Mattersburger Kreis

WORKSHOP: Stranded Assets: How to build infrastructure in times of (climate) crises

Karlygash Kuralbayeva

Department of Political Economy, King’s College London

Anke Schaffartzik
Institute of Social Ecology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna

Welcome & introduction: Martina Neuwirth, VIDC
Chair: Karin Fischer, Mattersburg Circle/VIDC

The IPCC Special Report 2018 stated that if global warming wants to be limited to 1.5°C, annual average investments in the energy system of around 2.4 trillion USD are needed until 2035. While these 2.4 trillion USD are to be materialized, big investments are still made in fossil-fuel power plants.
Energy is not the only sector where “dirty” infrastructure may become a considerable barrier for a transition to a low-carbon economy. Given the long lifetime of infrastructures and the high costs to build them, such “dirty” capital stocks not only undermine climate targets and policies. They also divest much needed financial resources and put national economic development on an unsustainable path.
In this workshop we will explore the following questions:

• Will fossil-based infrastructure become a devalued “stranded asset” in the near future, when climate change enforces a rapid fossil-fuel phase out?
• How can a transition to clean infrastructure be financed? Would environmental taxes (especially carbon taxes) be a viable instrument? What is the optimal mix between taxes and subsidies?
• Which consequences may arise for resource-rich developing countries that depend heavily on fossil fuel exports?

Officials, scholars, students and members of NGOs interested in environmental, fiscal and development political economy are cordially invited to attend. The workshop will be held in English. For organizational reasons please register: Mrs. Martina Neuwirth, neuwirth@vidc.org

Thursday, 21.11.2019, 10.00 – 12.30
IIP, 1040 Vienna, Möllwaldplatz 5/2. Stock

Karlygash Kuralbayeva is a Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. Previously she was a teaching fellow at London School of Economics (LSE), a research officer at Grantham Research Institute at LSE and a research fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include macroeconomics, development, climate change economics and environmental economics. She holds a DPhil in Economics from Oxford University and is a Kazakh national.

Anke Schaffartzik is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Social Ecology (SEC) and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Research areas include global resource use and international trade, the international division of labor, extractivism as well as social metabolism (the flows of materials and energy between nature and society).

Karin Fischer; Margarete Grandner: Globale Ungleichheit. Über Zusammenhänge von Kolonialismus, Arbeitsverhältnissen und Naturverbrauch. Wien: Mandelbaum 2018, ca 400 Seiten, erscheint im November 2019; Reihe GEP, Band 19

Das Buch widmet sich der ungleichen Verteilung von Einkommen, Vermögen und Lebenschancen auf der Welt. Einzelne Beiträge behandeln die historischen und aktuellen Auswirkungen von Kolonialismus und Rassismus, von globaler politischer Ökonomie und Finanzmarktkapitalismus, internationaler Arbeitsteilung und ökologischer Ungleichheit. Ungleichheit zeigt sich am deutlichsten in der Gesellschaft, in einer Gemeinschaft, an dem Ort, an dem wir leben. Allerdings sind wir auf vielfältige Weise in globale Prozesse eingebunden, die lokale Ungleichheit schaffen oder verstärken.

Eine Veranstaltung des vidc und des Mattersburger Kreis für Entwicklungspolitik.