors’ discourses constrain or enable further fossil fuel production in Colombia and Nigeria. Researchers investigated how key actors could challenge current plans and support the rapid reduction in fossil fuel production that goes hand-in-hand with meeting international targets under the Paris Agreement, thus addressing the production gap.

Claudia Strambo, a research fellow at SEI, and Daria Ivleva, a senior advisor and co-lead of the climate policy programme at Adelphi, examined government narratives, policy documents and other materials published between December 2015 and May 2022. They found that governmental discourses include oil and gas production on as core pillars of the energy transition.

Eugène Petelin, a PhD student at Lund University, examines and identifies policy narratives on material circularity. He highlighted the role specific metals play in energy systems, such as rare earth metals, and perceived threats to state security in terms of supply of certain materials.

Even though businesses appear to be the driving force of circularity and recycling in the Nordic countries, Petelin said that national security strategies can also drive these processes. He illustrated this with policy documents that emphasize the limited access to specific materials, and that therefore consider circularity plans for these materials for protecting the economic system within a state.

“Criticality is defined as limited access to materials”, Petelin said. “The idea of limited access originates from resources not being available because these are located in countries able to set limits.” Monopolistic control of metals, for example, has implications for geopolitical concerns, from trade to security.