This is the accepted version of the article: Roy, Brototi; Schaffartzik, Anke. «Talk renewables, walk coal: the paradox of India’s energy transition». Ecological Economics, Vol. 180 (Feb. 2021). DOI 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106871 This version is available at https://ddd.uab.cat/record/234855 under the terms of the license 1 Talk Renewables, Walk Coal: The Paradox of India’s Energy 2 Transition 3 Brototi Roy1*, Anke Schaffartzik1,2 4 1ICTA-UAB, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 5 2Institute of Social Ecology (SEC), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), 6 Austria 7 *Corresponding author 8 Full correspondence details- 9 Z-135, ICTA-UAB, Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. 10 Building Z Campus UAB 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola) · Barcelona, Spain. 11 Email- brototi.econ@gmail.com 12 Phone- +34 602092003 13 14 15 Abstract 16 Coal is on the rise in India: despite the devasting impacts of the climate crisis, the awareness for 17 land and forest rights, and political talk of a coal phase-out. In this article, we demonstrate that 18 despite the renewables-led rhetoric, India is in the midst of a transition to (not away from) greater 19 use of coal in its fossil energy system and in the electricity system in particular. We investigate 20 this paradox by combining socio-metabolic and political-ecological analysis of the Indian coal 21 complex. Our framework integrates material and energy flow data as characterizing the Indian 22 fossil energy transition, indicators on the development and structure of the coal industry, and 23 studies of ecological distribution conflicts around coal. The dominant claim to expansive use of 24 coal and the competing counterclaims are indicative of underlying power relations which can also 25 be witnessed in other countries. In India, they extend into the conflicted development of 26 renewable energy including hydropower, in which the land dispossession, exclusion, and 27 injustices associated with the expansion of the coal complex are reproduced. We conclude that 28 the current energy transition – in which coal continues to play a dominant role – is neither 29 sustainable nor just. 30 31 Keywords: environmental justice, just transitions, energy transition, fossil energy, political 32 ecology 1 33 1. Introduction: The paradox and the logic of extracting coal in times of climate crisis 34 The need for significant absolute reductions in coal combustion to limit global heating1 below 2 35 degrees Celsius is well-established in the literature (Fankhauser and Jotzo 2018; Spencer et al. 36 2018). According to McGlade and Ekins (2015, p.187), to meet this target, “over 80 per cent of 37 current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050”. Any transition to a renewable 38 energy system must also involve a transition away from fossil fuels. Such a transition is not, 39 however, occurring; instead, total primary energy supply (TPES) from fossil energy carriers has 40 continued to increase, contributing over 80% annually to growing global TPES. Between 1990 41 and 2015, growth in renewables (hydro, wind, solar, biofuels, and waste: +0.7 Gigatons of oil 42 equivalent, Gtoe) has occurred but has been outstripped by growth in fossils (coal, natural gas, 43 and oil: +4 Gtoe) (Figure 1). In 2015, China was by far the world’s largest coal producer, followed 44 by the United States of America, and India. Globally, much of growth in renewables is in biofuels 45 and waste: here, traditional uses of firewood in countries currently expanding their fossil energy 46 systems is an important component (Schaffartzik and Fischer-Kowalski 2018). To speak of a 47 transition to renewables at such a time is both premature and potentially misleading (York and 48 Bell 2019; Edwards 2019a). It seems that renewables are contributing to rather than challenging 49 the fossil energy system (York and Bell 2019). 1The more commonly-used term “global warming” fails to convey the gravity of the change in average surface temperatures (Karl and Trenberth 2003); we therefore use “global heating”. 2 Figure 1: Global total primary energy supply (TPES) by sources in Gigatons (1 Gt = 109 tons) of oil equivalent per year (Gtoe/a), 1990-2015. The share of fossil energy carriers (coal, natural gas, and oil) in TPES is indicated on the secondary y-axis. Source of data: (IEA 2019) 50 51 Growth in coal’s contribution to TPES was more than twice that of all renewable energy sources 52 combined. In the Global South especially, emerging coal geographies are expected to play a 53 decisive role in the future of the energy mix (Cardoso and Turhan 2018a). Claims that coal is on 54 its “terminal decline” appear exaggerated and premature (Edenhofer et al. 2018a), especially in 55 the face of geographies of coal “moving east” (Liu and Geman 2017), with future global coal 56 trade expected to be dominated by India, Australia, Indonesia and Russia. 57 With the fossil energy system and the use of coal in it expanding rather than contracting amidst 58 the climate crisis, “there is a critical need for normatively engaged and reflective work on coal in 59 the context of climate change” Edwards (2019, p-12), and, with this article, we aim to make a 60 contribution toward this need. We focus on the development and the role of the coal complex 61 (more on this below) in India. The International Energy Agency (IEA 2018a) estimates continued 62 average annual growth of 4% in India’s energy demand, primarily met by electricity generated by 63 coal combustion. In 2017, India was the world’s second largest producer, consumer and importer 64 of coal, the most carbon-intensive and the dirtiest of the fossil fuels (IEA 2018b). Coal accounted 65 for 72% of India’s electricity generation and was the source of 65% of its carbon dioxide 66 emissions (Central Electricity Authority 2018). As recently as May and June 2020, in an attempt 3 67 to address from the financial impact of the Covid-19 crisis, a Rs. 50,000 crore (US$ 6.5 billion 68 approx.) investment was announced for the coal sector, putting India on the path to extracting one 69 billion tonnes of coal annually by 2023-24 (Bomnalli 2020). Auctions for coal mining concessions 70 to private companies were also launched for 41 coal blocks in the country, including in regions 71 of rich biodiversity (Ellis-Petersen 2020), with further plans to auction 55 concessions for new 72 coal mines and expanding at least 193 current mines in the next five years (Aggarwal 2020). This 73 poses serious threats in the shape of the climate crisis and the future of global coal, as well as to 74 local socio-ecological wellbeing. 75 In the face of the climate crisis and the other risks and adversities associated with coal, and despite 76 manifest political intention to expand renewables, coal extraction and use continue to grow, 77 adding to the lock-in for the foreseeable future (Jakob et al. 2020). How can this be? While we 78 cannot fully and unequivocally answer this question, our combined socio-metabolic and political- 79 ecological analysis of Indian coal extraction, distribution and use does provide some insight on 80 the reasons for the paradoxical success of coal. Such analyses are prerequisites to identifying 81 potential points of intervention into and possibly even leverage over currently unsustainable 82 development, not just in India, but also globally. 83 Despite political initiative and action to boost renewables, fossil fuels, and coal in particular, 84 appear to enjoy unfettered growth in India: The share of fossil energy carriers in TPES increased 85 from 37% in 1975 to 70% in 2015 and the Exajoules (1 EJ = 1018 Joules) added from coal 86 surpassed that of oil and natural gas together, with coal consistently contributing more than 50% 87 to overall fossil TPES (Figure 2). By 2015, 10% of global TPES from coal was generated in India 88 and reliance on coal is not expected to decline anytime soon (Seetharaman 2019). It is the promise 89 of industrialization and economic growth – as one particular interpretation of what constitutes 90 ‘development’ (Escobar 1995; Esteva and Escobar 2017) that is offered as justification for the 91 continued adherence to coal (Parasuraman 2016; Padel and Das 2010; Ghosh 2016). 