The global push toward decarbonization has positioned the energy transition as a key pathway to address climate change. However, this transition also raises critical socioecological challenges, particularly in resource-rich regions such as Latin America. The growing demand for critical minerals—essential for renewable energy technologies—has intensified extractive activities, often in territories already facing water scarcity, environmental degradation, and social inequality.
This workshop aims to provide a critical and interdisciplinary space to examine the contradictions and complexities of the energy transition. Using the Nexus (water–energy–minerals) approach, participants will explore how the expansion of renewable energy systems can generate unintended environmental pressures and socio-political conflicts.
Objectives
- To introduce the Nexus methodology as a tool for analysing interdependencies between water, energy, and mineral resources.
- To examine the socioecological impacts of the energy transition, with a focus on water stress and extractivism.
- To discuss the emergence of socio-environmental conflicts linked to mining and energy infrastructures.
- To reflect on the role of industrial policy in shaping a just and sustainable energy transition.
Key topics
- Nexus methodology: concepts and applications
- Water, mining, and energy interdependencies
- Energy transition and extractivism
- Socio-environmental conflicts and territorial dynamics
- Industrial policy and governance of the energy transition
Programme
11:00 Welcome
11:10 – 12:30 FABLE methodology
Uwe Schneider (University of Hamburg): “Integrated assessments of the food, water, bioenergy, and nature nexus”
Katya Perez Guzman (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis IIASA): “Water–Mining-Energy Nexus in Mexico: Insights from the FABLE Calculator“
Moderation: Isabel Rodríguez Peña (HIAS fellow, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)
12:30– 13:30 Lunch at HIAS
13:30 –15:00 Extractivism in Latin America
Isabel Rodríguez Peña (HIAS fellow): “The Socioecological Paradox of the Energy Transition: Mineral Demand, Water Stress, and Socio-environmental Conflicts in Mexico“
Comments by Kristina Dietz (University of Kassel, Director of Centre for Advanced Latin American Studies CALAS)
Veranstaltungsort
HIAS Mittelweg 161