Research Institute for
Sustainability | at GFZ

Ecopolitics and Just Transformations

Maria Cecilia da Silva Oliveira

Dr. Maria Cecilia Oliveira

Research Group Leader
Doris Fuchs Leitungsteam RIFS

Prof. Dr. Doris Fuchs

Scientific Director
Mural in Santiago de Chile by artist Mono González.
© Alexandra Tost / RIFS

The research group EcoPol investigates how ecological and political dynamics interact, using the emerging framework of Ecopolitics to examine how power, knowledge, and governance practices shift as societies and ecosystems become ever more interconnected. Research in this field critically examines how power relations are reshaped when the horizon of government shifts from populations (traditionally the concern of biopolitics or civil societies) to the planetary conditions of life as a whole. EcoPol uses bottom-up, transdisciplinary approaches to foster just, sustainability-oriented policy engagement. Our research is grounded in real-world case studies and focuses on the social and ecological interactions essential to building sustainable futures. Its core research themes include the role of the commons in sustainable societies, ecocentric normativities and new jurisprudences, traditional and Indigenous knowledge systems, environmental justice, social movements, the Global South's insertion in the international energy market, and ecopolitical transformations in relation to multi-level actors - including civil society, international organizations, national governments, and municipal authorities. This work contributes to two key objectives within the broader research theme of "Sustainability Transformations and Society":

  • ...advancing collaborative knowledge creation and exchange to support sustainability governance, with a critical focus on power asymmetries, justice claims, and conflicting objectives across local, national, and global levels; and
  • ...improving understanding of the societal challenges, dynamics, and resistances that support or obstruct sustainability transformations. Combining case study research with theoretical innovation, EcoPol draws on political ecology, critical environmental governance, science and technology studies, aesthetic theory, and visual ethnography to inform policy and advance democratic, just sustainability transformations.

Projects

Democracy needs new ideas, institutions and processes that are able to offer sustainable prospects for the future.

Democratic Governance for Ecopolitical Transformations

The Amazon River

Amazon of Rights: Understanding Ecocentric Normativity and its Social Realities through Visual Ethnography

Expired Projects in Group

The Werder/Kessin wind farm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is one of Germany’s largest. Wind energy is a controversial issue in many parts of the country.

Promoting Acceptance of Renewable Energies

Butterflies and peace symbols adorn a wall. The project “Governance & Participation” explores the pathways and prospects for democratic change towards more sustainable societies.

Governance and Participation

In order to overcome the challenges of the Anthropocene we must learn to grapple with multiple temporal dimensions simultaneously.

Democratic Anthropocene

Extreme weather events such as drought and flooding are occurring more often due to climate change. In 2016, the Seine River burst its banks in Paris, the city that has become a symbol for global climate protection.

Implementing the Paris Agreement - Overcoming Barriers and Identifying Drivers for Effective Climate Governance

Team

Maria Cecilia da Silva Oliveira

Dr. Maria Cecilia Oliveira

Research Group Leader
Bernardo Jurema

Dr. Bernardo Jurema

Research Associate
Alexandra Tost

Alexandra Tost

Research Associate
Igor Karim

Igor Karim

Research Associate
Tau Samper Salinas

Tau Samper Salinas

Student Assistant
Christina Stobernack

Christina Stobernack

Administrator
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News

Nicola Sharman RIFS Fellow

Ensuring the Vulnerable Are Heard in International Climate Decision-Making

Nicola Sharman joined RIFS as a Fellow in April 2024. She comes from the University of Eastern Finland, where she is part of the 2035Legitimacy project. Her work focuses on the democratic legitimacy of international climate change law and the exercise of procedural rights within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change from the point of view of those most affected by climate change.
Berlin Science Week

From Millinery to Natural Building to Podcasts

This year’s Berlin Science Week (1-10 November 2023) will once again showcase the sciences across a host of events, promoting discussion of recent research and its findings. The ten-day festival is expected to attract over 20,000 visitors and will feature presentations from around 500 speakers, supported by some 150 organisations. RIFS researchers and fellows will also participate in this inspiring dialogue between science and society, art and research. An overview.
Indigenous leaders Bemoro Metuktire, Watatakalu Yawalapiti and Tapi Yawalapiti (from left) spoke in Berlin as part of their international campaign for the protection of the Amazon rainforest.

Indigenous Leaders in Berlin: Together for the Rainforest

In the struggle for their land and way of life, the indigenous Amazon peoples have already achieved a lot. But they need support in protecting their territories, which are so important for the global climate and biodiversity. During a European tour, a delegation of indigenous chiefs visited Berlin, met with the President of Germany and subsequently discussed their concerns at a public event.
Young people will bear the brunt of climate change.