92 Decreasing production costs for solar electricity reflect the fierce competition and low profit 93 margins accepted by actors in this sphere, leading to questions as to the long-term viability of 94 current bidding prices (Shidore and Busby 2019; Ghoshal 2017). As recently as 2015, production 95 costs for solar electricity were still higher than for its coal-fired counterpart: In 2015, solar 96 photovoltaic electricity was auctioned at an average price of approximately 80 US dollars per 97 Megawatt hour (USD/MWh) (IEA 2020b, 113), compared to approximately 50 USD/MWh for 98 electricity from non-renewable sources (Shidore and Busby 2019). Since 2017, the average price 99 for solar has fallen to approximately 75% of that for coal-based electricity, leading observers to 100 remark on India’s strong alliance with coal despite the existence of seemingly cheaper energy 101 alternatives (Hemalatha 2020). Projected price developments may provide support for this 4 102 relationship: According to the International Energy Agency, levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) 103 of new solar PV are projected to be lower than those of coal-fired power plants by 2025. Solar 104 PV’s value-adjusted LCOE (VALCOE), however, is expected to reach 59.8 USD/MWh by 2025 105 and 65.4 USD/MWh by 2040, compared to a VALCOE of 54.3 USD/MWh in 2025 and 48.6 106 USD/MWh by 2040 for coal-fired power plants (Wanner 2019). 107 These prices, however, fail to reflect the ‘true costs’ of coal, beyond market prices and related to 108 its socio-ecological effects, with recent studies stressing the need to move away from a coal-based 109 development paradigm (Kalkuhl et al. 2019). Figure 2: India’s total primary energy supply (TPES) by sources in Exajoules (1 EJ = 1018 Joules) per year (EJ/a), 1975-2015. The share of fossil energy carriers (coal, natural gas, and oil) in TPES and the share of coal in fossil energy carriers are indicated on the secondary y- axis. Source of data: UNEP (2019) 110 111 Part of what is at stake here is clearly not only coal as an energy carrier but an entire coal complex, 112 an intricate web of multiple stakeholders wielding power and allowing for certain sector(s) to 113 flourish. Brown and Spiegel (2019, p. 153-4) have described the contemporary coal complex as 114 “a global assemblage of finance, infrastructure, and expertise that together constitutes the political 115 economy of coal and determines the speed and scale of its extraction, transportation, and eventual 116 combustion”. Conceptually, the coal complex is akin to the ‘polluter-industrial complex’ of 117 research centres, non-profit institutions, committees and political actions that hinder stricter 118 environmental regulations, through a variety of methods including lobbying (Faber 2008) and to 119 the ‘oil complex’ (Watts 2005) as the interplay of social, political and economic factors that allow 120 for continued production of oil, despite the environmental conflicts and human rights violations 121 associated with it. 5 122 Not just in India, but globally, the expansion of coal mining and coal combustion (cf. Figures 1 123 & 2) in the context of the climate crisis seems contradictory and anachronistic (Goodman, 124 Marshall, and Pearse 2016). The demands for extensive emissions reductions on the one hand and 125 for economic growth and capital accumulation on the other appear irreconcilable. The tension is 126 manifest in energy policy and the (lacking) transformation of energy supply systems (Goodman 127 2016; Tyfield 2014; Blühdorn 2007). India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change does not 128 directly target supply and use of coal in order to achieve emission reductions, focusing instead on 129 the expansion of renewables, improved efficiency, and the creation of sinks and on adaptive 130 measures (Government of India 2008). In fact, the narrative commonly provided by 131 representatives of the Indian government is that continued extraction of coal and expansion of the 132 electricity system are necessary in order to meet the ‘needs’ of the population, especially those of 133 India’s poor, making coal “a compulsion” rather than “an option” (Milagros 2015). Coal is 134 needed, the argument goes, for development – the expansion of industries and services for 135 economic growth and employment, improved access to electricity and to clean cooking fuel for 136 those considered to be “energy poor” (Jaeger and Michaelowa 2016). However, the largest and 137 fastest-growing consumer of Indian electricity is industry: approximately 40% compared to less 138 than 25% for households (with vast inequalities within household consumption) (Ranganadham 139 2018). 140 In India, coal may represent more than ‘just’ a fossil fuel: a key to the country’s sovereignty as a 141 nation-state, crucial for an energy-secure future (Lahiri-Dutt 2014). Coal has wider social, 142 cultural, and political connotations which link it to economic development, nationalism, and 143 nation-building, allowing coal extraction to symbolize a moral endeavor (Lahiri-Dutt 2016). 144 However, even as approximately 240 million people and 18% of the total population are without 145 access to electricity and many more people only have intermittent access, India became an 146 exporter of electricity in 2017, with neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar as the most 147 important destinations (Press Information Bureau 2017). 148 Power relations are an intricate part the Indian coal complex and ecological distribution conflicts 149 (Martinez-Alier 2002) over coal form the centerpiece of our analysis. In these conflicts, the 150 dominant claim to expansive use of coal and competing counterclaims are indicative of the 151 underlying power relations. These power relations extend well into the current conflicted 152 development of renewable energy in India in which the land dispossession, exclusion, and 153 injustices associated with the expansion of the coal complex are also reproduced (Lakhanpal 154 2019; Yenneti, Day, and Golubchikov 2016). We frame our study with the material and energy 155 flows that biophysically characterize the Indian energy system and the socio-economic variables 156 that unveil its political-economic structure. We demonstrate that despite the renewables-led 157 rhetoric, India is in fact in the process of deepening its transition to fossil energy carriers, 6 158 including coal, rather than moving away this energy form. This puts India well within observable 159 global trends (Schaffartzik and Fischer-Kowalski 2018). From extraction to transportation and 160 combustion, we find coal to be a contested resource and a commodity that does not address India’s 161 interlinked socio-ecological challenges of poverty (both economic and energetic) and 162 unemployment, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis. 163 In the next section we describe the challenges of India´s sustainability issues and the multiple 164 worlds of coal. This is followed by a section describing the frameworks used in the paper, viz 165 social metabolism and the metabolic transition, ecological distribution conflicts and political 166 ecology. Section 4 explains the methodology used in the paper to arrive to the results in section 167 5. The following section discusses the findings to show that India is moving towards, and not 168 away from coal, despite conflicts and associated environmental justice movements, and section 7 169 concludes that this energy transition is neither sustainable nor just. 170 171 2. India’s contested coal complex 172 As leaders of the G77 in international climate policy negotiations, Indian government 173 representatives have repeatedly insisted that emission reduction targets (and, by extension, 174 emission reduction measures) necessary because of the past and current high emissions of the 175 world’s wealthy countries must not interfere with the possibilities for development of the poorer 176 countries (Goodman 2016). Nonetheless, during the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in 177 Paris (COP21), the Indian government pledged to generate about 40% of electricity from non- 178 fossil sources, both renewable and nuclear, by 2030 (Government of India 2015a). According to 179 the current National Electricity Plan (Central Electricity Authority 2018), by 2027 rising 180 electricity demand is to be met with 275 Gigawatts (GW) of total renewable electricity generation 181 capacity, and 464 GW of coal based capacity, which is in addition to the already existing 478GW 182 of coal based capacity at different stages of construction and likely to be materialized by 2022. 