Carbon Transnationalism

This project explores a set of historical processes that we collectively refer to as “carbon transnationalism”. This notion serves to highlight that fossil fuels were extracted, processed and burnt in transnational exploitative systems, involving complex cross-border relations, and that fossil fuels, in the process, fundamentally changed the political, economic, social and cultural relations between and within countries. Our empirical focus is on coal.

Taking the traumatic coal shortages in Europe during World War I as a point of departure, we zoom in on the period that followed – the Interwar era. This period marks the peak of coal’s dominance in the European energy system and it became the most vivid one in terms of European coal transnationalism.

We explore how a diverse set of actors engaged in Interwar European coal transnationalism against the backdrop of war-time memories, radical economic ups and downs, rapid technological change, geopolitical instability, the rise of authoritarian regimes, protectionism, dreams of autarky and visionary pan-Europeanism.

While aiming for a comprehensive understanding of carbon transnationalism in Europe as a whole, the project zooms in on four particularly interesting European regions, each characterized by a high degree of coal import dependence: Northern Europe (especially Sweden and Denmark), Central Europe (Austria and Hungary), Southern Europe (Italy and France) and Southeastern Europe (Yugoslavia). In addition, in a separate study, we explore how carbon transnationalism manifested itself in East Asia during the same period, where the colonial dimension of the phenomenon of “carbon transnationalism” comes to the fore in a particularly striking way.