Conference Agenda

Most theories of planetary justice are formulated by scholars from the North. However, there is a notable absence of Southern academics, especially from Africa, in the debates. My paper would like to examine the issue of the foundations of planetary justice from a postcolonial African perspective, i.e. that of the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe. In his book Brutalisme (2020), Mbembe writes: "What had initially appeared to me as a specific feature of what I had called the postcolony began to lose its singularity as my work was reappropriated in various contexts. I realised that this was a frame whose scale was much larger than the African continent." (Mbembe 2020: 15)

Although Mbembe's argument is formulated in 2020, it is earlier, around the 2010s, with the publication of texts such as Necropolitics(2006) and Critique of Black Reason (2016), that a reflection on planetary rights and justice is formulated. He argues in these essays that the absence of rights and justice, whether political, economic or environmental, are not the exclusive traits of African states. "Africa, Mbembe writes, was, in truth, only a laboratory for global changes. Since then, it is to reflect on this planetary turn of the African predicament and its counterpart, the African future of the world, that I, along with others, have set out." (Mbembe 2020: 15)

My paper will focus on two questions: a) What is planetary justice according to Mbembe? b) How does this concept differs from those elaborated among Western scholars, of which Biermann, F., Kalfagianni, A et al. wrote an excellent synthesis in issue 38 of the Earth System Governance paper? (Biermann, F., Dirth, E., Kalfagianni, A., 2020) Furthermore, I will discuss the contribution of potcolonial theories to Mbembe's foundations and principles of planetary justice. Based on a close analysis of Mbembe's works Necropolitique (2016), Brutalime (2020) and The Earthly Community (2022), I will conclude by examining the pertinence and limits of Mbembe's potcolonial approach to the concept of planetary justice in contemporary debates on planetary governance.

This work aims to contribute to the discussions on energy justice in the Global South by addressing the electrical energy systems in the Amazon from the perspective of decolonial energy justice. The disputes in the Amazon related to energy projects compose a scenario of historical energy injustices and persisting colonial power relations. While presenting high rates of rural energy poverty, the Brazilian Amazon energy system is considered the country's hydro-energy frontier, with large hydropower plants in operation and many others planned for construction. Large energy projects in Brazil date to the geopolitical vision of the military dictatorship in the 1970s. Back then, the Amazon was understood as terra nullius and was subjected to national development projects aiming for a supposed regional occupation and integration. In this context, the expansion of energy production in the Amazon took place mainly through hydroelectric power plants, which introduced the region into the national division of labor. This movement led to substantial social and environmental injustices, including genocides and the displacement of traditional people and indigenous groups, which persist nowadays.

Traditional discussions on energy justice, which originated in the Global North, are concerned with the social distribution of benefits and expenses of the energy systems and related decision-making processes. A decolonial perspective on energy justice sheds light on the social relations of energy, pointing out that energy systems are one of the pillars of current modernity and capitalism. As much as the concept of energy is imagined and implemented by the occidental epistemology and development narrative, the traditional definition of energy justice reproduces such hegemonic power relations. A decolonial energy justice framework recognizes the interaction between energy injustices and colonial power, especially in the Global South, and aims to encompass diverse conceptions of justice, culture, and identity.

The goal of the present study is to explore the decolonial energy justice considerations investigating the development of energy systems in the Brazilian Amazon, especially regarding the context ensuing on the Belo Monte hydropower plant. The decolonial energy justice analysis accounts for the persistence of the Colonial Matrix of Power in the structure of energy systems and for the social relationships that energy systems produce, maintain, and destabilize. Decolonizing energy justice expands the significance of energy justice discussions and its contribution to just transformations, highlighting colonial power relations and enabling the emergence of diverse emancipatory energy projects.

One of the main criticisms of the recent wave of climate protests of Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and others has been that they are inadequately addressing the knowledge structures that underly extractive capitalism and what Farhana Sultana has called “climate coloniality”. In response to this criticism, various groups are advancing the notion of cognitive justice, which aims to centre ways of knowing and being that have been marginalised by Western modernity and colonialism, especially indigenous, spiritual and ancestral knowledges and practices. This paper investigates these newly emergent trends by analysing the case study of a transnationally operating climate justice group, the Extinction Rebellion Being the Change Affinity Network (BCAN).

