The Emerging Issues on Energy Transition: Political and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Actors, Fairness, and Winners

As the world seeks to save the global ecosystem and its associated ecological processes by shifting toward renewable energy, troubling political postures have emerged. Leading superpowers, clinging to fossil fuels, consider the energy transition a catastrophic misconception they refuse to accommodate. This has led to open conflict, with energy sources and its infrastructure targeted as primary assets in modern warfare. Such targeting increases global suffering and deepens geopolitical divisions. Without intervention, this standoff may escalate into a global environmental crisis, where energy becomes a weapon of destruction rather than a bridge for progress and sustainable development.This Research Topic investigates multidimensional viewpoints regarding the energy transition by explicitly inviting contributions from fields such as environmental sciences, economics, sociology, geography, energy diplomacy, law, engineering, environmental science, biotechnology and other relevant disciplines. While maintaining essential inquiries concerning power, policy, and governance, it encourages research that explores: actors – encompassing social movements, corporations, households, and international organizations, utilizing network analysis, behavioral economics, or organizational theory; fairness or justice, which may include dimensions of distributive, procedural, and recognition-based justice, examined through ethical frameworks, quantitative equity evaluations, or ethnographic case studies and winners and losers in environment and energy transition, analyzing socio-economic, spatial, and temporal outcomes through input-output models, political economy, or studies of technological innovation.By integrating environmental science with complementary methodologies and theoretical frameworks, this collection aspires to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the conflicts, trade-offs, and synergies associated with energy transition.Authors may explore:i) Geopolitical Tensions and Power Asymmetries by examining why leading superpowers frame renewables as a “misconception” and how their fossil fuel entrenchment shapes global energy politics.ii) How countries with limited negotiating power respond to superpower pressure over energy pathways (e.g., forced reliance on fossil fuels, blocked access to green technology)iii)The Strait of Hormuz as a case of energy conflict. Analyzing the closure or threat of closure as a tool of asymmetrical warfare, and what this reveals about “winners and vanquished” in the old vs. new energy orderiv) Energy Infrastructure as a Target of Conflictv) Actors, Networks, and Agency (interdisciplinary): Using organizational theory or network analysis to map how energy companies shape policy inertia in powerful states, Behavioral economics studies on why households in superpowers may oppose renewables (perceived costs, misinformation, identity)vi) Future of international agreements under the the current geopolitical tensions, realities and uncertainty of energy transition. Topic editors: Thokozani Simelane, Thulisile Ncamsile Mphambukeli, Tatiana González Grandón, Fortunate Nosisa Zaca, Hilary Inyang Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85547/the-emerging-issues-on-energy-transition-political-and-multidisciplinary-perspectives-on-actors-fairness-and-winners