Energy landscapes of less than 2 degrees global warming

The ‘accident of geography’ is a trope which has been used by various non-geographers to describe relative inequality resulting from administrative geographies or the spatial heterogeneity of natural endowment. But geography is not an accident for those who study it and inequality is by no means a product of geography, unless we were to embrace a form of physical determinism that is both unsavoury and politically naive. This chapter sets out to understand how global visions of a low carbon future, epitomized at this moment in time by the Paris accords, challenge existing geographies of energy systems. Examining three scales of more sustainable resource governance - local (more consumption oriented), national (seeking to better balance consumption and production) and global (more production oriented) - the chapter asks critical questions about the key assumptions and visions of change in relation to energy landscapes affected or created by the transition to a lower carbon economy and society. In doing so, this chapter seeks to expose the conditional moralities of different energy landscapes, paying specific attention to the drivers for change, the geographical dimensions of climate policy decisions and their (often not quite intended) consequences for energy equity.