Powering change with justice: Weaving Indigenous perspectives to uncover impacts of the wind energy transition

Transitioning to renewable energy is a critical strategy for the societal transformation needed to combat climate change.

Wind energy (WE) is expanding rapidly in the global “green” transition, but decision making lacks a systemic understanding of unintended social-ecological effects of WE plants across scales and borders, including in places distant from where such decisions are initiated.

WE disproportionately affects vulnerable populations including Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), and resistance  to dispossession of land (‘green grabbing’) WE projects are increasing globally.

In this project we will examine these unintended consequences of the transition to WE at multiple scales, focusing on two cases of affected ILPCs in countries where the expansion of WE is contentious and complex: Sweden and Brazil.

We will examine spillover effects of WE projects on territorial rights, sovereignty and ways of life of IPLCs and surface new transformative visions for just energy transitions.

We take a transdisciplinary Multiple Evidence Base approach to synthesize insights from novel methods of telecoupling analysis, policy analysis and Indigenous storytelling to better understand the  local and globally dispersed effects of the green transition, with a focus on WE.

By weaving Indigenous and western science knowledge we will identify leverage points for a just and inclusive societal transformation calling for mutual and respectful dialogue across societies.