Climate Change

Fossil fuel development, in particular oil and gas, promised vast riches in the past. Today it is exposing fossil fuel producers and their creditors to a massive stranded asset risk. Technological disruption with the rapid cost-reduction of renewable energy and storage technologies, in conjunction with the inevitability of increased climate action, are at the root of unprecedented uncertainties over the future of the sector. 

South Africa’s economy, which was already in a precarious state before Covid-2019, has been tipped into full blown crisis by the pandemic. Gross na-tional government debt  is expected to be upwards of 86% within two years. Eskom, which is the country’s state-owned monopolistic and vertically integrated electricity utili-ty, is a key driver of this escalating debt profile and lies at the heart of the economy’s structural challenges. 

The „Societal Transfomation Scenario“ is a global 1.5°C mitigation scenario, which challenges  the notion of perpetual global economic growth and its compatibility with ambitious climate goals like the 1.5°C limit. It shows how through a reduction of production and consumption in the Global North, we can stay below 1.5°C without resorting to high-risk technologies like CCS, geoengineering and nuclear, while also avoiding temperature overshoot.

How should policymakers respond to the reality and future prospect of vast populations being displaced and relocated in an era of global heating? With climate change looming, anxiety over immigration from the Global South is increasingly fuelled by apocalyptic fears of ecological breakdown.

This volume offers fresh perspectives on the relationship between climate change and human migration, questioning the pessimistic prisms of ‘security’ and market-oriented approaches to ‘adaptation’ that currently guide policy.