183 The National Electricity Plan also echoes decisions, made between 2015 and 2016 in particular, 184 to abort the construction of coal-fired power plants (Central Electricity Authority 2018; Edenhofer 185 et al. 2018b). In 2017 alone, India added three times as much power generation through 186 renewables as through thermal power plants (Central Electricity Authority 2018). 187 Global heating puts large parts of the Indian population at risk, especially people in low-lying, 188 densely populated coastal regions and islands (Kumar and Tholkappian 2006), in cities and at 189 industrial sites, already contaminated by particulate air pollution (Khosla and Bhardwaj 2019; 190 Revi 2008; Guttikunda and Goel 2013). Agriculture, on which the country heavily relies, is 191 expected to experience devastating impacts (Kumar and Parikh 2001; O’Brien et al. 2004; Rama 192 Rao et al. 2016; Zaveri et al. 2016; Taraz 2018). Based on their income, 70-80% of India’s 7 193 population can be classified as poor, living in households with less than Rs 5000 monthly income 194 or subsisting on less than 3 USD per day. This vast majority also accounts for CO2 emissions 195 below the national average (Ananthapadmanabhan, K. Srinivas, and Vinuta Gopal 2007; Hubacek 196 et al. 2017) while they are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis (Bidwai 2012). A study 197 on the Indian metropolis of Bangalore indicates that higher income tends to be associated with 198 higher domestic energy consumption and hence greenhouse gas emissions (Ramachandra et al. 199 2017). Simultaneously, the country’s expanding electricity system is depleting its reserves of 200 fossil energy carriers. For coal, these are, at 6.6 % of total global reserves, large in absolute terms 201 (Shafiee and Topal 2009), but dwindle compared to the population (17.7% of the global total). 202 Despite sizeable reserves, coal is not an energy source that can sustain India’s energy system into 203 the future. The practical implications of this unsustainability will be felt if and when the fossil 204 energy system, most notably the electricity system, extends its coverage, especially in rural areas 205 (Palit and Bandyopadhyay 2017). 206 Beyond its part in the climate crisis, the coal complex in India has significant health impacts – 207 mainly through local air pollution – including premature mortality, ranging from 80,000 to 208 115,000 premature deaths per year in the local population living around coal-fired power plants 209 (Guttikunda and Jawahar 2014). Coal-mine workers and communities around coal mines face 210 many adverse diseases, prominent among them is pneumoconiosis (commonly known as black 211 lung disease) due to inhalation of coal dust as well as diseases due to polluted drinking water 212 (Sahu, Patra, and Kolluru 2018; Mishra 2015). Next to the slow violence of pollution, mining 213 accidents are a persistent hazard (Maiti, Khanzode, and Ray 2009) with usually fatal 214 consequences. From 2001 to 2014, more than 7000 accidents were reported across all coal mining 215 companies in India (Tripathy and Ala 2018). In the three years between 2015 and 2017, more than 216 200 coal miners lost their lives in such accidents (Singh 2019). In 2017, the death rate per 1000 217 persons employed was 0.2, and the death rate per million tonnes of coal was 0.1 (Tripathy and 218 Ala 2018). The rise of the coal complex is associated with land dispossession for construction and 219 expansion of coal mines and thermal power plants across the country, with the associated loss of 220 livelihood resources for the local population (Lahiri-Dutt, Krishnan, and Ahmad 2012). 221 Coal is a heavily contested resource, the subject of protests and conflicts across India: because 222 coal combustion causes global heating and local pollution detrimental to human health, because 223 the working conditions in coal mines are terrible, and because land and water and thereby 224 livelihoods are appropriated for the expansion of the coal complex (Oskarsson and Bedi 2018; 225 Kohli and Menon 2016; Ghosh 2016). Coal extraction and combustion play a pivotal role in the 226 climate crisis and stopping these processes is crucial for socio-ecologically just sustainability 227 transformations (Edwards 2019a). Conflicts over coal are part of a broader environmental justice 8 228 movement in India, claiming autonomy and socio-ecological well-being in the face of the 229 country’s growth trajectory (Roy and Martinez-Alier 2019; Randeria 2004). 230 Land dispossession, on which the expansion of coal mining often relies, is heavily protested at 231 other extractive frontiers as well (D´Costa and Chakraborty 2017). Many environmental justice 232 movements in India arise from conflicts over land acquisition (Chakravorty 2013), related to 233 extractive as well as to renewable energy projects (Avila 2018; Lakhanpal 2019) and to wider 234 regimes of dispossession (Oskarsson and Nielsen 2017), placing them within the global 235 environmental justice movement (Martinez-Alier et al. 2016a). As the coal complex continues to 236 expand - between 1994 and 2014, coal extraction doubled from approximately 250 to 500 million 237 tons per year (Government of India 2015b) while coal’s contribution to TPES increased from 238 approximately one third to just under half (IEA 2019) – its infringement on land and livelihoods 239 deepens. 240 Especially as coal mining becomes more heavily contested, access to and control over information 241 are pivotal in the expansion of the extractive frontier, allowing for “dispossession by confusion” 242 (Oskarsson 2013). Land for coal mining in central India, for example, is commonly secured 243 through a series of ‘micro’ land grabs which are not appear to be significant individually and 244 hardly register as land grabbing but do, in sum, allow for the large-scale territorial transformations 245 that the coal complex requires (Oskarsson, Lahiri-Dutt, and Wennström 2019). The full extent of 246 the coal conflict in India may be underestimated if the explicit opposition is not to coal extraction 247 but to the violation of the local population’s rights to resources. 248 The Indian struggles within and against the coal complex are reflected in other countries, such as 249 Bangladesh (Kotikalapudi 2016), Colombia and Turkey (Cardoso and Turhan 2018b), and Poland 250 (Kuchler and Bridge 2018), and can be expected wherever coal is on its paradoxical rise despite 251 the climate crisis (Tyfield 2014). The Indian context can, however, be distinguished from conflicts 252 in countries in which coal mining is a (neo-)extractive endeavour, that is, resource extraction for 253 the sake of export, subject to protest and conflict and widely studied for Latin America, in 254 particular (Burchardt and Dietz 2014; Svampa 2019). In fact, India has been supporting its 255 expanding electricity generation not only with coal from domestic sources and renewables, 256 especially hydropower, but also increasingly with imported coal, linking the country’s production 257 and consumption to the conflicted coal complex elsewhere (Rosewarne 2016; Misra and 258 Mookerjea 2017). 259 As large and as internally heterogenic as the Indian economy is, it comes as no surprise that the 260 coal complex is no homogeneous monolith, either. In dynamic spatio-temporal configurations, 261 multiple economies of coal co-exist and have co-existed in India. Four broad types of economies 9 262 can be distinguished according to the meaning attached to and realized through coal extraction 263 (Lahiri-Dutt 2016): 264 1) national coal represented by state-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) and its subsidiaries, 265 2) neoliberal coal mined in privately owned and/or operated mines, usually linked to thermal 266 power plants and contracted by CIL, 267 3) institutionalized informal coal2 produced in states of northeastern India, such as Meghalaya 268 and Assam, in small-scale mines without legal recognition, and 269 4) the generally illegalized extraction of subsistence coal throughout the country. 