This event is organised by Climate Change, Energy Policy and Sustainability Research Group at the University of Westminster.
Prof Roland Dannreuther will address the implications of the transition to renewable energy and the shift away from global dependence on fossil fuels for International Relations. The theoretical focus will be on the materialities of fossil fuels; how different fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal) have had historically differing international political and economic impacts; and what the legacies and the social, economic, and political implications of this history of dependence are with the shift to an energy transition.
In her presentation, Dr Aurora Ganz will analyse the implications of energy securitisation that resulted from incorporating energy security into national security priorities. Ganz will discuss how securitisation downgrades alternative energy concerns – for example, access, availability and affordability of electricity, environmental and infrastructure degradation, or energy sustainability – and makes invisible the violence connected to securitisation practices.
In the final intervention Dr Mathieu Blondeel will review the transition risks that International Oil Companies (IOCs) are faced with in the context of global energy systems transformation, and what sort of strategies IOCs are formulating in response to those challenges. In this context Blondeel will introduce ‘Transition Strategy Continuum’ in order capture the divergence and variety in strategic responses of IOCs.
About the panelists
Roland Dannreuther is Professor of International Relations at the University of Westminster. His research interests include security studies, energy politics and the regional politics of Russia, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Recent publications include Energy Security (Polity, 2017), International Security: the Contemporary Agenda (Polity, 2013) and China, Oil and Global Politics (with Philip Andrews-Speed) (Routledge, 2011).
Aurora Ganz is Associate Lecturer in critical security studies at the University of St Andrews. She holds a PhD in International Relations from King's College London Department of War Studies. Her research is situated in critical security studies and is highly interdisciplinary, primarily nested in the broader social sciences.
Mathieu Blondeel is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Warwick Business School (WBS). He is currently working on a project funded by the UK Energy Research Centre, "UK Energy in a Global Context". Mathieu’s research interests lie at the intersection of global climate and energy politics, with a particular focus on the geopolitical economy of energy system transformation.
The event will be chaired by Dr Wojciech Ostrowski, University of Westminster
Register for this event
Please register for the event via Eventbrite. Registered attendees will be sent a link to the online event.
