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A double-edged sword

Meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target requires leaving most fossil fuel reserves underground. For the Global South, home to 78% of these reserves and often dependent on fossil fuel revenues, this raises urgent questions of equity, justice and the right to development.

Historically, the development of fossil fuels promised economic growth and jobs, yet their exploitation drives climate impacts that hit these countries the hardest. Around USD 581 billion of stranded assets, lost revenue, and decommissioned infrastructure would ultimately fall upon Global South governments and their populations. In short, fossil-fueled development is a double-edged sword.

How can the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels be reconciled with the right to development? This is the question we pose in a recent study where we explore how countries navigate this tension, based on a quantitative assessment of fossil fuel interests in 127 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and an analysis of their rationales based on a right to development.

The interests in fossil fuels

Countries pursue fossil fuel exploitation based on the extent of their reserves, production levels, and infrastructural capacities. For example, large reserves encourage extraction, high production levels motivate expansion, and infrastructures require strategic long-term investment that locks in fossil fuel production.

Countries’ interest in fossil-fueled development also depends on economic size where a small reserve matters more for relatively lower levels of GDP. For example, when we compare the value of fossil fuel interests to the overall size of each economy, Mozambique’s relative interest is greater than Brazil’s.

By ranking countries according to short- and long-term fossil fuel interest, we inferred different rationales for the right to development– why and how states might justify continued fossil fuel exploitation or a move toward phase-out, despite their climate vulnerabilities. This approach allowed us to connect material interests with the discursive use of the right to development and to situate them within broader political economy dynamics.

The Right to Development as an Ideograph

The right to development has long been contested. First articulated in a UN General Assembly Declaration of 1986 following protests in the Global South against an unfair economic order seen to hinder development, the notion has re-emerged in contemporary climate debates. Since then, many countries have feared that climate change policies, particularly restrictions on their domestic fossil fuel industries, would once again limit their development.

Here we view the right to development as an ideograph – a rhetorical tool embodying complex and abstract collective commitments to loosely defined normative goals. In the climate arena, it has been mobilised to defend fossil fuel expansion, often to counter perceived Northern hypocrisy in restricting others use of fossil fuels which have fuelled their own development. It allows governments, companies, and investors to justify fossil fuel development under the banner of fairness, sovereignty, poverty alleviation or economic growth.

Seen this way, the right to development interacts with discourses on energy security, industrialisation and geopolitical rivalries, providing an important lens to understand why countries expand fossil fuels despite climate imperatives and risks. Yet, the ideograph, based on the Right to (promote) Sustainable Development (RtSD) as outlined in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), could be turned on its head: from a right used to exploit fossil fuels to a right supporting a fossil fuel phase out, in the pursuit of a type of development that is equitable and resilient.

Energy transitions are deeply political processes. Fossil fuel reserves, infrastructure, and revenues underpin national economies and elite power. The material involvement in fossil fuels shapes, and is reinforced by, rationales invoking a right to development, used by incumbents to advance continued expansion. To grasp the diversity among Global South countries, our typology identifies seven different such rationales around fossil fuels: a global power right (China); a long-run fossil fuel-based right (India), a geopolitical right (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Iran), a short-run fossil fuel-based right (e.g., Indonesia, Algeria, Pakistan); a potential phase-out right (e.g., Ecuador, Kenya, Guyana); a pure right to development (Angola, Mozambique and Bangladesh); and a right to Sustainable Development (the rest of LDCs in our sample).

This highlights the heterogeneity of the Global South: while all countries face developmental needs, the material conditions and political rationales differ sharply from context to context, shaping positions in climate negotiations and within the global political economy.

The implications for leaving fossil fuels underground

Justice is central. While the emphasis on the Global South does not imply a disregard for the urgent need for rich countries to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, it is politically untenable to ask Global South countries to leave fossil fuels underground without addressing their structural dependencies. Without substantial concessional finance, technology transfers, and sovereign and democratic control over resources, countries with fewer resources will falter - or be forced to continue extraction.

Heterogeneity = different rights to development: For many LMICs, doubling down on fossil fuels may not deliver development, but rather trap them in stranded assets, fiscal instability, and debt which itself locks them into fossil fuel dependence: a risk to consider in designing transitions away from fossil fuels. Yet, Global South countries’ rationales differ, reflecting their diverse economic and political realities. Recognising this heterogeneity is key for designing fair, effective policies.

Reframing the RtD. The right to development as an ideograph has been used to legitimize fossil expansion. Our analysis shows it may also be reinterpreted as a right to sustainable development, as conceived in the UNFCCC, towards a fossil fuel phase-out, grounded in material and equity considerations. Doing so could empower Global South countries to demand justice-based transformations and energy futures, rather than rents from fossil fuel production.

Global efforts to phase out fossil fuels must confront the political economy of energy transitions, where entrenched producers, emerging fossil states, and LDCs navigate poverty and promises of fossil-fueled growth. Supporting differentiated, just pathways is crucial to ensure fairness and alignment with the legally binding 1.5 °C goal. Our inventory and typology provide a starting point to assess political willingness, leadership, and incentives in limiting fossil fuel production, highlighting how discursive rationales for the right to development shape positions. Addressing this challenge requires examining how governments and actors use these rationales, putting politics at the centre: a future beyond fossil fuels depends on both the politics and material interests involved in the political economy of energy transitions.

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