Challenges for a just and sustainable energy transition in the Global South

The debate on energy transitions has been largely dominated by the “green growth” paradigm, according to which renewable energy sources will simply substitute fossil fuels without changing current consumption patterns or their distribution within and among nations. Promoting economic growth continues to be at the core of future energy scenarios. However, this paradigm is becoming increasingly non-viable for technical, environmental, and social reasons. In fact, renewable infrastructure requires a) much larger land occupation than fossil fuels, often provoking social conflicts; b) the use of already declining fossil energy at every stage of their lifecycle; c) large amounts of minerals that will be scarce soon exacerbating socio-environmental mining impact. The green growth vision implies a very limited perspective, in which sustainability is reduced to mitigating climate change, forgetting other important dimensions such as ecological overshoot.

Using Mexico as a “case study” of the Global South, I will show the contradictions of energy green-growth strategies and argue that the only way out of the current global socio-environmental crisis is to build alternative “imaginaries” that rely on solidarity, cooperation, democratization, equity, decentralization, sufficiency, and localization. This new paradigm implies a bottom-up, basic needs end-use approach to energy planning, which acknowledges: a) that there are biophysical boundaries that limit the continuous expansion of consumption; b) that the large and increasing inequalities in energy use among and within countries need to be addressed; c) that access to adequate energy services constitutes a universal right and as such, eradicating energy poverty should be a priority goal; and d) that local renewable energy sources and eco-friendly end-use technologies should increasingly become the basis of the energy system.

To this end, as part of a novel interdisciplinary Program from the Mexican National Science and Technology Council (CONACYT) directed to promote a sustainable and fair energy transition in the country, we have been pursuing four main goals: a) sustainable mobility, based on reducing the use of private car, promotion of public transport and a variety of means to reduce the need to transport for people and goods; b) energy efficiency and substitution of fossil fuels in the industrial, commercial and domestic sectors; c) sustainable energy systems for the rural regions, based on local-scale renewable sources and eco-friendly technology; d) distributed power generation managed by local communities and cooperatives.

About the speaker

Professor Omar Masera has a bachelor in Physics from the National University of Mexico and a Master and PhD in Energy and Resources from UC, Berkeley. In 2020 was appointed The University of Leeds’ Cheney Fellow. He is full-time professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, UNAM where he is also Director of the Bioenergy Laboratory and the Ecotechnology Innovation Research Unit. He leads the Cluster of Solid Biofuels. Professor Masera received the National Research Award for young scientists of the Mexican Academy of Sciences in 2000, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 as a member of IPCC, the Ashden Awards to Sustainable Energy in 2006, and the National University Prize in 2015.