270 From large-scale, high-tech to small-scale, no-tech, the materiality of coal extraction varies vastly 271 between these economies, as do labour requirements and monetary value realized. Next to the 272 conflicts between those in favour of and those opposed to coal extraction, conflicts arise between 273 the differing interests of these (and possibly additional other) types of coal economies. 274 275 3. Conceptual framework, methods, and material 276 Studying the contested Indian coal complex clearly requires considering it in socio-metabolic as 277 well as political-economic dimensions: How much coal is being extracted? How is extraction 278 organized? Who are the actors upholding or contesting the functioning of the complex? We have 279 based our study on a conceptual framework informed by social and political ecology. Fieldwork 280 and interviews, data work and analysis contribute to our empirical insights. 281 3.1. The social and political ecology of coal 282 In order to fully study the coal complex and the social and the ecological implications of its 283 trajectory, we must consider it in both biophysical and socio-cultural terms. The coal complex 284 consists of land, of people, of water and air, of coal, of mines, of roads and rails, of power plants, 285 of transmission lines and electricity. It also spans institutions and organizations, movements and 286 alliances, values and beliefs. 287 In adopting a social-ecological perspective on the coal complex, we understand coal mining as 288 occurring at the intersect of society’s biophysical and socio-cultural spheres of causation (Fisher- 289 Kowalski and Erb 2016). Within this social-ecological conceptualization, coal mining forms part 290 of society’s overall metabolism, of the processes of material and energy appropriation, 291 transformation, and disposal required for socio-cultural and biophysical reproduction (Fischer- 2 Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt calls this statecraft coal. 10 292 Kowalski and Haberl 2015). In contrast biotic resources (crops, fruits, vegetables, for instance) 293 which are an indispensable part of human nutrition and hence of the metabolism of the societies 294 they form, coal – especially in the amounts it is currently extracted and combusted – has a function 295 only in the metabolism of a society in which coal is used for heat (and the generation of thermal 296 power). As industrializing societies accumulate material stocks for electricity use (e.g., lighting, 297 appliances), distribution (grid, storage), and, of course, generation (power plants), they direct not 298 only material and energy resources to the construction of these stocks but are also very likely to 299 continue directing them to their future use. The lock-in into the fossil energy system is not only a 300 question of financial investments and their amortization but also of societal material stocks 301 (Krausmann et al. 2017). In this sense, the energy transition from a biomass-based to a fossil-fuel 302 system occurs gradually and requires vast material resource investments; this is a process that 303 began much earlier in some of the European countries (Great Britain, the Netherlands) than in 304 other parts of the world (Fischer-Kowalski et al. 2018) where it is currently still ongoing 305 (Schaffartzik and Fischer-Kowalski 2018). Socio-ecological transitions become evident as 306 changes in society’s average metabolic profile, coinciding with social, economic, and ecological 307 shifts as new production, consumption, and trade networks emerge (Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl 308 2007). As far as simplified, data-driven manifestations of such a transition are concerned, the 309 process of industrialization following the Western blueprint tends to involve both a significant 310 rise in per capita resource use with most of the growth occurring in abiotic materials such as 311 construction minerals and fossil energy carriers (Schaffartzik et al. 2014). Between 1970 and 312 2015, India’s metabolic rate increased by a factor of 2.5, and the share of biomass therein dropped 313 from 74% to 42% (UNEP 2019). Despite the expansion of renewable energy, the underlying 314 inertia continues to stem from the transition to a fossil energy system (Schaffartzik and Fischer- 315 Kowalski 2017; 2018). 316 The changing social metabolism requires the reconfiguration of society-nature relations, often 317 against the will of the directly affected population (Scheidel and Schaffartzik 2019), giving rise 318 to ecological distribution conflicts that overlap with social conflicts related to class, caste, gender 319 and ethnic identities (Martinez-Alier et al. 2016a) and are studied in political ecology as 320 environmental injustices (Martinez-Alier 2002). Political ecology understands environmental 321 issues as political, and analyses the relationships between the political, social, and economic 322 factors responsible for socio-ecological distribution conflicts (Robbins 2004). In adopting a 323 political ecology perspective, power relations have to be considered across levels of scale to 324 elucidate coal’s continued dominance in India’s energy mix amidst the global climate crisis and 325 despite local mobilizations contesting the (expansion of the) coal complex. Political ecology 326 provides the analytical tools to examine the roles of multiple actors and their power relations, 11 327 highlighting the connections between vested (economic) interests and the degradation of land and 328 destruction of livelihoods. 329 Integrating the social-ecological and political-ecological perspectives allows us to consider 330 conflicts with the coal complex as conflicts over the “ (re)configuration of metabolisms” with 331 biophysical and social aspects (Demaria and Schindler 2016, 295). Specifically, we integrate 332 insights on energy and climate policy, ecological distribution conflicts and land rights, and 333 alternative approaches to development. This can be considered the ‘political ecology of social 334 metabolism’ (Scheidel et al. 2018). 335 336 3.2. Materials and methods 337 To assess and analyze the coal complex in India from a socio-metabolic and a political ecology 338 perspective, a mix of methods and tools have been implemented in this paper. The initial desk 339 research on movements against coal in India was carried out based on the Environmental Justice 340 Atlas (EJAtlas). The EJAtlas is a tool for collaborative research on environmental justice 341 movements with a theoretical framing rooted in activist knowledge (Temper, Del Bene, and 342 Martinez-Alier 2015; Martinez-Alier et al. 2016b). As of July 2020, the EJAtlas covers 3216 cases 343 worldwide, with the highest number of cases from India (336). Out of these, 72 are coal related. 344 Academic articles as well as grey literature such as newspaper articles, recorded interviews, court 345 documents and reports, were consulted as necessary to update or modify understanding of the 346 cases. Many of the environmental justice movements in India are long-drawn, with substantial 347 intervals between multiple court decisions as well as final outcomes, hence the need to 348 continuously update our understanding of them (Roy 2019). After reviewing secondary literature 349 and/or speaking with local actors, new cases of environmental justice movements emerging in 350 India were added to the atlas, mostly focused on coal, such as the Goa Against Coal movement 351 against expansion of Mormugao port for increased coal imports (EJAtlas 2017) and the conflict 352 on rat hole coal mining in Meghalaya (EJAtlas 2018a). 