Desert geographies: solar energy governance for just transitions

Abstract

While sustainability statements crowd national and urban visions, unjust implementation of lower-carbon energy infrastructures for climate mitigation manifests in contexts of marginal rurality. We focus on solar energy infrastructure rollout in Rajasthan in Western India to argue for a response centred on the energy practices of, and the effects of energy development on, politically marginal inhabitants. To that end, we consider what environmental governance arrangements under transition reveal about the recursive relationship between socio-material reconfiguration of the energy sector and co-evolving power relations and institutional structures. We propose and operationalize three concepts that can guide contextualized analyses of institutional, relational and socio-material change. These bridging concepts identify and inform pathways for just, publicly accountable transitions. We argue that environmental governance and energy geographies insights can orientate just transitions away from renewed extraction and growth-wedded economic paradigms prevalent in post-colonial geopolitics, and towards using appropriate technologies to attain decent living services.