Finally, the contributions of session “Just Transition for Worthy Lives: beyond fossil and green colonialism” within the conference ““Oltre la Globalizzazione: Transizioni/Transitions” organized by the Society of Geographic Studies (SSG) in Florence, Italy” are now available.
The full document, including all sessions and contributions from the conference, can be found in the publication “Memorie Geografice N. 28” – LINK
On this page, we present the session “Just Transition for Worthy Lives: beyond fossil and green colonialism” with the opportunity to read and download all the contributions presented on 6th December 2024. On another page of our website you could find the access to video recordings of each presentation and the corresponding slides.
– READ AND DOWNLOAD THE CONTRIBUTIONS –
The session was proposed and organized by the new Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Just Fossil Fuel Transition (JFFT). The main objective of the Centre is to act as a critical hub for producing, sharing, and collecting research, analyses, and scientific knowledge in order to support, in the context of the current global climate crisis, the need to rethink existing patterns of natural resource use. The evident unsustainability of contemporary development models urgently requires the creation of spaces for debate aimed at fostering new strategies of territorial transition, not only in the energy sector, that are inclusive, equitable, just, and peaceful. From this perspective, the Centre collaborates with the global initiative for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT), which is grounded in approaches to climate justice and human rights (Newell and Simms, 2020). Oltre la Globalizzazione 2024 provided an opportunity to reflect on and share these challenges.
The session welcomed research, methodologies, and multidisciplinary analyses on how civil society organizations, together with academic groups, co-produce alternative and post-extractivist territorial narratives, moving beyond the current configuration of capital accumulation that creates sacrifice zones and socio-environmental conflicts (Szeman, 2020; Healy et al., 2019). These territorial experiences and multidisciplinary geographical analyses critically examine how the dominant alternatives currently proposed by governments worldwide to support the energy transition reproduce large-scale investment configurations in other types of natural resources—such as the rush for rare earths to develop the renewable energy sector—thereby reiterating processes of green grabbing. In the current global climate crisis, 2024 continues the thermal escalation of recent years, recording the highest surface air temperature anomaly since the pre-industrial period (1850) and exceeding the first target of the Paris Agreement. This situation calls not only for an urgent phase-out of fossil fuels, which still account for 87% of the global energy mix, but above all for the abandonment of intensive extractivist dynamics in the mining, energy, and agricultural sectors, which generate multiple socio-environmental impacts and large-scale social tensions, as well as the degradation and destruction of entire habitats, exerting strong pressures on local cultures and subsistence practices, particularly those of Indigenous communities (WMO, 2025; Costa, 2013; Guydanas, 2010; Warnecke-Berger et al., 2022). The rapid growth of the renewable energy sector—which in 2023 alone saw an almost 50% increase in annual production capacity—risks, under the banner of transition, accelerating and exacerbating extractivist practices in new territories (IEA, 2024).
The session discussed just, equitable, and peaceful transitions as those promoted by trans-scalar initiatives such as the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Ecosocial and Intercultural Pact of the South, and the Global Treaty on Transnational Corporations. These international collaborative initiatives involve a plurality of actors working towards a new governance of natural resource management that is decentralized and autonomous from top-down megaprojects (CAAP, 2023; Buxton, 2024).
Overall, the session collected eight written contributions, prepared after the oral presentations of 6 December 2024; the contributions included (see Table 1) can be categorized into case studies (5) and theoretical and methodological contributions (3).
| Authors | Title | Type of contribution |
| Emanuele Lucci, Edoardo Crescini | Climate justice for a fair and just transition: a multicriteria analysis of the Democratic Republic of Congo | Case study, Republic Democratic of Congo, Africa |
| Mathilde Gingembre | Towards land just transitions: addressing critical gaps in European climate policy | Theoretical contribution |
| Daniele Vezzelli, Massimo De Marchi | A missed transition? The PiTESAI case and the challenge of phasing out fossil fuel production in Italy | Case study, Italy |
| Fateme Boostani, Denis Grego | Tren Maya: an Economic booster or an Environmental and Social disaster? | Case study, Mexico, Central America |
| Francesco Facchinelli, Masssimo De Marchi | Ecuadorian Amazon Region: agroecological multitudes and exceeding the geographies of extractive sacrifice | Case study, Ecuadorian Amazon Region, South America |
| Abdullah Ahmadi, Daniele Codato | A spatial multi-criteria approach for green roof planning: climate resilience and socio-environmental equity in Padua | Case study, Padova, Italy |
| Letizia Caroscio, Edoardo Crescini, Giovanni Marco De Pieri, Christopher Ceresi, Federico Baldo, Matteo Francobaldi, Carlo Zanetti, Salvatore Pappalardo, Chiara Richiardi | Connecting climatactivism practices. A Collaborative Platform for Mapping Urban Heat Islands | Theoretical and methodological contribution |
| Matteo Spini | The criminalization of climate dissent as a brake on ecological transition: the Italian case | Theoretical contribution |
Two of the case studies fall within the unburnable carbon research conducted by the JFFT and analyse two different contexts. Emanuele Lucci and Edoardo Crescini present the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which in recent years has sought to relaunch its national oil sector, despite the fact that it currently contributes only 4% of the national energy mix and that its development would be located in natural tropical forest areas inhabited by several local communities, with the risk of altering existing territorial arrangements and causing severe socio-environmental impacts. A spatial multicriteria decision analysis (sMCDA) conducted in a GIS environment made it possible, through the definition of social, environmental, and economic criteria, to assess a transition scenario consistent with the principles of the FFNPT.