353 Brototi Roy then conducted fieldwork in multiple locations in India for a total of six months 354 between 2017 and 2019. Table 1 provides an overview of how many interviews were carried out 355 in which context. The interviewees were people from the communities affected by the coal 356 projects, district administration officials, as well as activists and journalists who have been 357 associated with the movements. State District Name of Conflict Type No. of Interviews Jharkhand Latehar Forest rights claims Coal mine 8 12 Jharkhand Godda Land disputes Thermal power plant 12 Andhra Pradesh Srikakulam Sompeta wetlands Thermal power plant 9 Goa South Goa Mormugao port Coal transport 11 Total 40 358 Table 1: Overview of interviews carried out at each site of coal-related conflict during fieldwork 359 While most interviews lasted from forty-five minutes to an hour, some were also two to three 360 hours long, requiring flexibility in terms of preparation and planning. In the semi-structured 361 interviews, Roy did not offer a definition of the conflict at hand, leaving it up to the interviewees 362 to identify causes, triggers, opponents, and aims. The main structured themes then revolved 363 around the history of the conflict, the methods and motivations for resistances, the outcomes of 364 the protests, the present situation and the perceived future plan of action. Except for the case of 365 Sompeta in Andhra Pradesh, where translation was required from Telugu, all the other interviews 366 were carried out in Hindi or English. In each of the places, Roy had an initial point of contact, 367 who was either a member of the community, or had worked in the region for many years and was 368 trusted by the locals. The movements in Godda and South Goa are currently active, whereas in 369 Latehar and Srikakulam, the mobilization was at its peak from 2009 to 2013. 370 Interviews were supplemented by site visits and attendance at activists’ meetings, gatherings and 371 conferences, such as a meeting on forest rights in Ranchi, the state capital of Jharkhand, a national 372 gathering of activists fighting against coal mining and thermal power plants in Dhanbad, the ‘coal 373 capital’ of India, and academic workshops on land and tribal rights in New Delhi, where Roy 374 participated as a direct observer. These contexts offered the chance for informal conversations 375 with activists, policy makers and academics involved in the sphere of environmental justice, social 376 movements, tribal rights and climate activism. 377 In May and June 2020, following the announcement of an investment of Rs. 50,000 crores (US$ 378 6.5 billion approx.) in the coal sector of India and introduction of commercial coal mining auction 379 for 41 coal blocks, 8 additional interviews were carried out virtually with climate justice activists 380 to understand how this would shape the grassroots mobilization on ground, in the midst of a global 381 pandemic. These interviews were also semi-structured and lasted between forty-five minutes and 382 one hour. 383 These interviews and informal conversations over the last three years were triangulated with 384 government reports, academic articles, grey literature and court documents to examine the 385 multiple ways in which coal is contested, from a political ecology and environmental justice 386 perspective. 13 387 Coal mining is simultaneously a social process, part of a wider political-economic configuration, 388 and a socio-metabolic process. Next to the political ecology lens, we therefore also considered 389 the Indian coal complex through the lens of social ecology, considering its role in the social 390 metabolism, that is in the material and energy inputs, transformations, and outputs required to 391 reproduce society (Fisher-Kowalski and Erb 2016). We considered the role of coal in India’s 392 overall material and energy metabolism, using data on extraction, imports, and exports and the 393 resulting supply and consumption indicators (UNEP 2019; IEA 2019). Information on access to 394 electricity was extracted from the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2019) and 395 interpreted in the knowledge that these figures may represent an overestimation of access. 396 India does not have a centralized system of collection and reporting of energy data which makes 397 it difficult to assess the current status and future national scenario in terms of the different energy 398 mixes (IEA 2020a). As a result, we had to rely on international databases (UNEP, IEA) to some 399 extent but wherever information was directly available from Indian statistical sources, we gave 400 preference to this data. This especially pertains to Government of India coal statistics 401 (Government of India 2015b). 402 403 4. Results 404 4.1. The rise in Indian coal extraction and use 405 India is expanding and solidifying its centralized fossil energy system, of which the electricity 406 system is an important component. By 2015, coal contributed 39% to India’s total primary energy 407 supply (TPES), compared to 23% in 1970. Including petroleum and natural gas, 70% of India’s 408 TPES stemmed from fossil sources, compared to 37% in 1970 (Figure 3). The rise of renewables 409 – hydro, wind, solar, biomass combustion and gasification – does not lead to slower growth and 410 certainly not to reductions in fossil energy supply. The use of coal in TPES is growing more 411 strongly in India than anywhere else in the world: Between 2010 and 2015, India’s average annual 412 growth rate was 6.2%, while China’s was 2.2%, the USA’s -5.7%, and the world average was 413 1.1%. Yet, India’s per capita energy consumption is only a fraction of that of the wealthy, mature 414 industrialized countries: 10% of that of Japan and less than 5% of that of the USA (all data 415 discussed in this paragraph is from (UNEP 2019)). 14 Figure 3: Between 1970 and 2015, India’s total primary energy supply grew from 6.5 Exajoules (1018 Joules) per year (EJ/a) to 39.1 EJ/a. Although renewables grew consistently and especially strongly from 2010 onwards, this growth was outstripped by the accelerated supply of coal, natural gas, and petroleum. 70% of TPES stemmed from fossil sources by 2015. Source of data: (UNEP 2019) 416 417 India primarily extracts (and imports) coal for electricity generation. Approximately ¾ of India’s 418 electricity is coal-based with the remaining ¼ stemming almost exclusively from renewables and 419 nuclear (IEA 2019). Imports have become important in meeting India’s coal demand: For hard 420 coal, the most commonly extracted and used type of coal in India, imports in 2015 corresponded 421 to 20% of domestic production. Imports stem from other Asian countries: India receives the 422 second largest share (after China) of Indonesia’s coal exports, for example. India is also the main 423 importer of steam coal – also primarily used to generate electricity – from the USA (IEA 2018a). 424 As India accelerates its transition to a fossil energy system, it requires extractive expansion 425 domestically and abroad. India’s dependence on coal imports and Indian investments in coal 426 extraction in other countries link its energy consumption to conflicts in, for example, Australia 427 (Rosewarne 2016) and Bangladesh (Misra and Mookerjea 2017), and in the recent past even in 428 the Russian Arctic (Peter 2019). 429 Unlike the patterns identified in Latin American economies of resource (neo-)extractivism, the 430 expansion of coal extraction in India is not driven by exports (Burchardt and Dietz 2014). This is 431 framed politically as an argument in support of expanding coal extraction: In the shape of 432 economic growth and employment (not just in coal mining but also in related industries) and 15 433 industrialization with the associated access to electricity and other services, coal extraction is 434 supposedly for the common good of the Indian people (Bidwai, 2012). 435 In direct terms, the Indian coal industry is not an important source of employment for the working 436 population, over 50% of which are employed in agriculture, 25% in services, 11% in 437 manufacturing, and 10% in construction (NSSO 2014). Less than 1% of employment is in mining 438 and electricity, gas, and water supply combined (S. Chowdhury 2011). Coal mines are sources of 439 employment during their initial establishment and provide less employment once the mine is ‘up 440 and running’ – employment in resource extraction in general tends to be temporary and/or 441 seasonal (Schaffartzik 2018). Of course, all other industries, including the service sectors, depend 442 on electricity, generated mainly through coal combustion. A large share of the economic value 443 added by the country’s government-run Indian Railways is obtained in the transport of coal. 444 However, neither Indian Railways nor Coal India Limited have created additional employment in 445 step with the growth of their revenues. The coal complex replicates the “virtually jobless” growth 446 that has characterized India’s economy in the late 20th and early 21st century (Dasgupta and 447 Singh 2005). As coal output increased, average employment in coal mining either stagnated or 448 even declined. This can be observed for the Indian average as well as for the three main coal- 449 mining states (Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and Jharkhand, Figure 4). Labor productivity, i.e., the coal 450 produced per average person employed daily, tends to be higher in those states with large, open- 451 pit coal mines, more conducive to mechanization than in those states and areas where coal is 452 mined manually. Both types of mining are subject to different conflicts as we will demonstrate in 453 Section 4.2. 