Phasing Out a Way of Life: How Decarbonization AffectsCoal Dependent Communities

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Examines the social and identity dimensions of energy transitions, offering a qualitative framework for studying community resistance.

🏛政策担当者:Suggests that transition policies must address collective identity to ensure community participation and long-term success.

As member states seek to comply with European Union industry rationalization directives that will force mines that cannot compete with free-market prices without subsidies to close, domestic governments across Europe will face competing pressure from civil society. Many traditional European mining communities are dependent on the coal industry and will resist the phase out of its position in the European energy mix. In Asturias, Spain, the phase out of non-competitive coal mines has had devastating impacts on former mining towns, as they struggle to transition to a coal-free economy. After phasing out coal, Asturias has struggled with unemployment and significant depopulation. Many blame the politically powerful Spanish unions, contending that they use their influence in the policy process to effectuate short-term gains for the former mine workers at the expense of transitioning the regional economy. However, an analysis of their role in the policy creation process and the rationale behind the resulting framework reveals that the unions are likely not the cause of the faltering economic transition. Instead, it is proposed, transition policy depends on the local population developing a reconstructed collective identity. So long as the community continues to see itself as a mining community, it will be difficult to maintain necessary participation and confidence in the transition for policy to succeed.

• openalex https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/delpf/vol36/iss2/4first seen 2026-06-30 05:07:04