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XI
INTRODUCTION
This volume began as a joint collaboration between scholars from New York University
Abu Dhabi and the Master Program in Energy Strategy, Law & Economics, University
of Piraeus, Greece. Very quickly, the collaboration widened to include scholars from
Masdar, fellows of the Rachel Carson Center in Munich and expanded still further with
the participation of practitioners and policy makers more generally.
The theme of this book is meant to be broad and inclusive. It explores the dynamics
of change brought upon modern societies by the worsening climate crisis that forces
us to look more closely at ways to move forward, build adaptability and resilience,
and rethink our policies, institutions, laws and global relationships. The purpose of
this interdisciplinary dialogue is to shed light on transformations in the energy sec-
tor, institutional responses to energy security, the growing need for a diverse energy
mix, city living in the new era, interdisciplinary cooperation, and the necessity for new
global alliances that will provide much needed leadership. The scholars and practition-
ers have come together from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines to reflect
on a key series of challenges facing global society today. Readers will quickly notice a
healthy range of approaches and issues. Our goal has been to reflect the complexity of
the issues and demonstrate how the climate crisis is not just a question of emissions
but of a holistic rethinking of the workings of today’s world.
In the first section, entitled International Dynamics of Change, our contributors ex-
plored transformations and future challenges in environment and society in the
Anthropocene.
Barry, Hume, Ellis and Curry discuss energy transformations as political struggles, not
simply technological, market-driven policy decisions. Furthermore, they claim, energy
transformations are characterised by biophysical/ecological, cultural, political econo-
my and ethical considerations and choices. Finally, the authors posit strategies to del-
egitimise as well as reframe ‘fossil fuels’ as ‘fossil resources’ with multiple, better uses
than burning them for energy as the key to energy transformation struggles.
Berros, a legal scholar from Argentina, brings the ‘rights of nature debate’ to the fore
through her contribution. The particular debate has recently become more pronounced
in both the ethical and the juridical fields globally. Certainly in countries of South
America, the rights of ‘Pachamama’, Mother Earth, have been under discussion in re-
cent years but increasingly, there are some countries where nature itself is beginning
to appear as a legal entity in cases that are attracting the world’s attention. The author
underscores how recognition of the rights of ‘Pachamama’ is articulated with propos-
als of alternative ways of living that are intrinsically tied to indigenous peoples’ world-
views and as alternatives to capitalism.
In his paper, Roukanas discusses the impact of the resource curse phenomenon on
Russia, under the prism of economic nationalism of international political economy.
The period that the author examines, 2001-2014, marks Putin’s rise to power, the dra-