Based on two years of ethnographic research and 60 qualitative interviews with movement actors in 12 different countries, I will investigate how advancing cognitive justice and planet repairs draws on various forms of knowing, including religious, indigenous and ancestral epistemologies, and how these are mobilised as an alternative to what is seen as a predominantly science and technology centred perspective on the climate crisis. The paper will show how these advocates for a pluriversal world order not only put forward certain political demands but try to enact a paradigm change in which different epistemologies and ontologies, particularly those marginalised by Christian missionaries, Western science and political secularism, are at the centre of the change they are trying to achieve—in climate politics and the communities they are connected to across the globe. The paper thereby contributes to the debate on the relation between ecology, science and religion by investigating how decolonial, spiritual and indigenous languages and rituals embody a new form of ecological politics. Finally, the paper establishes a new analytical framework to conceptualise the blurred boundaries between traditional, indigenous, and ancestral knowledges.

Green finance governance has become one of the major pillars of the current global climate governance. Transnational climate governance institutions increasingly initiate green finance policy instruments, such as climate-related financial risk disclosures, and build new allies to mobilize money that could accelerate a global net-zero transition. These new types of climate finance governance steer transnational financial flows and determine for whom the money is allocated. Despite rapidly growing climate finance, developing countries remain lacking in funds and investments to cope with climate challenges. Moreover, some climate financial tools reproduce the disparity between the Global North and the Global South (e.g., small-scale farmers’ purchase of crop insurance due to severe droughts in Africa). This normative aspect of green finance governance has been marginalized in policy and academic debates but needs to be centered for just transition. This paper explores emerging issues of global inequality and justice in global climate finance governance through the lens of climate colonialism. Climate coloniality has been shaped by extractive capitalism, and it (re)produces unequal exchanges between the Global North and the Global South in multidimensional aspects, including ecological and epistemological inequalities. In that sense, the existing climate finance governance architecture seems to be a venue of climate colonialism based on the dominant influence of financial experts and elite groups. How and when do global climate finance instruments trigger multi-layered global inequalities? What types of asymmetrical power relations are behind the inequalities? Who has the agency to set governance rules and agendas for whom? As the first step to understand the sociopolitical dynamics in global climate finance governance, this research conducts a discourse mapping based on a systematic review of academic literature across disciplines and policy documents published by selected global green finance governance initiatives (from 2000 to present). This mapping exercise aims to find major policy and academic discourses on equity and justice issues in the global climate finance governance realm. It shows what knowledge network does or does not shed light on the global disparities. Based on the findings, I suggest some research agendas to support equitable climate finance policies and argue that inter- and transdisciplinary approaches are necessary to develop the research direction.

This decolonial collaborative study (as an interdisciplinary research team of Indigenous Elders, knowledge-keepers, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars) responds to decolonizing climate change and drinking water goverance with Northern Indigenous communities in Canada. We explore how the recent climate crisis (and interpretation) is challenging Indigenous drinking water sources; and what is at stake in processes such as consultation, impact assessment, regulatory hearings, approvals (including negotiation of benefits), and monitoring. And, what reformed processes can build Indigenous community
capacity and supports robust decisions? We focus on Indigenist community-led decolonial approach to climate justice and the connectivity between climate change and water governance and sustainability related to the interactions and inter-dependencies with health security, Indigenous environmental and cultural value protection. Indigenous knowledge-ways have much to offer in support of resiliency of climate change and water infrastructure in Indigenous communities, an intercultural reconceptualization of research methodologies, environmental sustainability, and educational programs which support Indigenous communities.

Focusing on decolonial community perspectives on climate change impact management and drinking water protection, our collaborative offers insight into Indigenous culture and
community responsibilities of Indigenous climate justice to inform protecting drinking water performance review policy development. Our Indigenist designing, coordinating and hosting a traditional interdisciplinary story sharing on the relationship between climate justice and drinking water protection.

Developing effective and trustful engagement dialogues to build self-determination among Indigenous Elders, Knowledge-keepers, and scholars. Our collaborative study findings may have many meaningful implications for climate justice policy documents local, provincially, and nationally and assist in the articulation and practice of drinking water source protection as culturally and community informed.