The causes and effects of COVID-19 are environmental and social, national and international. This panel from Sydney University’s School of Social and Political Science examines the tangle of COVID-19 with the raw materials and production of energy (fossil fuel and green energy) in Australia. The Australian government is promoting a ‘gas lead’ economic post-COVID recovery, a recovery that depends on opening new fossil fuel extraction projects in areas dedicated to less toxic use of land and water. Simultaneously, private companies are eyeing off Australia’s ‘green energy’ mineral reserves, developing new mines to feed materials to a largely unregulated green energy supply chain. Further along the decarbonisation path communities are adjusting to the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy production: here our interest turns to ways in which renewable energy projects build and fragment social cohesion and social goods as people adjust also to the social, economic and political fall-out from COVID-19.

Speakers

• Dr Gareth Bryant (Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Economy)

• Emeritus Professor Linda Connor (Department of Anthropology)

• Professor Susan Park (Professor of Global Governance, Department of Government and International Relations)

• Gemma Viney (PhD student, Department of Government & International Relations)

Chair

• Dr Dinesh Wadiwel (Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Policy)

This event is part of the Social Sciences Week Australia series.