Energy Crisis and Social Transformation

One-Day Workshop with the Climate, Environment and Society Research Centre (C-SERC) at the University of Technology Sydney and the Just Transitions Research Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Energy Crisis and Social Transformation

Tuesday 2 June 2026, 9.00am-6.00pm

Registration: https://events.humanitix.com/energy-crisis-and-social-transformation
Online: Zoom ID 8637645831 Passcode 345711
In-person: UTS ResHub, UTS Broadway, Building 2, Level 13, Room  100 (CB02.13.100)

The 2026 oil crisis makes visible society’s energy dependence. The US war on Iran demonstrates (again) how social power rests on the power of energy. Ironically, the war, and the current scramble for oil, points beyond the status quo, highlighting the necessity for alternatives. When access to energy gets harder, the world as we know it changes. This workshop addresses this agenda, encompassing the impact of wider crises, especially the climate crisis, and the implications for social power and transformation. What does history tell us about energy and social change? What are the agendas for energy transformation today, for social justice and climate action? How do different societies engage with energy transitions, from radically different contexts? How can ‘energy transformation’ be understood and conceptualised, including across different approaches and contexts? 

The workshop is part of a collaboration between C-SERC at UTS and the Just Transitions Research Centre at IIT Kanpur, India. It includes the launch of two books on energy transitions, 'Decarbonising Electricity: the Promise of Renewable Energy Regions' (Cambridge University Press 2025) and Everyday Justice in India's Coal Transition (Oxford University Press 2026). Themes from the CUP book are summarised in the Transnational Institute's 'State of Power'.

DRAFT PROGRAM

9.00-9.30 Welcome and Introductions

James Goodman - Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome

Pradip Swarnakar - Introducing the ‘Just Transition Research Centre’, JTRC, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India

Kate Barclay - Introducing the Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre’, C-SERC, at the University of Technology Sydney

9.30-11.00 Panel 1 - Histories of Transition/Transformation, Lessons for Now?

Chair: Kate Barclay

Matt Ryan - 'Energy as Commodity Frontier: Histories, Theories, Futures'

Julia Scott-Stevenson – 'Imagining the Electric: from History to Present'

Michael Charlton – ‘Large-scale Renewables and Yindjibarndi Sovereignty’ (online)

Ben Spies-Butcher - ‘Imagining a future with unions’

Natasha Heenan - ’The Overshoot Conjuncture and the Politics of Climate Repair’

11.00-12.30 Panel 2 - Scaling-up? Society-wide Planning?

Chair: Linda Connor

Sven Teske - ‘Africa: Decarbonising a Continent’

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt - ‘India’s Energy Transition’

Pritha Sarkar and Pradip Swarnakar – ‘Unpacking Coal Dependence’

Shazia Iman - 'Who Governs the Transition? Coal Closures in Jharkhand and Latrobe Valley'

James Goodman – ‘Beyond Techno-Stageism: the Growing Imperative for Energy Degrowth’

12.30-1.00 Lunch

1.00-2.30 Panel 3 - Policy: With or Against Fossil Fuels?

Chair: Tom Morton

Rebecca Pearse - ‘From Flexibility to Constraint: a Sectoral ETS for Fossil Emissions’ (online)

Riikka Heikkinen - ‘The Rise and Fall of NSW Offshore Wind’

Madelaine Moore - ‘The Contested Role of Hydropower as Renewable Energy’

Jon Marshall - 'The Importance of Ground-up Transitions'

Amanda Cahill - ‘Justice in the International Push for Fossil Fuel Phase Out’

2.30-4.00 Panel 4 - Social Agency for Energy Transformation

Chair: Matt Ryan

Allan Teale - ‘Indigenous Peoples and Renewable Energy’

Liam McLoughlin - The Climate "Prince"?

Elianor Gerrard – ‘The people vs policy: how energy policy is felt, interpreted and enacted on the ground’  

Naorem Nishikanta Mangang and Pradip Swarnakar - ‘Whose Just Transition? Trade union agency under structural constraint in India's coal sector’

Tom Morton and Sam Wilkins - ‘Declining Coal Exports and the Future of the Hunter. Perceptions, Parallel Realities and Responsibilities’

4.30-5.30 Book Launches

Chair: Devleena Ghosh

In discussion with Stephen Muecke, Amanda Cahill, and the authors

Decarbonising Energy: The Promise of Renewable Energy Regions (Cambridge University Press 2025)

Everyday Justice in India's Coal Transition (Oxford University Press 2026)

6.00 Informal Dinner

Rooftop, Abercrombie Hotel, Broadway

Further info: James Goodman james.goodman@uts.edu.au

Banner Picture: 220MW Bungala solar farm in Port Augusta, South Australia. Built on 800 hectares owned by the Bungala Aboriginal Corporation. Ikara-Flinders ranges in the background. Pic: G. Bryant