Connecting the growing literature on petroaggression with the voluminous research on energy transition, the speaker proposes a framework for interpreting the New Wars of the Anthropocene. From Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Latin America, petrostates have launched or financed military conflicts. This crisis of the world order happened at the very moment when programs of decarbonization were declared and, indeed, maturing on various levels. Petroaggression and decarbonization are two major stories of our time. A weak interpretation brings the idea of polycrisis (Adam Tooze) or permacrisis (Quinn Slobodian). However, this synchronicity invites a strong interpretation that is, unescapably, causal.
Employing the idea of securitization, Dr. Etkind construes the current wars as the petrostates’ pre-emptive responses to the perceived economic deprivation, which energy transition would bring to these states. He will focus on the required revisions of the securitization agenda; methodological criticisms of this causal construction; and political implications of the “strong” vs. “weak” readings of the crisis.

Alexander Etkind is Professor of international relations at CEU in Vienna. His current interests are the political aspects of the Anthropocene, global decarbonization and security in Eastern Europe.

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