PhD defence: Contentious terrain

Ambitious climate action can encounter resistance in (post-)industrial or otherwise ‘peripheral’ regions. For example, people can come to oppose the closure of fossil-fuel industries, but also the arrival of new, greener industries. After all, climate action can upend the socioeconomic foundation of these kinds of regions. In her doctoral dissertation, Cille Kaiser investigates what drives their resistance. Kaiser travels to more remote places in France and England, where climate change and action have far-reaching consequences for the (day-to-day) lives of residents, including job losses. By talking to these residents, as well as (local) officials and other stakeholders, she learns that this resistance stems from deep-rooted socioeconomic disparities between places and regions, which have different degrees of dependence on fossil-fuel industries. A fairer approach to climate politics, therefore, means that European countries will have to address the uneven patterns of development between and within their own regions. However, this research also shows just how resilient, not to mention creative, such communities can be. Kaiser therefore concludes that their resistance can also create possibilities for fairer climate policies.