Generating Energy Insecurity in India: Coal Mining, Criminality and Carbon Lock-in

11h45 à 12h30
Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, local C-1017-02
Carrefour des arts et des sciences
3150, rue Jean-Brillant

Emma Lecavalier is a visiting researcher from the Global Risk Governance Programme at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on sustainable energy transitions in China, India, and South Africa. More broadly, her interests include climate risk, cities, sustainability, and complex networks.

Summary :
Studies on energy sector reform traditionally focus on forms of “lock-in” that act as disincentives to institutional change: for instance, capital investments in infrastructure, subsidies to incumbent technologies, and economies of scale. What these studies, however, fail to capture are the contextual and messy entanglements of energy systems, in which the functioning of the system reaches far beyond simply the economic and financial sectors. Using original research conducted in India in 2015, this presentation explores an additional, but lesser recognized contributor to the resilience of the carbon-intensive energy system in India: the illegal coal market. This presentation explores the interrelationships between coal, mining, and "grey-market" employment, and how this informal system curtails the scope of possible energy sector reform in India. Following on these research findings, a new heuristic, "nodal lock-in", is introduced for understanding energy sector stability. The notion of nodal lock-in aims to capture the complex interrelations between ideas, institutions, people and things in the carbon system, and how these relationships contribute to the perpetuation of the energy system in India.

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