Fossil fuels, stranded assets, and the energy transition in the Global South: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Abstract Complying with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change requires leaving fossil fuels underground (LFFU), which raises justice issues regarding the Global South and its energy transition. The literature is scattered with no review papers on the challenges of LFFU in the Global South, hence we ask: What can be learnt from reviewing the scholarship on the Global South's energy transition, focusing on LFFU and the issue of stranded resources and assets? Our review reveals: (a) renewable investments in the Global South are relatively low for the scale of change needed, and such renewable deployment is more additive than substitutive. Nonetheless, there is potential for the Global South to leapfrog; (b) literature on LFFU in the Global South is limited, and much of it focuses on subsidies. However, developing countries might include stranded assets in their accounting, making LFFU appealing; (c) the Right to Development influences the energy transition's governance and justice issues: limited governance hampers LFFU, while understudied power dynamics shape transition's political economies. However, a global and multilevel just transition may have the potential to achieve LFFU. Thus, the literature overlooks (i) the dilemmas of stranded resources and assets from a developing country perspective and the implications in terms of equity, development, and climate change impacts; and (ii) the underlying power dynamics. Future research should investigate energy leapfrogging viability, critically assess renewables' additive rather than substitutive character in the Global South, and better identify the constraints to an inclusive energy transition, posed by North–South power dynamics and FF incumbents. This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development