The second case, presented by Daniele Vezzelli and Massimo De Marchi, retraces the history of the Italian national plan for the Sustainable Energy Transition of Suitable Areas (PiTESAI), which, despite its limitations, aimed to function as a constantly updated policy instrument for upstream oil activities across the Italian peninsula. Its repeal and the subsequent adoption of a decree law, which relies on short-term energy scenarios aligned with market demands, have in fact slowed down national climate objectives for achieving climate neutrality by 2050, as established by the European Union (EU). The study’s concluding reflection highlights the urgency of developing a new plan for a gradual phase-out of fossil fuels, without relinquishing the role of public policies, and integrating specific territorial strategies for a just and equitable transition in those regions that remain dependent on fossil activities.
Another case study within this session focused on the issue of agro-extractivism and on how agroecology and local peasant farming practices can challenge the agro-industrial system and the entire global food production chain, reducing socio-environmental impacts and safeguarding food sovereignty for local communities and small-scale farmers. The contribution by Francesco Facchinelli and Massimo De Marchi aims to show how, in a sacrifice territory such as the Ecuadorian Amazon, the multiplicity of agroecological practices can materialize as a territorial alternative, both to the consolidated fossil sector and to the agro-industrial sector, which has been intensifying in this area in recent years. The participatory mapping process carried out with Indigenous communities made it possible to highlight the territorial assets linked to the area’s high biocultural diversity and to reaffirm the importance of Indigenous culture for the protection and conservation of territories such as the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, moving beyond the typical petroleumscape of this region characterized by oil extraction infrastructures such as wells, gas flaring towers, and pipelines.
The study by Abdullah Ahmadi and Daniele Codato shifts the focus to the urban context, specifically to the municipality of Padua, the first city in the Veneto region and the fifth at the national level in terms of land consumption, with more than 49% of the municipal territory sealed according to ISPRA analyses. The limited availability of green areas capable of providing urban ecosystem services for citizens’ well-being—particularly during heatwaves or extreme precipitation events—led the authors to investigate the potential of using rooftops as structures capable of hosting projects aimed at increasing urban green infrastructure. The study therefore proposes a geospatial model developed in a QGIS environment to identify and prioritize rooftops suitable for the installation of green infrastructure in Padua, combining high-resolution elevation models, socio-environmental vulnerability indicators, and multi-criteria analyses. The objective is to integrate environmental sustainability, technical feasibility, and social equity, thereby promoting green roofs as a tool for climate justice and urban resilience.
Two additional contributions that enriched the discussion in this session addressed processes of land and green grabbing in relation to alternative territorial development. On the one hand, Fateme Boostani and Denis Grego presented the case of the Tren Maya, a mega transport infrastructure built in the Yucatán Peninsula in southeastern Mexico. The project involved the construction of 1,554 km of railway to improve regional connectivity and stimulate tourism, consequently increasing interest in infrastructure and real estate investments. However, the contribution shows that the Tren Maya represents a clear example of a top-down mega-project imposed on a particularly sensitive area such as Yucatán, a highly karstic region with a significant forest ecosystem and Indigenous populations. The outcome of this railway infrastructure has been the strong marginalization of local communities, who were not involved in decision-making processes, leading to territorial tensions and protests. The contribution then introduces a preliminary geographical analysis conducted in a QGIS environment (as part of a master’s thesis), combined with a mixed-methods approach, to critically examine governmental environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and to investigate the overlap between natural areas and Indigenous territories with the seven Tramos (railway sections) of the Tren Maya.
On the other hand, the article by Mathilde Gingembre examines the social implications of land-use-based climate mitigation strategies under the European Green Deal, highlighting how they overlook the justice dimension related to control over territorial resources. The study shows that projects such as reforestation and ecosystem restoration—promoted to increase carbon sequestration capacity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and achieve carbon neutrality—intersect with pre-existing dynamics of land grabbing and land concentration. Moreover, it argues that current approaches to the just transition, focused primarily on industry and labor, fail to adequately address the issue of democratic access to land. The concept of a land-just transition is therefore proposed, integrating justice related to territorial resource control into climate efforts, going beyond mere compensation mechanisms. Finally, the article suggests the need to further investigate land control regimes and to develop appropriate policy instruments.
The session concludes with two final contributions that offer additional perspectives on the current climate crisis and emergency. On the one hand, the collective work by Caroscio et al. presents the new Bologna-based initiative SCIFT (Science, Climactivism, Imagination, Training, and Technology), a group of activists and researchers from diverse backgrounds working on the development of an open, accessible, and replicable online platform designed to study and analyze the effects of urban heat islands in cities on a global scale, using an automated workflow developed in Python and R. This workflow relies exclusively on open-source data, such as Landsat satellite imagery, updated land-use data from OpenStreetMap, and digital terrain models. This represents a virtuous example of how open and participatory science can serve as a fundamental tool for investigating the impacts of climate change—particularly urban heat islands—and for reflecting on the management and future planning of urban ecosystems, where the majority of the world’s population currently lives.
Matteo Spini closes the session with a highly relevant reflection on the processes of criminalization of climate activism that have taken place in Italy in recent years. The authoritarian drift of the current government, in fact, has forged a strong alliance with the fossil fuel sector through the adoption of discursive, legislative, judicial, and policing strategies, thus positioning itself as a significant obstacle to the ecological transition. This contribution, more closely aligned with social movement studies, emphasizes that an alternative imaginary is possible only if social movements—which in Italy have recently given rise to an unprecedented anti-repressive convergence—are genuinely involved in designing and organizing the energy and ecological transition, so that it can be peaceful, equitable, and just.
In summary, the session sought to bring together reflections, projects, and research that, through participatory methodologies and critical approaches, contribute to the post-extractivist debate on the phase-out of fossil fuels and to critical reflections on renewable energy, towards a pathway of just and equitable transition grounded in the principles of climate justice and the protection of human rights.
