Oil, war and the difficult work of transition
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Oil, war and the difficult work of transition
The urgent quest for an equal and just world is up against a fierce and powerful global economy built around fossil fuels, high-stakes finance and conflict. Professor Adam Hanieh from the School of Oriental and African Studies noted in a public lecture at Wits University that the Middle East, particularly the Gulf, is at the centre of this.
Hosted by the Emerging Political Economies (EPE) Network and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at Wits, Hanieh’s presentation: A New Global Order? War and the Middle East in an Age of Climate Breakdown reconsidered the Gulf as only a nexus of instability.
More than a region of crisis
“War in the region can’t only be understood through immediate military events, oil prices or geopolitical rivalry. Indeed, the Middle East is central to energy systems, global supply chains, food systems and climate breakdown.”
His main point was that the Gulf is deeply embedded in the systems that make the modern global economy possible.
“We want to turn the tide on climate change, but we see that fossil fuels don’t just power our cars and electricity grids. To talk about transition, then, is not only to talk about replacing one energy source with another, but to change the actual material foundations of the global economy,” said Hanieh.
The lecture linked the current conflict to longer histories of fossil-fuel dependence and geopolitical power. Gulf wealth circulates through sovereign wealth funds, private capital, global markets and military relationships.
“This is why the Middle East cannot be treated as a crisis elsewhere,” he said.
Climate change is never only about energy
Hanieh’s lecture set up the broader question taken up later in the EPE meeting: if fossil fuels are deeply embedded in the global economy, climate transition is not just a technical project or about shifting one energy source to another.
In response, Law Professor Katharina Pistor from Columbia University posited that companies can indeed be held accountable when environmental harm crosses borders and corporate structures separate parent companies from subsidiaries.
A just transition must be lived locally
Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Commission, Dorah Modise, returned the discussion to South Africa’s just transition. Energy security remains a major challenge, but the transition cannot only be about emissions targets, “but must address redistribution, restorative justice and participatory justice, especially in coal-belt communities.”
The broader discussion also raised the difficult practical questions of implementation: state capacity, concessional finance, grant funding, the cost of debt, and the institutional damage left by state capture.
Implementation challenges could determine whether a just transition remains abstract or becomes a development path carried out by capable institutions.
“Ultimately, we must always remember that we have to protect communities and repair harm,” said Professor Imraan Valodia, SCIS director and Pro VC: Climate and Inequality at Wits University, in closing the EPE meeting.
3 KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Oil is not just an energy issue: The Gulf is central to crude oil, but also to the systems that make the modern global economy possible: finance, supply chains, food systems, plastics, fertilisers, logistics and geopolitical power.
- Climate transition is not going to be a technical fix: Moving away from fossil fuels is not simply about replacing one energy source with another, but changing the material foundations of the global economy.
- A just transition must build more than clean energy: Decarbonisation must go hand in hand with the creation of work, the protection of communities, repairing harm, strengthening institutions and expanding democratic possibility in a warming world.