Climate Litigation Plays Important Role in Struggle for Intergenerational Justice

Young people have long been marginalized in national, regional, and United Nations political fora. Now they are actively demanding their rights as representatives of present and future generations. They do so through public protests, but also by taking legal action to assert their claims. Scientists at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) have studied the potential impacts of climate litigation in the Anthropocene.
Carbon Critique Podcast

Podcast Explores Carbon’s Role in Politics

In a podcast series, RIFS researchers discuss the role of carbon in climate and sustainability politics. They talk to academics, activists and artists whose work has influenced their own research on the transformations of our carbon-dependent society. In the fourth episode, Usha Natarajan (Columbia University/Dalhousie University) and Julia Dehm (La Trobe Law School) discuss their book “Locating Nature: Making and Unmaking International Law”.
Title page Social Sustainability Barometer 2022

How Is the Energy Crisis Affecting Public Opinion on the Energy and Transport Transitions in Germany?

Is the current energy crisis putting the brakes on climate action? Undaunted by the growing financial burden, support for the energy transition remains strong in Germany. Despite the spectre of skyrocketing energy prices, a broad section of the public wants to see the government double down on its efforts to achieve climate neutrality. This is the conclusion of the annual “Social Sustainability Barometer 2022”.
Daniel Oppold

The IASS Accompanies Municipalities During Participation Processes

Losland, a cooperation between the IASS and the association Mehr Demokratie, supports municipalities to sustainably shape their future. The Losland team draws from citizen participation methods to develop individualised participation processes in these municipalities. IASS political scientist Daniel Oppold has been scientifically accompanying the process since 2021. In an interview, he explains how the project works, what an “assembly for the future” is, and the project’s aims.
Young people march for intergenerational justice at the climate strike demonstration on 27 September 2019 in Barcelona

Young People and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future

The climate crisis continues to be a major concern for many young people, who must also grapple with new and emerging crises such as the war in Ukraine. This has serious implications for mental health and lends urgency to the issue of intergenerational justice. In recent years, young people have sought to bring the responsibilities of older generations toward younger people more sharply into focus in environmental and climate debates. In a new paper, IASS researchers show how sustainable futures have become an important issue in climate policy discourse.
Amazon River meets Atlantic Ocean: satellite image of northern Brazil.

A New “Truth” About the Rainforest: How Bolsonaro’s Supporters Misuse Satellite Data

Satellite data have played an important role in efforts to monitor the rate of deforestation in the Amazon Basin for decades. But the way these data are used has changed under the government of President Jair Bolsonaro. His supporters are questioning the validity of scientific findings as a means to propagate a worldview that puts profits first.
Democracy is the only promising route for dealing with the complexity of sustainability issues in an adequate way.

Democracy and Sustainability: Insights into a Complex Relationship

In contemporary societies, the relationship between democracy and sustainability has become ever more complex. A new handbook edited by IASS researchers provides comprehensive and critical coverage of this topic from both a theoretical level and through analysis of political discourses and practices.
Verhaltensänderung

Can the coronavirus crisis lead to long-lasting behavioural change?

Will changes in our routines and lifestyles during the pandemic translate into more sustainable behaviour over the longer term? A team of researchers from the Science Platform for Climate Protection (Wissenschaftsplattform Klimaschutz - WPKS) examined this question with the support of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and considered whether policy measures could help to consolidate gains.
Covid_19, India, worker fills medical oxygen cylinders for patients with Covid-19 infections

Sustainable Solutions for the Global South in a Post-Pandemic World

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in some cases stalled progress decades in the making. The pandemic has revealed social inequalities and widened the gulf between countries. In a new study published by the IASS a team of Alexander von Humboldt Climate Protection Fellows analyses the effects of the pandemic on climate mitigation and sustainable development in the Global South.
Complexity systemic risks

Insights from Complexity Science: More Trust in Self-Organization Needed

Globalization, digitalization, sustainabilization – three major waves of transformation are unfolding around the world. The social upheaval caused by these transformation processes has given rise to populist movements that endanger social harmony and threaten democratic values. What rules and institutions can promote stability in the face of such systemic risks? A new study published by the IASS offers some surprising answers.
A new publication examines what is at stake in democratic sustainability transformations.

