Dear Climate-L readers,

We are delighted to announce that a new Climate Policy paper is now available free to access. This article explores the case of the anti-Carmichael coal mine campaign in Australia. This paper is part of our forthcoming special issue on fossil fuel supply-side policy.

Divestment, energy incumbency and the global political economy of energy transition: the case of Adani’s Carmichael mine in Australia

By Giorel Curran 

Read it here: bit.ly/1Carmichael

Divestment campaigners are relatively new entrants to climate activism but have already made important contributions to the efforts of their climate movement allies. Through their strategy of directly targeting those financial actors responsible for the funding of fossil fuel production, they now play an increasingly key role in the decarbonization project. Despite these efforts divestment faces significant constraints. These constraints are illustrated in our study of the anti-Carmichael mine campaign in Australia. While the persistent campaign of divestment actors helped convince many financiers to decline funding the mine, in the end the mine was approved to proceed. This is no surprise, given the on-going resilience of fossil fuel financing and of the energy regime that sustains it. To understand the key elements of this resilience, and how it impacts divestment strategy, this paper situates divestment more directly in the contemporary globalized political economy and in the related politics of energy regime incumbency. The findings apply both to our specific Australian case and to the politics of divestment more broadly.

 Read it here: bit.ly/1Carmichael

With best wishes, 

Climate Policy is a leading international peer-reviewed academic journal, publishing high quality research and analysis on all aspects of climate change policy, including adaptation and mitigation, governance and negotiations, policy design, implementation and impact, and the full range of economic, social and political issues at stake in responding to climate change. It provides a platform for new ideas, innovative approaches and research-based insights that can help advance climate policy in practice.