Interested in human rights and the renewable energy transition? Join us in conversation with an interdisciplinary panel.

Without a doubt, we are at a crucial turning point in the energy transition towards renewable energy. Calls for a low-carbon economy have resulted in a growing number of net-zero pledges and strategies by countries, cities, businesses, and organisations, including LSE. In this webinar, panellists will critically discuss how we risk reinforcing the same systems of environmental and social exploitation we aim to replace without measures to safeguard human rights in the energy transition. 

Hosted by The Beacon Journal and the Department of Social Policy's Green Impact Team, this webinar brings together panellists from academia, activist organisations, and think tanks. The conversation will focus on the intersections of renewable energy, environmental justice and human rights in order to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of the human rights impacts of current transition pathways to renewable energy and a low-carbon economy. 

Meet our speakers and chair

Kathryn Hochstetler (@hochstet) is an expert in the interdisciplinary study of environment and development. She is Professor and Head of the Department of International Development at LSE and focuses on international environmental negotiations, renewable energy and environmental policy primarily in South America. Kathryn is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Politics in Latin America and also serves on the Editorial Boards of Global Environmental Politics and Latin American Politics and Society among others.

Madhuresh Kumar (@kmadhuresh) is an Atlantic Fellow at LSE's International Inequalities Institute and currently serving as National Convenor of the National Alliance of People's Movements in India. His activism has focused on campaigns and policy advocacy around communities' control over land, water, forest and minerals; issue of displacement, energy, projects, industrial corridors and resource mobilsation. He co-founded a research-advocacy NGO, the India Institute for Crtitical Action Centre in MOvement, which supports initiatives such as alternatives to development. His foceses are climate justice, community organising, land rights and the politics of inequality.

Glada Lahn (@Glada_Lahn)  is a Senior Research Fellow of the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House. She specialises in sustainable energy transitions, pricing and valuation of natural resources, and transboundary water relations in the Middle East and Asia. She has worked on various international resource-related projects focused on the intersection of geopolitics, economics and development. Glada has led influential research on energy policy in the Arab Gulf, energy access amongst displaced people globally in 2015, and how climate change and decarbonization affect the prospects and choices for developing country oil and gas producers. Glada is Chair of the Board of Trustees for Capoeira4Refugees, working to empower vulnerable children in Palestine, Jordan and Syria.

Lucinda Platt (@PlattLucinda) is Professor of Social Policy and Sociology in the Department of Social Policy at LSE. Lucinda’s research focuses on the analysis of inequality within and between social groups, in the UK and internationally; and she is currently a panel member for the IFS Deaton Inequality Review. As part of her work for the Deaton Review, she recently co-authored a study investigating ethnic inequalities in vulnerability to COVID-19. She also works on identity and inter-group relations, child poverty and child development, and the methodology and history of social surveys.

More about this event

The Beacon is the journalistic arm of LSESU’s Amnesty International Society. They have two major platforms: print - called the Beacon Journal - and online, - called the Beacon Digest.
The Journal is published annually with the intention of furthering Amnesty’s mission of shining a light on human rights issues on local, regional and global levels.

The Department of Social Policy's Green Impact team consists of undergraduate and Master’s students who work closely together with staff and faculty across the Department of Social Policy at LSE to create, initiate, and lead green-themed projects throughout the year. The Social Policy Green team members of the 2021/22 cohort come from diverse and interdisciplinary backgrounds and have various experiences in environmental and sustainability work and advocacy.