The Rise and Fall of Fossil Fuels

Abstract

AbstractThe nexus of modernity, energy, and climate is analyzed along five interconnected processes: industrial mechanization, the ascent of fossil fuels, material growth in late modernity, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change as unintended consequences, and the current eclipse of fossil fuels in favor of renewables as response. Consequential everywhere, these dynamics have had particularly dramatic impacts in the oil-rich countries of the Persian/Arabian Gulf. Two of them—the ascent of Middle-Eastern oil as pillar of the global economy and the role the region could play in the transition to renewables—have global gravitas. As the oil economy runs its course and as post-normal climate becomes a reality, the Gulf’s future is uncertain. Responding to this dual threat, could countries in the Gulf divert from opposition to the global energy transition to becoming part of it? Should that happen, how will liberal-minded environmentalists, now at the helm of mainstream global efforts to curb climate change, view such intervention? Will despots with tainted records in the realms of human rights, equality, and democratic principles who now seek to steer the global energy transition in their favor be seen as worthy partners to the urgent effort to save the planet’s climate?