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This commentary explores the promises surrounding the construction of a new coalmine in Whitehaven in the UK. The impacts of the closure of carbon‐heavy coal facilities increasingly feature in scholarship and policy understandings of energy transitions: illuminating the importance of the temporalities of transition. We seek to further such temporal understandings to highlight the importance of ‘futures’ in discussions of coal, which despite promises of abatement maintains a significant presence in global energy relations. We explore how the Woodhouse Colliery at Whitehaven has come to represent a series of fixes—in both socio‐ecological and affective terms: promising new futures of work, energy and regional development. These futures are contested by opponents of the project, who highlight the emissions to be associated with the site. In tracing these competing futures, we illuminate the intricate ties between historic industry, present‐day regional identity and economies, and the role and presence of carbon in visions of what comes next. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition to a post-carbon economy implies changes that are both far-reaching and unprecedented. The notion that a decarbonization transition must encompass multiple forms of justice is gaining ground. In response, the concept of Just Transition has become ever more popular – and confusion about its meaning ever greater. We argue in this paper that the term Just Transition needs a rigorous updating to develop its full conceptual power for the analysis and evaluation of the rapid and extensive energy transitions already underway. After reviewing the different uses of Just Transition in practice and scholarship, we propose that the term be used as an analytical concept for an ongoing process of transition. The Just Transition concept can provide an integrated, whole-system perspective on justice (procedural, distributive, recognition, and restorative) that can help in identifying systemic solutions to address environmental and socio-economic concerns. This would differ from reductionist approaches that derive from legacy silo-sectoral or technologically driven approaches; these too often overlook negative side-effects and wider justice implications of reorganizing economic practice. An examination of COVID-19 pandemic responses illustrates our operationalization of the Just Transition concept, highlighting the importance of designing whole-system policies that are equitable, as well as the pitfalls of pursuing a narrow sectoral approach. Taking seriously the implications of complex systems with hard-to-predict effects also has concrete implications for policy interventions at all levels of governance. In particular, we highlight the importance of attending to multiple social inequalities for ensuring the resilience of whole-system decarbonization in the face of instability, unpredictability, and unprecedented change. The transition to net-zero will be neither sustainable nor credible if it creates or worsens social inequalities; a backlash is likely if the transition is not perceived to be just. Pathways forward may only emerge through observation, experimentation, and experience. A range of policy tools exist to address Just Transition concerns. These include addressing social and environmental aspects of economic policy; making sure that interventions are adapted to local contexts; building democratic engagement platforms; and open and transparent communication. Job creation does not guarantee just outcomes, as justice goes beyond employment conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from fossil fuels poses risks to communities and industries dependent on carbon-heavy work. This article calls for geographical scholarship to engage more fully with the experiences of those ‘stranded communities’ at risk of such change. It critically reviews examples of deindustrialisation and the decline of coal communities to demonstrate how energy transitions will animate new work and extend geographical understandings of economic restructuring. This paper closes with an agenda for new scholarship to proactively envision decarbonisation in ways that are anticipatory and preventative of future processes of labour restructuring and loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right‐wing variants of populism are on the rise across the globe, creating new patterns of interaction between society and the environment. These new socio‐ecological relationships – dubbed "populist ecologies" – are not homogenous and, instead, can vary from country to country and populist to populist. In this paper, we adopt two illustrative case studies to outline two particular right‐wing populist ecologies. First, we turn to the government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (2019 onwards) and detail the ways in which Bolsonaro's anti‐science agenda is evident in his response to patterns of deforestation and the "burning of the Amazon" in 2019. Second, we explore the politics of Matteo Salvini in Italy, highlighting how, in this form of right‐wing populism, the environment has become a container for wider political ambitions. In doing so, this work highlights the complexity of the relationship between contemporary right‐wing populism and the environment – and the ways in which populist ecologies may act to conceal the more‐nefarious elements of the populist moment. This paper details how right‐wing variants of populism create new socio‐ecological patterns of interaction. Drawing on case studies of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Matteo Salvini in Italy, we advance a conceptualisation of "populist ecologies" to explore and make sense of how ecology is represented within far‐right populist projects. In doing so, we highlight an important complexity in which populist ecologies may function to conceal broader, more nefarious elements of far‐right populist projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, have garnered significant attention in scholarship and beyond. Geographical work on cryptocurrencies has focussed on how their energy demand interacts with local communities and economies. Less is said about the organization of cryptoasset firms and their associated demands. This paper illuminates the complex geographies of one such firm, Bitfury Group, to investigate the global and national forms and structures such companies take and the factors encouraging them to concentrate operations in certain areas. To investigate the latter, we adopt the case study of Bitfury's operations in Georgia, a South-Caucasian country where its presence is significant. We adapt Haberly et al.'s analytical framework to explore Bitfury's geographical dimensions. We highlight how cheap electricity, regulatory and taxation regimes, personal encounters and personalities, and the materialities of hardware and energy-saving technology define these geographies and illuminate how Bitfury actively curates advantageous regulatory spaces. We encourage future work exploring Blockchain and Bitcoin technologies to understand the companies involved as simultaneously material and virtual, and as centrepieces in global networks interweaving production and finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, the planning and construction of a dam has become symbolic of wider