Coal
A 2021 book which illuminates the places where theory and reality converge and presents an approach to municipal development, planning, and governance that takes seriously the urgent need to address climate change and injustice. Addressing a wide variety of topics and themes, including energy, diversity, economic development, and ecological health, Sustainability Matters is both a critique of current practice and a vision for the future that uses the city of Calgary as a microcosm to address issues faced by cities around the world.
[Originally posted at https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/57694/9781773852492.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y]
A 2020 paper which estimates the cost of coal worker protection over 20 years in two scenarios. In scenario 1, an 82% attrition rate is calculated, with 6 600 coal workers needing retraining and re-employment over 20 years. In the second scenario, about 75% of electricity will be decommissioned by 2043 and 32 920 (1 646 per year) workers will need retraining. The estimated cost of a 'just transition' for coal workers over 20 years is R6 billion: salaried compensation costs up to R1.2 billion, retraining at R621 million, relocation costs of R100 million, and regional development and rehabilitation costs of R4 billion.
[Originally posted at https://www.tips.org.za/just-transition/item/4104-estimating-the-cost-of-a-just-transition-in-south-africa-s-coal-sector-protecting-workers-stimulating-regional-development-and-accelerating-a-low-carbon-transition]
A 2021 paper which concludes that the 'just transition' strategy should be extended by issues strictly related to the situation of women in the future labor market. Additionally, the concept of a special hub for women, whose aim would be professional activation of women of various age groups, has been introduced.
[Originally posted at https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3372]
A 2009 thesis which uses a transdisciplinary, sustainability-science approach to investigate the potential for the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Australia to make a transition to sustainability.
[Originally posted at https://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/uon:6253/ATTACHMENT01]
A 2022 research which finds that such institutions have exacerbated South Africa’s prospective stranded asset exposure, and by doing so, have accrued a Stranded Asset Debt (SAD)—as a supply-side counterpart to the demand-side climate debt, which they have also accumulated—perhaps to the tune of at least several dozens of billions of dollars.
[Originally posted at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12868]
Phasing out coal requires expanding the notion of a ‘just transition’ and a roadmap that specifies the sequence of coal plant retirement, the appropriate policy instruments as well as ways to include key stakeholders in the process.
[Originally posted at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0866-1.]
A 2019 working paper which examines what a 'just transition' to a greener but employment-rich and egalitarian economy might look like. It examines the employment structure the European economy with a focus on the coal sector in the light of European Union commitments to phase out coal and argues that policymakers should devise a specific plan for the sector.
[Originally posted at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3402876]
This 2021 declaration outlines the U.S. United Mine Workers of America's principles for energy transition "that will enhance opportunities for miners, their families and their communities are built around three simple goals: preserve coal
jobs, create new jobs, and preserve coalfield families and communities."
[Originally posted at https://umwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/UMWA-Preserving-Coal-Country-2021.pdf]
A 2020 article which undertakes a systematic mapping of 649 cases of resistance movements to both fossil fuel (FF) and low carbon energy (LCE) projects, providing the most comprehensive overview of such place-based energy-related mobilizations to date. It finds that (1) Place-based resistance movements are succeeding in curbing both fossil-fuel and low-carbon energy projects. Over a quarter of projects encountering social resistance have been cancelled, suspended or delayed. (2) The evidence highlights that low carbon, renewable energy and mitigation projects are as conflictive as FF projects, and that both disproportionately impact vulnerable groups such as rural communities and Indigenous peoples.
[Originally posted at https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abc197/meta]
A 2020 paper which reviews and evaluates key policy initiatives and strategies designed to strengthen regional economic, social and environmental outcomes in the Latrobe Valley (Victoria, Australia) in the three years following the closure of the Hazelwood power
station.
[Originally posted at https://crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publication/ccep_crawford_anu_edu_au/2020-11/ccep20-10_wiseman_workman_fastenrath_jotzo_after_hazelwood.pdf]
A 2022 report which analyzes the situation of workers in the mining supply chain.
[Originally posted at https://www.cnvinternationaal.nl/_Resources/Persistent/a/8/0/e/a80e414827c77f5fc10dfc3ea960ae682276f287/CNVI-0352%20Profundo%20Mineral%20supply%20chains%20from%20Latin%20America%20221006%20def.pdf]
A 2021 paper which develops three generic models that allow policymakers to analyze the impact of introducing either a nodal, a zonal, or a uniform pricing system on the three horns of the energy trilemma in their country.
[Originally posted at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3807059]
The energy transition currently taking place in the mining regions of the European Union poses many challenges that need to be addressed with a view to 2030 and 2050, of which the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is the key one. Initial results of the research project entitled “Models of a transition to a climate-neutral, circular economy for mining regions under transformation process”, which is developed in parallel with the transition of mining town Brzeszcze, are presented. The challenges, in the context of energy transition, for both the EU and local governments were identified on the basis of EU policies and the experience of the project team from the cooperation with the commune of Brzeszcze. A “research by design” method was used to develop model solutions.
[Originally posted at https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/20/6674]
A 2019 dissertation which makes the moral case for equitably transitioning away from fossil fuels in line with keeping global warming as close as possible to the Paris Climate Agreement’s more stringent target of keeping global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It argues that we should do so while relying as little as possible on risky and uncertain negative emissions and geoengineering technologies, as doing so might prolong the fossil fuel era and pose grave potential costs both to the present and future generations.
[Originally posted at https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/43733]
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