Reform or Revolution? What is at stake in democratic sustainability transformations

Calls for new forms of democratic sustainability and their achievement by way of a “great,” “socio-ecological,” and/or “democratic” transformation of societies have gained traction, both in academia and among policy makers. A special issue of the journal “Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy”, edited by researchers from the IASS, examines what is at stake in current debates.
The participants employed hands-on prototyping to understand and further develop labs as democratic innovation.

Sustainability and Democracy: Exploring the Power of Labs

Modern times are characterised by an increase in “wicked problems” that threaten established forms of democratic governability. What can labs ¬¬– collaborative spaces for testing innovative ideas – contribute to democratic innovation and sustainability in government? In the workshop “Toward Democratic Transformation: A Lab on Labs” at the IASS, international practitioners, leading researchers and government experts explored lab methods and principles to promote democracy and sustainability.
Zimbabwe-after-cyclone_Idai_Copyright_Ashraf_Hendricks_GroundUp

Most Affected, Least Heard

It seems reasonable to expect that the people who suffer most from the impacts of climate change are represented in the international climate negotiations. Patrick Toussaint, a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), has analysed the status quo from the perspective of international law. He concludes that those who currently bear the brunt of climate change – or will do so in the foreseeable future – have little or no influence on the negotiations.
Senior Fellow Michael Palmer

Governance for Future Generations

In recent months young people across the world have been going on strike on Fridays to protest about their governments’ failure to adequately address the climate crisis. In their view, lack of political action to protect the climate is putting their future in jeopardy. But Wales is leading by example here with a law passed in 2015 that echoes the demands of the Fridays for Future protesters: the Well-being for Future Generations Act. It requires public authorities in Wales to consider the long-term effects of their decisions and make sustainable development a touchstone for policymaking.
Windenergie-Anlagen werden überwiegend auf dem Land errichtet. Um Akzeptanz zu schaffen, sind Beteiligung und finanzielle Teilhabe der Bevölkerung wichtig.

Energy Transition with Public Participation: The Key to Successful Wind Farms

People are often apprehensive when they hear about plans to build a wind farm in their locality. They wonder how it will change the landscape. And whether the noise of the rotor blades will get on their nerves. People need information about the planned changes, but their direct involvement in the decision-making process is also important, because the expansion of wind energy depends on public acceptance. The Fachagentur Windenergie an Land and the IASS invited representatives from politics, the energy sector, and civil society to participate in the 3rd Workshop on Public Participation in the Development of Wind Farms on 15 and 16 January.
The IASS at the COP23 in Bonn in November 2017. The institute will also inform about its work at a booth in Katowice.

The IASS at the Katowice Climate Change Conference

The 24th UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) is due to take place in the Polish city of Katowice from 2 to 14 December. At this year’s COP, minds will focus on concrete steps towards implementing the Paris Climate Agreement. A whole host of experts from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) will be there. At the international symposium on “Safeguarding Our Climate, Advancing Our Society”, IASS Scientific Director Patrizia Nanz will speak about the role democratic structures can play in the shift to sustainability. And IASS Scientific Director Mark Lawrence will represent the institute at the High Level Assembly of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition on the margins of the conference.

Blog Posts

The Amazon River

19.12.2024

Water Ecopolitics at Berlin Science Week

Water is critical for life on Earth, and plays a vital role in Earth system processes, particularly in climate regulation. RIFS researchers took part in a recent panel discussion on the topic of “Ecopolitics Traversing Waterbodies: Tales and Epistemologies Influencing Water Governance” at Berlin Science Week 2024.
Amazonas - o maior Rio do Mundo

09.10.2024

Amazonia - Three Moments of Cinematography

The Amazonia - Three Moments of Cinematography film programme was shown at the historic Babylon cinema in Berlin through 16–20 September 2024 as part of Amazon Week 2024. We sought, in the light of three films, to bring into sharp relief the images and narratives produced in territories usurped for different colonization projects, and how their populations, nature and modes of existence have been and continue to be brutally violated.
A decade-long silent ground subsidence hazard has culminated in a metropolitan disaster in Maceió.

17.07.2024

Braskem’s Salt Mines, Maceió’s Ground Subsidence, and the Pitfalls of Corporate Sustainability Discourse

Marginalised populations are asymmetrically affected at all stages of the plastics production cycle – especially the extraction of raw materials. Such environmental impacts reproduce and reinforce pre-existing racial and socioeconomic inequalities. This is clearly illustrated in Maceió, the capital of Brazil’s north-eastern state of Alagoas: Since 2019, around 60,000 people have been forced to leave their communities after earth tremors and ground subsidence started to endanger the structures of houses and other buildings surrounding Mundaú Lagoon. Entire neighbourhoods have subsequently been abandoned.
Protesters at a "Fridays for Future" demonstration in Taranto, Italy.