political events and processes. This paper investigates how the Tryweryn scheme in north‐west Wales in the 1950s and 1960s became a central signifier within the emergent Welsh nationalism of the period. The project, providing water to the city of Liverpool, flooded the village of Capel Celyn and displaced its 48 residents. However, the opposition to the project extended beyond this rural community, with the scheme becoming a focal point for Welsh nationalism. This paper explores this significance, arguing that the Tryweryn scheme was articulated in a number of ways that elevated the project from a local issue to a national outcry, resulting in the term 'Tryweryn' having a resonance that continues to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of a hydroelectric dam involves the prolonged contest between pro- and anti-dam coalitions adopting various storylines to provide the project with meaning. These representations of dams are often open to reinvention and transformation, allowing for the introduction of new portrayals. This work adopts Ernesto Laclau's and Chantal Mouffe's Discourse Analytic framework to explore how supporters of the Belo Monte project in Brazil have integrated narratives of environmental sustainability into the positioning of the facility. Following recent scholarship, these appeals to sustainability are cast as a tool to legitimize construction whilst concealing negative social and environmental consequences. In doing so, this work asserts that the ambiguity - or emptiness - of the concept of sustainability has allowed for the pro-dam coalition to adopt such a storyline to legitimise a project that possesses questionable environmentalist credentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Belo Monte is one of the most divisive dams in Brazilian history, becoming entangled in a thirty-year struggle between pro- and anti-dam interests over the role of the facility within a complex web of Brazilian development and the future of the Brazilian Amazon. This research explores how the proponents of Belo Monte have adopted a number of policy frames as a means of deflection, to divide the opposition and legitimize the project. It investigates this claim by analyzing speeches given within the Brazilian Câmara dos Deputados and the public speeches of high-level politicians. These sources, organized around a framework previously identified by Ahlers et al. (), show that the government and individual politicians have used a variety of framing devices to legitimize the hydroelectric facility. Principal methods of framing used also demonstrate how contemporary narratives (e.g. sustainability) have been employed to deflect opposition criticism and widen the scheme's perceived beneficiaries. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how the transformation represented by Belo Monte encompassed not only a process of engineering but also a re-articulation of the complex and its role in modern Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology, Infrastructure, Energy transitions, The cloud, Data centres Tracing the "cloud": Emergent political geographies of global data centres. [Extracted from the article]

The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of hydropower projects across the globe, with the energy source an integral part of contemporary sustainable energy transitions. Yet, the environmentalist credentials of hydropower remain contested by anti-dam movements. This paper details the cases of the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós dams in the Brazilian Amazon to explore how the development, submission and acceptance of an Environmental Impact Assessment provides a key site in the contestation of hydroelectric projects. Whilst the provision of this document – and the wider environmental licensing process – represents a key component in the asserted 'green-ness' of hydropower, opposition groups extend the scope of analysis to include indirect and cumulative impacts that remain understudied in official assessments. This paper analyses interviews and questionnaires with and documents provided by national and international civil society organisations to trace this process of challenge and critique. It details how civil society actors forward alternative assessments of the impacts of the projects studied, uncovering and illuminating overlooked and understudied externalities of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon. An analysis of this process not only demonstrates that the 'green' credentials of hydropower remain far from assured but also highlights how anti-dam actors advance new 'sustainabilities' to discredit the terrain upon which such credentials are set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Political capabilities are vital for marginalised people to negotiate equitable resilience in climate change responses. • How to strengthen resilience in practice and through engaged and empowering research methods remains poorly understood. • Our analysis shows that dynamics of inclusion, exclusion, and oppression are pervasive, even in seemingly inclusive methods settings. • Contestation and resistance are essential to avoid the voices of disadvantaged populations being co-opted in the name of 'resilience building' • Engaged research methodologies to nourish political capabilities require self-reflexivity among development and resilience scholars. Critical scholarship on the intersection of development pathways and climate change responses highlights the roles of power, agency, social difference, intersecting inequalities, and social justice in shaping people's resilience in a rapidly transforming world. Yet, how to precisely increase the spaces in which people experiencing marginalisation can address power asymmetries and strengthen their resilience, particularly from a methodological perspective, remains poorly understood. Here, we build on recent insights into political capabilities and their relevance for equitable resilience practice to assess the role research methods play in not only locating political capabilities but also enhancing them in the context of climate resilience. We present the findings from an in-depth analysis of 57 articles, out of a larger set of 200+ papers, that have employed co-learning/cooperative inquiries, participatory action research, participatory methods, workshops, and/or interviews combined with other approaches as most engaging and potentially empowering methods. Methodological insights through this analysis allow us to examine if and how resilience-in-the-making materialises across uneven power relations and often flawed decision-making processes. We show the pervasiveness of power differentials, even in research settings designed to be inclusive, and how disempowering processes in adaptation, mitigation, disaster management, and social transformation further marginalise already disadvantaged actors. At the same time, we illustrate the transformative role of alliances, resistance, shared learning, and sustaining inclusive approaches. Such nuanced insights into best processes as well as detrimental pitfalls are essential for development scholars and practitioners to help anchor deliberative resilience practice in the everyday lives of disadvantaged populations and foster political capabilities for more just climate action and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]