The Embodied Political Ecology of Global Solar PV Supply Chains

China, Development and International Order Seminar Series

This seminar examines China’s growing role within the rapid global transition to renewable energy (RE), a shift that is leading states to compete to secure raw materials and renewable technology including solar PV. The transition also evidences significant socio-ecological impacts throughout global solar PV supply chain, which raises questions of sustainability and justice. 

In this seminar, Susan Park will explain the ‘embodied political ecology’ of solar PV as a commodity that contributes to a range of socio-ecological harms along its life cycle, from toxic waste to forced labour. In doing so, she will map the socio-ecological impacts of the global solar PV supply chain according to both life-cycle analysis (LCA) and non-LCA studies and provide a more comprehensive means of understanding the full impacts of producing solar PV as a commodity for a global market. Situating the embodied political ecology of solar PV within the global supply chain and recognising the increasing market concentration by China and Chinese companies, this seminar will reveal the need for greater transparency in Chinese sustainability of the global solar PV supply chain to mitigate harms of the technology, with implications for sustainable governance.

Speaker
Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. She focuses on how international organisations and global governance can become greener and more accountable, particularly in the transition to renewable energy. Her most recent books are: The Good Hegemon (2022, OUP) and Environmental Recourse at the Multilateral Development Banks (2020, CUP). She is co-lead Editor of the journal Global Environmental Politics. She was a Senior Hans Fischer Fellow at the Technical University of Munich (2019-2023) and is a Research Lead of the Earth Systems Governance project.

Chair
Amy King is Associate Professor in the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University, and Deputy Director (Research) in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She is the author of China-Japan Relations after World War Two: Empire, Industry and War, 1949-1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The holder of an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship and a Westpac Research Fellowship, she leads a team researching China’s role in shaping the international economic order.

This seminar series is part of a research project on How China Shapes the International Economic Order, generously funded by the Westpac Scholars Trust and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and led by Associate Professor Amy King from the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please contact bell.marketing@anu.edu.au.


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