Beyond the Coal Rush: A Turning Point for Global Energy and Climate Policy?

Climate change makes fossil fuels unburnable, yet global coal production has almost doubled over the last 20 years. This book explores how the world can stop mining coal - the most prolific source of greenhouse gas emissions. It documents efforts at halting coal production, focusing specifically on how campaigners are trying to stop coal mining in India, Germany, and Australia. Through in-depth comparative ethnography, it shows how local people are fighting to save their homes, livelihoods, and environments, creating new constituencies and alliances for the transition from fossil fuels. The book relates these struggles to conflicts between global climate policy and the national coal-industrial complex. With coal's meaning transformed from an important asset to a threat, and the coal industry declining, it charts reasons for continuing coal dependence, and how this can be overcome. It will provide a source of inspiration for energy transition for researchers in environment, sustainability, and politics, as well as policymakers.

James Goodman (convening author) is professor and director of the Climate Justice Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney. He researches global politics, socio-cultural change, and climate justice. He has co-authored five books, including Justice Globalism (Sage, 2013) and Climate Upsurge: An Ethnography of Climate Movement Politics (Routledge, 2014), and has co-edited seven volumes.

Linda Connor is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Sydney and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. She has conducted long-term ethnographic research into coal mining and climate change in rural and regional Australia. Publications include Climate Change and Anthropos (Earthscan, 2016), and Environmental Change and the World's Futures (Routledge, 2016).

Devleena Ghosh is professor of social and political sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. She publishes in colonial, global, and environmental history and has co-authored and co-edited several books, including Colonialism and Modernity (Allen and Unwin, 2007), Cultures of Trade: Indian Ocean Exchanges (Scholars Press, 2007) and Teacher for Justice: Lucy Woodcock's Transnational Life (ANU Press 2019).

Kanchi Kohli is a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. She researches environment law, industrialization, and environment justice. She regularly writes for Economic and Political Weekly and has several academic publications, including the co-edited book Business Interests and the Environmental Crisis (SAGE-India, 2016).

Jonathan Paul Marshall is a research fellow in social and political sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, where he researches the problems of energy transition. Publications include Living on Cybermind (Peter Land 2007), the co-authored book Disorder and The Disinformation Society (Routledge, 2015) and several coedited volumes, including Environmental Change and the World's Futures (Routledge, 2016).