Fossil fuels need to become a thing of the past. To achieve this, all countries must phase out their fossil fuel production. But not all countries are equal with respect to their responsibility or capacity to do this. Some should phase out production sooner than others. But how do we figure out who should move first and in what sequence? This urgent but challenging question is what I explore in a recent Geopolitics article.

While scholars have already begun to delve into this issue, these existing attempts at deciding which countries should phase out their production first do not provide sufficiently convincing answers. We need to dig deeper to develop an approach that gets to the root of the problem. This requires paying attention not  just to the headline figures such as GDP, current and historical contribution to emissions, or total production, but moving to a more relational understanding that sees countries as part of interlinked global systems of production.

To do this, I propose a geopolitical approach that focuses on the valorisation of territory, networks, and space. Adopting such an approach enables a better focus on the relations of power that govern the global fossil fuel economy. I propose three key dimensions that should be central to any discussions of phasing out fossil fuels: historical and colonial injustice, the imperialist character of international relations, and varied types of resource ownership.

Historical injustice

First, it is necessary to situate the contemporary fossil fuel system in its appropriate historical context. In relation to the specific sequencing of phase outs, this is important because of the forms of historical injustice that have structured the development of fossil fuel economies globally. The global fossil fuel system is extremely unequal – with a few countries and corporations controlling the global flow of fuels. In concrete terms, colonial legacies continue to shape who produces oil, gas, and coal. Military interventions and coups d’etat can secure access to fossil fuels for the United States (US) and its allies, , from the overthrowing of the democratic Iranian  government in 1953, to the 2011 airstrikes on Libya that sought to regain control over the country’s vast oilfields. 

Historical injustice especially plays out through the notion of ecological debt. This refers to the process whereby countries in the global north have displaced ecological damage onto the global south through the consumption of fossil fuels, which will disproportionately affect the global south in terms of climate change. Such debt accrues when the countries of the global north consume far beyond planetary limits, yet do not for the most part feel the full negative impacts of this consumption. The notion of ecological debt therefore dictates that the most ecologically indebted countries should implement fossil fuel phaseouts first. 

International relations of power

This brings us to the second dimension: the contemporary character of the fossil fuel system marked by imperialist relations of unequal power between countries. Some countries can influence and exert dominance over less powerful countries. Central to this world system is the US, which has outsized influence over the rest of the globe’s population through military, economic, and political might. This plays out at COP meetings and global legal frameworks favouring ‘free’ markets and trade liberalisation, to the benefit of the most powerful countries, which should phase out production soonest.

Mirroring ecological debt, the global north extracts value from the global south through unequal ecological exchange. In terms of fossil fuels specifically, this happens when countries in the global south are not paid the full value of their fossil fuels, for instance by having sub-optimal contracts and licensing regimes whereby large multinationals or global north states can accrue huge profits from production in the global south, with little benefit for the communities surrounding these frontiers of extraction.

Ownership

Yet it would be a mistake to simply look at the state level for determining the sequencing of phase outs. The third and final dimension we need to include in discussions of fossil fuel phase outs is the types of ownership within the sector. It makes a significant difference whether states or private corporations own oil, gas, and coal reserves. State-owned fossil fuels mean that – in theory - it is easier for them to unilaterally decide to phase out production, whereas privately owned fossil fuels runs the risk of compensation claims launched by private actors against states, for instance through the pernicious investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. Yet state-owned reserves can be harder to wind down due to state dependence on revenues for economic development, taxation and welfare spending.

While the focus of existing work on the sequencing of fossil fuel phase outs has  been on states, it is time to include corporations more centrally in the process. Although states set legislative parameters within which fossil fuel corporations operate, the absence of political and moral responsibility for them to actively pursue phase outs means they must be pressured with all possible mechanisms, which extends beyond laws, such as social movements and political organisations with a more ambitious and radical approach to pushing for fossil fuel phase outs. 

There are two major challenges of moving to such a geopolitical framework. One challenge is the difficulty of putting it into practice because of how complicated it is to measure and operationalise these geopolitical criteria. If they were to become a formalised, official ranking, countries could ‘game’ it by turning the metrics into targets themselves and shirking responsibility. This means the criteria should ideally be ones that are difficult to manipulate, for instance by providing the right incentives. A key element here is to reward countries that bring production under state control or increase profit shares, to benefit the broader population rather than simply private shareholders.

Another challenge is the issue of plausibility. It is unclear, to say the least, why the most powerful countries in the world would voluntarily phase out their system of fossil fuel production voluntarily. The recent resurgence of both energy security and national security concerns make this even more difficult but also opens up opportunities. Political pressure can generate shifting coalitions of capital leading to rifts exploitable by those seeking to push for fossil fuel phase outs due to risks of asset-stranding, insurance claims, and investor uncertainty. The task now is to gain further clarity on the specifics of these shifts, and to understand and support the campaigns to pressure states and corporations to phase out fossil fuel production.

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To get much more detail and depth, you can read and download the article for free here. Comments, opinions, and criticisms are welcomed at l.slothuus@sussex.ac.uk.