10.07.2023

Sketching a Theory of Fossil Imperialism

In recent years, both activists and researchers have started to invoke the term "fossil imperialism" to highlight the ways in which imperialist politics are tied up with the logic of fossil capitalism. Under fossil capitalism, ceaseless accumulation of capital necessitates continued expansion of an energy base of coal, oil, and natural gas.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

10.05.2023

Compliance, ESG, and Social Media in Brazil

RIFS fellow Giovanni Mascarenhas explains the relationship between corporate compliance and ESG activities against the backdrop of efforts to rein in the power of social media in Brazil.
Construction work on the European natural gas pipeline EUGAL near Wrangelsburg in 2019.

06.03.2023

Infrastructuring Environmental (In)Justice: On the Political Geographies of Energy Technologies in Planetary Crises

The ambivalent role of material infrastructure (and especially large-scale energy technologies) in planetary crises has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years. RIFS Fellow Benno Fladvad examined this issue in January’s Justice in Sustainability lecture.
Justice in Sustainability is the RIFS focal topic for 2022/23.

15.02.2023

Climate Mobility Justice: Reparations, Kinopolitics and Mobile Commoning

What do reactive border closures and the de-nationalization of undocumented populations around the world have to do with the climate crisis-mobility nexus? As part of the RIFS public lecture series `Justice in Sustainability’, Dr Mimi Sheller recently examined the interconnections of the climate crisis, unsustainable mobilities, and migration through the lens of the politics of movement, also known as kinopolitics.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged under the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

26.01.2023

Brazil: An Environmental Power

What to expect of the incoming Lula government’s environmental policy.
A globe depicting Africa

20.12.2022

African Judicial Environmentalism, Community Mobilization and the Quest for Sustainability

Africa is a continent rich in cultures, natural resources and biodiversity. However, the continent faces diverse environmental challenges, including pollution, deforestation, and species extinction. In a recent lecture Dr. Caiphas Brewsters Soyapi argued that traditional knowledge offers a moral compass that Africans can use to find their own response to ecological problems, a view that many judiciaries are coming to share.
Roiling seas

20.12.2022

Exploring the Complexities of Justice in Sustainability

The team behind the IASS Focal Topic “Justice in Sustainability” has released a short film that explores issues of justice in the context of climate crises and the decarbonisation of energy systems. The film presents prominent voices in the field from scientists, activists and practitioners who have participated in events and lectures hosted as part of the IASS Focal Topic in 2022.
Benno Fladvad

10.08.2022

Benno Fladvad: Exploring the nexus of equity and sustainability

Benno Fladvad is part of the research team of the IASS focal topic 2022, "Justice in Sustainability".
Leah Temper lecture

01.08.2022

What transformative sustainability studies should learn from environmental justice movements

In April’s session of the IASS focal topic “Justice in Sustainability” lecture series, Dr Leah Temper shed light on “just transformations towards sustainability” from the perspectives of those fighting on the ground to achieve them. Her discussion of environmental justice activism took us back to the roots of thinking justice and environmental politics together. Find out in this summary what transformative sustainability studies should learn from environmental justice movements a summary of her lecture. You can also rewatch the lecture and the following Q&A session on the IASS YouTube channel.

18.05.2022

Justice and Sustainability Researcher Francesco Laruffa

Francesco Laruffa is part of the research team of the IASS Focal Topic 2022, "Justice in Sustainability".
Elias König

17.05.2022

Justice and Sustainability Fellow Elias König

Elias König recently joined the IASS as a Justice and Sustainability Fellow and will be working on a research project that examines the youth-led climate strike movement. In this blog post, he outlines his professional background and his plans for the fellowship.
A model of cooperation that unites the world around human and planetary justice is urgently needed.

01.05.2022

Time is of the essence in the climate crisis – and so is the case for global justice and equity

We will not see quick transformations towards sustainable futures without the consideration of past and present inequalities and injustices. We can tackle the climate crisis much more efficiently and sustainably only if equity and justice are treated as top priorities by all countries at the negotiation table. While we acknowledge that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions to today’s complex and diverse challenges, and that the process begins from different starting points, a closer look at the negotiations of the COP26 and ongoing actions around climate change can help us identify locations and processes that promote injustices and inequalities in preparations for the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
Marching for climate and gender justice at COP25

12.04.2022

Historical responsibilities of colonialism: Gender justice as a path to climate justice

The notion of development, or what we understand as prosperity, whether of a country, group, or individual, has been shaped throughout history by social constructs that stem from colonialism as an ideology. Colonialism is entrenched in our society as a monocultural form of domination and understanding and shaping the world. Its influence extends to the ways in which we interact with each other and with nature.
Farmers’ protest in New Delhi.