16 Figure 4: In all of India and in the major coal states, average daily employment (ADE) in coal mining (in 1000 people) decreases or stagnates as coal output (in Megatons (106 tons) per year (Mt/a)) increases. Source of data: Government of India (2015b) 454 455 Overall access to electricity, in urban as well as rural areas, improved during the period of rising 456 coal extraction and use: While just over 40% of the Indian population had access to electricity in 457 1990, this rate more than doubled to 85% by 2017 (World Bank 2018). This average, however, is 458 the result of almost complete access to electricity for the urban population (so long as the very 459 important informal settlements in urban areas are not considered) and lower access in the rural 460 areas. The gains in terms of electricity access are not proportional to the extracted coal: Between 461 1990 and 2010, access to electricity tended to improve by about 3% per year (World Bank 2018), 462 irrespective of whether 2 million tons less coal than in the previous year were extracted (as was 463 the case in 1998) or 35 million additional tons (2008). At the very least, this seems to indicate 464 that access to electricity is not functionally hinged on expanding coal extraction. 465 466 4.2. Conflicts about coal 467 The conflicts erupting over coal indicate that significant parts of the population are not in 468 agreement with extractive expansion as the development pathway. The underlying power 469 relations that have been (and continue to be) sustained by coal became nationally very visible by 470 what is popularly known as the CoalGate scandal. On September 24, 2014, the Supreme Court of 471 India, the apex court of the country, ordered the deallocation of 214 of the 218 coal blocks 472 allocated between 1993 and 2010. This was based on a court ruling that the allotments of coal 473 blocks made by the government were illegal and arbitrary. Amidst discussions on corruption and 474 crony capitalism, CoalGate became one of the major political scandals of recent years, causing 475 an uproar about the illegal and corrupt ways of the Indian coal complex (Sarma 2013). 476 However, despite generating national awareness, the realities on the ground didn’t change much. 477 There were instead more worries and uncertainty over lost land and rehabilitation processes 17 478 (Chakravartty 2015). Mining auctions also re-started soon after, and as of June 2020, privatized 479 and commercial mining are being boosted, generating renewed protests. 480 A multitude of old and new struggles directly and indirectly related to coal have emerged of which 481 we discuss only a few that are exemplary of the central contestations in many more conflicts. 482 High levels of violence, including the deaths of protestors, are a frightening and common feature 483 and a cross-cutting issue in protests over coal mining. Those who are confronted by the brutality 484 of police and private security companies are oftentimes tribals (also known as adivasis) who are 485 also at the forefront of many other ecological distribution conflicts (Shrivastava and Kothari 486 2012). The competing claims to extractive expansion include indigenous (tribal) or other local 487 rights to land, sacredness, and protection from pollution and risks to health. The resulting 488 disagreement with the current or looming configuration of coal extraction may be expressed in 489 written communication and consultations, through demonstrations, or through blockades of 490 mining or production sites or of transport routes for coal. 491 In understanding why, in times of such conflicts and the climate impacts of coal combustion, the 492 coal complex continues to expand, the diversity of the Indian coal economies is not casual but 493 causal. We follow Lahiri-Dutt (2016) in generally distinguishing national coal, neoliberal coal, 494 institutionalized informal (statecraft) coal, and subsistence coal and investigate the conflicts to 495 which each of these economies gives rise. 496 497 4.2.1. National coal - The state’s claim to land 498 Jharkhand in India’s east contains one-third of the country’s coal reserves and is the largest coal- 499 producing state. The state also has a large indigenous population who have historically been 500 marginalized and oppressed (Munda and Bosu Mullick 2003). The indigenous communities 501 displaced by coal mines experience livelihood insecurity and poor living and working conditions 502 despite provisions for compensation and for employment in the mines operated by Coal India 503 Limited (Meher 2009). 504 As a result, there are numerous conflicts against coal, many lasting for decades. One such conflict, 505 ongoing since 2004 and located in the district of Hazaribagh, is against a coal mining project 506 which is a joint venture between Coal India Limited and the National Thermal Power Corporation 507 (NTPC), the largest power utility company in the country. Coal is to be mined from the Punkhri- 508 Barwadih coal block of the North Karanpura coal field which has a confirmed deposit of 1400 509 million tons of coal. If realized, not only would forest and agricultural land be destroyed , but also 510 the prehistoric megaliths discovered in the region (Imam 2003). Local villagers, many of them 511 tribal, organized to protest the land appropriation for the sake of mining (Meher 2009). Since 18 512 2004, the Karanpura Bachao Sangarsh Samiti (Committee for the Struggle to Save Karanpura) 513 had been protecting farmland against NTPC’s coal mining ambitions, organizing a number of 514 marches and demonstrations (fieldnotes, October 2017). Amidst protest, and with heavy security, 515 mining had commenced on May 17, 2016 in the Punkhri-Barwadih coal block. 516 Soon afterwards, opposition politicians began to back the villagers in their struggle for rights to 517 land and livelihood. This was because, out of the 8,745 families that NTPC had urged to the sell 518 their land, only 2,614 had accepted the compensation offered. Others protested the unjust level of 519 compensation and the illegal methods of land appropriation (M. Chowdhury 2016). On August 520 14, 2016, approximately 200 villagers prevented NTPC contractors from building a resettlement 521 colony. The police responded to this with tear gas and 22 rounds of bullets, injuring six people 522 who were arrested when they reached a civil hospital in Hazaribagh for treatment. On September 523 15, some thousand villagers began a sit-in near a mining site in Chiru Barwadih village. On 524 October 1, five of them were killed and at least 40 others injured, when in the early morning 525 hours, police fired 60 rounds of bullets at these villagers (M. Chowdhury 2016). The fate of the 526 villagers, the jungle, and the heritage of the Karanpura Valley remains undecided still as forced 527 acquisition continues despite the protests (Iqbal 2016; Pal 2019). 528 529 4.2.2. Neoliberal coal – Threats to local livelihoods for coal production 530 India’s south eastern state of Andhra Pradesh highlights the illegalities and violence associated 531 with the coal complex, where both local livelihoods and ecologically sensitive regions are ignored 532 in the construction of thermal power plants. In and around Andhra’s coastal district of Srikakulam, 533 at least seven thermal power plants were proposed in the early 2000s on fertile wetlands, which 534 were allegedly falsely denoted as wasteland for obtaining environmental clearances (Dasgupta 535 and Tata 2010). Kakarapalli (EJAtlas 2018b) and Sompeta (EJAtlas 2019), two of the proposed 536 sites in Srikakulam district, were the epi-centers of protests against the power plants. These 537 protests continued despite the deaths of activists at the hands of the police. The proposed sites for 538 Kakarapalli promoted by East Coast Energy Private Limited and for Sompeta by Nagarjuna 539 Construction Company, were on expanses of wetlands where construction would destroy the 540 livelihoods of the farmers and fisherfolks (Sarma 2011; 2010). As a result, both regions saw 541 different forms of mobilization to stop these coal projects, including relay hunger strikes 542 (fieldnotes, February 2017). 