News

By Lucas Reis, PhD Candidate at PPGPUR

The “Energy and Sustainable Development” Working Group (WG) of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) has been officially renewed for the 2026–2028 period under the thematic area “Just Transitions and Contested Sovereignties.” Among the nearly 90 researchers from across Latin America who make up the group are Deborah Werner, professor at IPPUR/UFRJ, and Lucas Reis Santos, a PhD candidate in Urban and Regional Planning at IPPUR/UFRJ, both affiliated with the Space & Power research group.

The Working Group is coordinated by Eliana Celeste Canafoglia, from the Secretariat for Research and Scientific Publications of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the National University of Cuyo (Argentina); Nora Estela Fernández Mora, from the Ecuadorian Studies Institute (Ecuador); and Esteban Serrani, from the Interdisciplinary School of Advanced Social Studies at the National University of San Martín (UNSAM, Argentina).

CLACSO is an international non-governmental network that brings together research centers, universities, and graduate programs in the social sciences throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, while also maintaining partnerships with institutions in other regions of the Global South. Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Buenos Aires, the Council seeks to strengthen the production of critical Latin American knowledge, foster regional cooperation among scholars, and expand open access to research through publications, fellowships, graduate programs, and especially its Working Groups, which organize collaborative research around thematic areas over multi-year cycles.

Established in 2019, the Energy and Sustainable Development Working Group consolidated, during the 2019–2022 and 2023–2025 cycles, a critical research agenda on energy, development, and inequality in Latin America. Initially, its work focused on energy security, state-owned enterprises, socio-environmental impacts, regional integration, and dependency. In the following cycle, it expanded its agenda toward the concept of a just energy transition, addressing issues such as decarbonization, financing, industrial capabilities, energy poverty, and the democratization of energy access. Together, these two phases have produced a robust conceptual and empirical framework demonstrating that the energy transition can only be understood through the simultaneous articulation of its geopolitical, productive, and social dimensions—a premise that underpins the Working Group’s proposal for the new three-year cycle.

The 2026–2028 proposal is grounded in the convergence of three theoretical debates that are often treated separately in the international literature. The first concerns the geopolitics of the energy transition, examining how competition over critical minerals and green technologies reshapes global power relations and creates new forms of dependency across the Global South. The second draws on the political economy of development, asking whether the transition will foster green industrialization and technological autonomy or reinforce a new form of commodity dependence under environmental justifications. The third encompasses critical studies on energy and inequality, exploring how the transition affects territories and social groups unevenly in contexts marked by energy poverty and urban-rural disparities. Bringing these perspectives together makes it possible to understand dynamics that emerge only through an integrated approach, revealing how technological transformations intersect with historical inequalities, how climate policies shape productive specialization, and how geopolitics influences energy justice (Energy and Sustainable Development Working Group, 2026).

The Working Group currently includes 89 researchers affiliated with institutions in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay, Colombia, Spain, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, reflecting both CLACSO’s regional vocation and its collaboration with institutions beyond Latin America, such as the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Among the members whose scholarly work directly informs the group’s theoretical framework are Oscar Ugarteche, Alicia Puyana, Ramón Pichs Madruga, and Carina Guzowski. Their simultaneous roles as both cited authors and Working Group members demonstrate the continuity between the research agenda developed in previous cycles and the group’s current composition. The Brazilian delegation includes, in addition to Lucas Reis Santos and Deborah Werner, researchers affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP), the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), São Paulo State University (UNESP), the Federal University for Latin American Integration (UNILA), and other institutions.

The theoretical framework supporting the Working Group is built upon three main pillars: the literature on the geopolitics of the energy transition and the political economy of development; Latin American scholarship on energy inequality and socio-environmental justice; and institutional reports produced by organizations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which provide the empirical basis for analyses of investment, climate finance, and the region’s energy systems.

The participation of IPPUR researchers in the Working Group strengthens the institute’s international engagement in research networks focused on energy and territory while expanding opportunities for dialogue between the Space & Power research group’s work on Brazil’s energy transition and the broader regional debates coordinated by CLACSO.

Learn more about the CLACSO Energy and Sustainable Development Working Group.