04.04.2022

“Struggle for Agrarian and Environmental Justice: The Farmers Movement in Northwest India”

The struggle for agrarian and environmental justice by the farmers movement in Northwest India was the second lecture in this year’s IASS Focal Topic series “Justice in Sustainability.” Our guest, Navdeep Boora, is a graduate student at the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) Mohali. In his presentation, Navdeep gave us insights into the farmers’ protest against the Indian government’s attempt to further liberalize the country’s agricultural sector in 2021.

18.02.2022

Climate litigation and planetary justice – the kick-off of the lecture series “Justice and Sustainability”

The April 2021 decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the case Neubauer et al. vs Germany has drawn a lot of attention worldwide. Louis Kotzé, Research Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, North-West University, South Africa and currently Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the IASS, and Jannis Krüßmann, a young climate activist, spoke on the ruling and its wider consequences for climate litigation on January 27, 2022 as part of the focal topic "Justice and Sustainability".
Zoom-Session

02.12.2021

Sustainability studies and art – Allies for transforming narratives

A symphony composed by the melting arctic deeply touches an audience of policymakers at COP25. A photograph inspires a political scientist to expand her research on the Amazon with a performance set in a Berlin city forest. And a museum about possible futures doesn’t just have an education team running workshops for its exhibitions but dedicates a whole floor to a lab where scientists and artists can “go nuts” in collaborative projects.
Urihi – of the series Casa – 1976

07.12.2020

Can the climate change agenda ‘save’ the Amazon?

Concern with the Amazon is common in international climate discourse. Indeed, “saving” the Amazon for the sake of the climate has become a rallying cry among climate policymakers and researchers alike. In this post, I want to argue that while curbing deforestation in the Amazon is undoubtedly important, framing the challenge as a mission to “save” the Amazon in order to fight climate change is problematic.

Events

22.02.2024 - 23.02.2024
Online conference

Green hydrogen: fueling just decarbonization or ‘greening’ extractivism?

Green hydrogen is being discussed globally as one of the necessary contributions to a decarbonized economy. However, its role in achieving a just transition is controversial. While some argue that it has the potential to contribute significantly to the transition to just and sustainable energy sy...
08.11.2023
Podcast
Berlin Science Week

Narrating for New Narratives

Can podcasts serve as a digital arena to open up conversations between professors, activists, artists, and other practitioners, and the audience? Which challenges are associated to this?
16.05.2023

Meeting with Distinguished Indigenous Leaders from the Amazonian Xingu area in Brazil

In partnership with WZB Berlin Social Science Center, the RIFS will host a Meeting with Distinguished Indigenous Leaders from the Amazonian Xingu area in Brazil as part of their International Campaign for the Protection of the Amazon Forest. The scientific and public debate aims to bridge these leaders’ knowledge and perspective with the Berlin academic and activist community.
04.11.2022
Berlin Science Week

Jatun Yaku – Amazon of Rights

“Jatun Yacu” is the indigenous name, in Quechua language, for one of the tributaries of the Amazon river in Ecuador. As the Amazon river flows from its source to the Atlantic Ocean, it crosses four countries with different legal systems. This pilot documentary film traces the ebb and flow of rights in and of the Amazon across space and time, ethnographically exploring the question of what it means for a river to have rights, where these rights come from and what they might look like visually. It aims to show that while the notion of rights of nature may seem exotic to Western legal minds at first glance, a closer look reveals that the idea that non-human entities have rights is not new.
29.09.2021

"jatun yacu – Amazon of Rights" - Movie screening and new avenues to reflect on rights of nature

The Democratic (Re)Configurations of Sustainability Transformations research group of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS Potsdam) is pleased to invite you to a screening and discussion of the documentary film: jatun yacu – amazon of rights. This documentary film traces the ebb and flow of rights in and of the Amazon across space and time, ethnographically exploring the question of what it means for a river to have rights, where these rights come from and what they might look like visually.
02.02.2018 - 03.02.2018

EuropaCamp der Zeit-Stiftung

Was wird aus Europa? Rücken die Staaten der Gemeinschaft wieder stärker zusammen oder läuft es eher auf eine reine Wirtschaftsunion hinaus? Und was bedeutet das für uns Europäer?