543 Under the banner of Paryavaran Parirakshana Sangham (Committee for the Preservation of 544 Environment), 3000 people gathered in Sompeta on July 14, 2010 to protest the destruction of 545 their land, water, and air that the proposed power plant would cause. In the brutal repression of 546 their protest, three of them were killed when police opened fire on the protestors. In Kakarapalli, 19 547 protests were similarly directed against the locally proposed power plant on February 28, 2011 548 when two people were killed by police fire. In both instances, many more protestors were injured. 549 Due to these protests and the associated violence which made national news, the Union Ministry 550 of Environment and Forests set up a committee which confirmed the existence of wetlands and 551 the dire socio-ecological consequences of setting up thermal power plants in the regions 552 (Narayanan 2015). 553 In Sompeta, it took several years for the state government to concede to the protestors’ demands 554 and assure the site be used only for “eco-friendly” projects such as agri-business which the locals 555 are still struggling against to conserve the unique wetland on which their sustenance depends 556 (Rajeev 2015). In Kakarapalli, it was only in August 2017 that some indication was provided that 557 the project would not proceed – reportedly due to financial issues and changed government policy 558 (Venkata Rao 2017). However, according to the May 2019 report of the Ministry of Power on 559 thermal power projects in India, the plant is still under construction, despite slow progress due to 560 financial problems (CEA 2019). According to local sources, the plant was partially set up and 561 then abandoned, but not before destroying roughly a thousand acres of wetland (Adve 562 Forthcoming). 563 564 4.2.3. Institutionalized informal coal - Legal grey areas created by statecraft 565 Coal mining in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya is quite different from the rest of the country 566 (EJAtlas 2018a). Under the Indian constitution, Meghalaya has special status as a Sixth Schedule 567 state which gives indigenous communities the rights to the natural resources (unlike the rest of 568 the country, where these resources are owned by the state governments). This implies that 569 whoever owns the land also owns the coal. However, according to the Mines and Minerals 570 Development and Regulation Act, coal is a major mineral that cannot be mined by individuals. 571 The legal grey area in which coal is nonetheless mined in Meghalaya is the result of rights granted 572 in the process of statecraft nation-building. 573 The most common form in which coal is mined on the individually held lands of Meghalaya is 574 rat-hole mining: manual coal extraction in which workers reach the coal seam by digging and 575 crawling through small tunnels, approximately 1 meter in diameter. On April 17, 2014, the 576 National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned rat-hole mining in Meghalaya as well as transport of coal 577 previously extracted in this manner, stock-piled at mining sites in the East Jaintia Hills, West 578 Khasi Hills and South Garo Hills regions of the state. The ban followed a petition filed in the 579 neighboring state of Assam, where acidic discharge from the mines in the Jaintia Hills had 580 polluted the Kopili river basin. The petition further cited illegal and unscientific (rat-hole) mining 581 methods leading to hazardous working conditions for the miners (NGT 2014). 20 582 The ban on rat-hole mining triggered fundamental debates on livelihoods and indigenous rights 583 (McDuie-Ra and Kikon 2016). The practice of rat-hole mining enabled people to make a living 584 from coal with very low capital requirements. This was argued to allow people to meet their 585 livelihood needs and to be within the rights of the indigenous population within the Sixth Schedule 586 areas to use their land and the resources it harbors. On these grounds, a lifting of the ban was 587 requested. At the same time, many activists claimed that rat-hole mining only benefitted a few 588 powerful people, including politicians, while the tribals had been displaced in large numbers and 589 for decades. This raised the issue of what kind of development rat-hole mining allowed for and 590 what conceivable alternatives there were. 591 The presence of a coal mafia (and the violence it exercises) is an open secret in Meghalaya (Saikia 592 2019). On November 8, 2018, activists Agnes Kharshiing and Anita Sangma were assaulted, 593 reportedly by the coal mafia’s henchmen, for documenting the extent of illegal coal mining in the 594 East Jaintia Hills. A few years prior, in 2015, P J Marbaniang, a sub-inspector of police, was 595 found dead under suspicious circumstances after he had seized 32 trucks that had been used in 596 violation of the NGT ban on transport of coal (Press Trust of India 2015). The mafia consists of 597 people with social, economic and political power who stand to gain much from continued coal 598 extraction. As a result, there have been multiple petitions made to lift the ban, and in July 2019, 599 the Supreme Court revoked it (Mazumdar 2019). 600 601 4.2.4. Subsistence Coal - Koyla Satyagraha livelihoods and entrepreneurs 602 In many parts of central and eastern India, there exists a subsistence coal economy of people who, 603 in most cases, are former farmers who have been displaced by larger mines (fieldnotes, October 604 2017). Within the affected communities, small-scale coal mining is a claim to subsistence which 605 has been formalized in a movement called Koyla (Coal) Satyagraha3. By extracting coal 606 manually, the miners and their communities exercise non-violent protest against the current 607 patterns of coal extraction while simultaneously claiming as theirs the resources that their land 608 harbors. ‘If the government wants the coal beneath our land, we will give it to them, but we won’t 609 part with our fertile land.’ The first such Satyagraha started in 2011 in Gare village, in Raigarh, 610 Chhattisgarh and since then has spread in other parts of the state as well as to Jharkhand (Amnesty 611 International India 2015). 3 The term Satyagraha, translated from Hindi to mean ‘holding onto truth’ was a form of passive political resistance used by M.K. Gandhi first in South Africa and then during the freedom struggle in India in the first half of the twentieth century, and has been replicated in many social and political struggles in the country since then. 21 612 613 5. Discussion: More power relations than electric power 614 Despite strong opposition to the expanding coal complex; despite the local environmental 615 destruction through mines, and air pollution associated with mining, transport, and combustion; 616 despite the disastrous effects that the climate crisis has on India; despite the political commitment 617 to renewable energy and environmental protection, “King Coal” continues to reign in India. 618 In just two decades, between 1994 and 2014, India’s annual coal extraction doubled from 250 to 619 500 million tons and fossil fuels use continues to grow rapidly. That the Indian government so 620 strongly adheres to the coal project is indicative of the multiple socio-economic functions of coal 621 beyond energy provision (Lecavalier and Harrington 2017). 622 The most visible justification for the expansion in times of conflict and climate crisis is that coal 623 supposedly allows for development, that is, for industrialization following the Western (and more 624 recently Chinese (Tyfield 2014)) blueprint, with coal (and the harnessing of energy it represents) 625 attracting investment and enabling much-needed better access to energy, especially in the shape 626 of electricity; and with mines and power plants and trickle-down effects into the economy 627 generating the employment the country desperately needs; in sum, with coal improving the 628 income and the lives of all Indians. This was, for example, the justification provided for the 629 auction of 41 coal blocks for private companies to mine in June 2020 (Ellis-Petersen 2020) 630 Whether or not such goals – lofty and basal – are truly what motivates decision-makers stands to 631 question. Either way, the reasoning or the narrative alone does not drive the observable change. 