We are delighted to announce our official launch lecture. It will be delivered by Professor Harriet Bulkeley, and is titled Just Energy Transitions. Building on her own work on climate change and cities, Harriet will outline some of the key current challenges and opportunities at the nexus of urban energy transitions, climate and justice.
The description of Harriet’s talk reads as follows:
‘Calls for energy transitions are everywhere. From the wrangling of political parties over reforms to the energy market, national government plans for pathways to decarbonisation, to the multiple corporations seeking to go ‘low carbon’ and the activism of community organisations such as Transition Towns. As momentum gathers pace, such transition talk has started to work its way into the urban arena. As CURE itself undergoes something of a transition – towards questions of resilience and energy – it is worth reflecting on what is at stake as energy transitions come to town. This presentation will reflect on how the city has come to embody both dystopian and utopian imaginaries for future climate change, and the ways in which responding to the challenges of resilience and energy agendas in the city is increasingly woven into these understandings. It will argue that the politics of this response is taking place in diverse sites of experimentation, opening up new avenues of inquiry as to where we might look for urban transitions and how they might work in practice. Understanding such processes of experimentation and transition requires not only that we examine how and why they are taking place, but that we seek to interrogate by and for whom they are being undertaken. Exploring these dimensions of urban transitions requires engaging with what a just energy transition might involve and how it can be achieved in practice.’
The event will be held at the Cordingley Lecture Theatre (in the Humanities Bridgeford Street building) at 5.15 pm on the 18th of November. The lecture itself will commence at 5.30 pm; it will be preceded by an introductory session chaired by Professor Simon Guy from the University of Manchester, and will be followed by a wine reception.
People and Energy Collective 