Phasing Out Fossil Fuels: Socioenvironmental Priorities and Just Transitions for Extraction Communities
Abstract
Phasing out fossil fuel use to mitigate climate change is a global social imperative. One of the major challenges of such a phase out is designing a just transition that recognizes the massive amounts of social and physical infrastructure currently dedicated to fossil fuel extraction. As a major fossil fuel producer, the United States has many communities that are not only financially but also often culturally tied to fossil extraction, often with few alternative industries. Fossil fuel extraction is a particularly salient topic with respect to designing a just transition because it is so inherently location specific: communities have often developed in a particular place specifically because of an unmovable resource endowment. These communities often have a history of extraction extending decades to over a century into the past. The attendant established nature of many communities hosting fossil extraction contributes to challenges associated with a just transition. This work draws on surveys and interviews with residents of fossil extraction-oriented communities to describe local priorities and contextualize the challenges associated with transitions. This work also calls attention to relevant cultural narratives in many fossil fuel extraction communities that emphasize fossil extraction's relationship to patriotism and environmentalism associated with threats whose salience preceded that of climate change. For example, one of the US' largest coal mining districts was developed largely in response to the need for low sulfur coal after the passage of the Clean Air Act. Finally, this work describes some of the tensions associated with a fossil fuel phase out, including the US' unusual mineral ownership context and the underaddressed point that fossil-based carbon capture would dramatically increase the demand for fossil extraction. Understanding community histories, narratives, and economic contexts can inform approaches to designing a just transition.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMPA14A..09G
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 6314 Demand estimation;
- POLICY SCIENCES;
- 6324 Legislation and regulations;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6620 Science policy;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES