Geoeconomics and Geopolitics of Energy Transition
CFP for Global Conference on Economic Geography, Worcester, USA, June 4-8, 2025
Session Organizers: Jessie P.H. Poon, (SUNY-Buffalo), Julie Silva (SUNY-Buffalo), Dariusz Jacek Wojcik (National University of Singapore)
The global energy transition has gained saliency as concerns about climate risks grow. A low carbon economy based on renewable and clean energy technologies is expected to be more mineral-intensive. For instance, the International Energy Agency has estimated that an electric vehicle needs six times more minerals than a gas-driven vehicle. Replacing conventional vehicles with electric vehicles would increase demand for lithium by 50-fold in fifteen years. Similarly, demand for aluminum, cobalt, manganese and nickel to produce energy storage batteries could rise by 450% in 2050 according to a World Bank study. Electricity transmission infrastructure such as grid networks have transformed relationships between states with the emergence of trans-border regional grid communities in Europe and Asia. The attempt to reshore and friend-shore clean technology global production networks in Europe and the US has triggered debates on the merits of free trade and globalization, broadened energy security concerns from fossil fuels to renewable energy security, and prompted new South-South relations and regionalisms led by China. It has also revitalized the role of minerals, particularly critical minerals, in regional development despite adverse environmental impacts. Industrial policy, once taboo in the West, is being pursued as a regional policy to address the plight of left-behind regions by integrating them to renewable energy production networks and value chains. Under the new Trump administration, trade instruments as part of industrial policy are expected to persist, intensifying geoeconomic-geopolitical tensions and competition. We invite presentations on the following but not exclusive themes:
- Renewable energy geopolitics and geoeconomics
- Geoeconomics of critical mineral transition
- Geoeconomics and geopolitics of green global production networks
- Geographies of renewable energy grid and power infrastructure
- Nearshoring, restoring, and friend-shoring
- Global value chains of clean/green technology and uneven development
- Renewable energy and global south regionalisms
- Climate finance and energy transition
- Global financial networks of energy and critical minerals
Submission Guidelines:
We invite authors to submit abstracts of up to 250 words to Jessie Poon (jesspoon@buffalo.edu), Julie Silva (jasilva3@buffalo.edu), and/or Dariusz Jacek Wojcik (dwojcik@nus.edu.sg) by January 24, 2025. Once abstracts are accepted to the session (Monday January 27, 2015), paper authors will be required to submit their abstracts through the conference registration page (gceg.org/index.php/register) by the GCEG deadline of February 1st, 2025. However, please note that there is a price change for registration on January 31, 2025. We also welcome queries or requests for further information.