Oil Cities in Africa: Beyond Just Transition

Abstract

Nations and NGOs are promoting the idea of a transition from a petroleum-based civilization to one fueled by renewable energy. But there are many questions about how to proceed. The solution usually proposed is to develop "clean energy" as the underlying basis of a transition. Analysts tend to be concerned with climate change and land use change, with a focus on technical developments. Socioecological issues receive scant attention, especially if they relate to oil cities. This article starts from the perspective that progress in saving the planet from destruction can only be achieved by taking seriously past and present injustices and taking measures to rectify them. I use the situation in Port Harcourt, Nigeria to illustrate this proposition. I focus on three interrelated concepts: rent theft, social costs, and just transition. The central problem is rent theft because it is at the root of the "crime of poverty" and the social costs of plundering the land for energy sources. Until they address problems arising from historical injustice, campaigns for a just transition that promote clean energy in a bioeconomy will merely reproduce the central problem. Thus, reparations and land equity must be an integral part of any solution.The Fossil Fuel Question Oil cities and coal towns around the world have an ambiguous reputation. As centers of production of the fuels that have been the engine of economic development, they are viewed as being necessary. But as focal points of the desire to create a "clean and green" world, they are considered an affront to ecological morality. Overcoming their history as sources of blight and transforming them into centers of healthy

Identifying, improving, and investing in national commitments to just transition: Reflections from Latin America and the Caribbean

“…Just transition is defined in this paper as transitioning away from fossil fuels in a manner that simultaneously alleviates past social inequalities and promotes a more just future. There is a plethora of research in this area that presents local (Delina, 2022;Obeng-Odoom, 2021;McCauley and Planning, 2021;Kuriyama and Abe, 2021) or single national case study examples (Weber and Cabras, 2021;Barnes, 2022;Lima, 2022) of how just transition may be achieved. This varies from technical insights into how energy can be used to transform society (Malik and Bertram, 2022;Williams and Doyon, 2020), to more sociological investigations into how promoting social justice can lead to better energy futures (Murphy et al, 2022;Cha and Pastor, 2022).…”

Climate Scholarship Needs Du Bois: Climate Crisis through the Lens of Racial and Colonial Capitalism*

“…A Just Transition away from fossil fuels that ensures redistribution and reparative justice for impacted communities is difficult in the context of these ongoing colonial relations of dependency. A wealth of scholarship has emerged on the energy transition in resource-intensive economies in colonized nations and the difficulties it brings (Armstrong 2020;Hijazi et al 2020;Obeng-Odoom 2021). It is difficult to know if resource development and dependence in these nations would have been different if such countries had not been colonized, but the current predicament certainly reproduces racial and colonial capitalist dynamics.…”

Slavery, Colonialism, and Ecological Imperialism: Insights from Stratification Economics

“…Environmental justice movements and recent research on the differential effects of climate change have made clear that people of color, especially Black people, are likely to disproportionately suffer from climate change harms due to the inequities they face (USEPA 2021). However, as stratification economists (Darity and Mullen 2020a; Obeng‐Odoom 2021a, 2021b) have pointed out, what remains to be better highlighted is how the cumulative legacies of slavery, segregation, and other intentionally racist government policies have led to such inequities and thus to Black people's unique climate vulnerabilities.…”