632 Based on our analysis of the Indian coal complex, we propose that what gives rise to the 633 unimpeded expansion of coal, in the face of local opposition and of the climate crisis, is the 634 constricted socio-metabolic corridor coupled with the diversity of coal economies coexisting in 635 the seemingly monolithic coal complex. 636 637 5.1. An extraction imperative in the socio-metabolic corridor 638 The continued expansion of coal extraction in India and the rising levels of imports, fueling a 639 fossil electricity system, fall into the ongoing build-up and cementation of a heavily centralized 640 material- and emission-intensive fossil energy system (Schaffartzik and Fischer-Kowalski 2018). 641 This system constricts the socio-metabolic corridor, that is, the present and future space within 642 which society’s biophysical reproduction must take place. The changes to the local and global 643 environment caused by societal resource use range from irreversible forms of deforestation, soil 644 erosion, damages to human health, and loss of agricultural land, to the climate crisis with its far- 22 645 reaching effects on natural ecosystems and society-nature relations. Any and all future biophysical 646 societal reproduction will have to occur within the confines of these changes. At the same time, 647 the claims to land and other resources made in the name of industrialization and expansion of the 648 fossil energy system preclude other forms of land and resource use. Coal extracted and burnt now 649 will not be available in the future. To make land occupied now by coal mines or power plants 650 viable again for other uses – agriculture, human settlement, and environmental protection – will 651 take a substantial material and energetic effort and/or a very long time. As the expansion of the 652 coal complex progresses, the metabolic corridor becomes gradually narrower. Within the smaller 653 operating space, competing human activities are even more likely to come into conflict with 654 another. 655 Worryingly, it is conceivable that the closing of the metabolic corridor will cease to be gradual 656 and instead occur in an exponential manner. The reason for this change of pace is that the 657 expansion of the coal complex prescribes the increasing use of coal. Within the capitalist 658 economic system, mines and powerplants have expected active lifetimes that do not have to do 659 with the useful services they deliver to society but with their return on investment. People who – 660 in the course of extractive expansion – are dispossessed of their livelihood resources are forced 661 to undergo a metabolic transition of their own (Scheidel and Schaffartzik 2019), thereby 662 becoming dependent on the corresponding energy and material availability and access. They are 663 coerced into engaging in wage labor to secure a market-based subsistence, changing their 664 consumption patterns accordingly. The dependence on wages often gives workers no other choice 665 but to put up with hazardous working conditions, with high risks of accidents. 666 667 5.2. Economic diversity and cumulative expansion 668 Behind the seemingly monolithic growth of India’s coal complex are different, partially 669 competing processes of expansion. Following Lahiri-Dutt (2016), we have referred to these as 670 economies of coal (Sections 2 and 4.2) which differ in socio-metabolic and political-ecological 671 terms. The coexistence, the differences but also the overlapping of these economies cumulatively 672 enable the expansion of the coal complex. Indian coal can simultaneously be conceived of as a 673 state-building and -upholding resource, an opportunity for capitalist growth, a regional 674 development chance (for entrepreneurs and politicians), and the main source of household 675 reproduction. Within Lahiri-Dutt’s category of national coal, there is a market-based form of 676 subsistence coal (or, it has been successfully established) in which people are or feel they are 677 dependent on the coal complex for income and thus for their livelihood. This circumstance can 678 easily lead people to develop a certain attachment to this resource and its use (or to their right to 679 profit from the expansion of the coal complex). Conflicts over coal show that where coal is 23 680 extracted by state-held companies, law enforcement is at their beck and call, even to turn against 681 the Indian population at large. Considering that – even though it is state-held – Coal India Limited 682 is not an operation for the common good but a business required to make profit, this highlights 683 the role of law enforcement in de facto protecting capitalist production imperatives. That the same 684 law enforcement organs would then conceivably protect the interests of private companies (and 685 neoliberal coal) is not much of a stretch and has already been demonstrated in practice. 686 687 6. Conclusions: Are the coal phase-out and renewable energy ingredients of 688 transformation? 689 Given the problems attached to coal expansion in India, which we have demonstrated, the 690 announced coal phase out (Central Electricity Authority 2018) is – in theory – an important 691 countermeasure. A true coal phase-out, however, would have to involve two things that are absent 692 from the current plan of the Indian government: 693 1) the decision to leave the “coal in the hole” and to halt extraction even while it is still considered 694 ‘economically viable’; Instead, the continued expansion of the coal complex makes it seem as 695 though the coal phase-out will not be a concerted effort but rather the result of exhausted coal 696 reserves in some areas and financially unviable ‘stranded assets’ in others. India’s tryst with coal 697 is far from over, although it may possibly be slowing down (Vishwanathan, Garg, and Tiwari 698 2018) and might never reach Chinese dimensions. This is directly related to the unrealized second 699 requirement of the coal phase-out: 700 2) a tremendous joint endeavor of people, government, and business to transform the energy 701 system; not only from one based on fossil fuels and nuclear energy to one based on renewables 702 but also from a heavily capitalized, centralized system to locally controllable decentralized energy 703 provisioning. 704 Neither the lip service of the Indian government to renewable energy nor the actual investments 705 and installed capacities break the mold of the fossil system, which is neither sustainable nor just. 706 In fact, many renewable energy projects have raised similar problems as the coal complex 707 expansion, including the dispossession of the local population from their livelihood resources and 708 the sustained lack of access to electricity, even the vicinity of new projects. One example is the 709 113 MW Andhra Lake wind power project, promoted by the multi-national Enercon, on the 710 outskirts of Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. Here, the 711 villagers who live next to the project site don’t have access to electricity while the project 712 threatens their livelihoods and the rich biodiversity of the region (Lakhanpal 2019). This pattern 713 is followed in different parts of the global south, where land is always a contested commodity 24 714 (Avila 2018). It is studied globally as ‘extractivism of renewables’ in which renewables such as 715 hydropower often replicate similar patterns of violence as have been observed in the extraction 716 of fossil and metal minerals (Del Bene, Scheidel, and Temper 2018). 717 From a global, somewhat abstract perspective, the expansion of the Indian coal complex is 718 troubling because of the present and expected contribution to the climate crisis. From a more 719 concrete solidarity with those locally protesting this expansion, the threat to human livelihoods 720 and human lives is devastating. The violence that is inherent to the observed conflicts over coal 721 erupts not only over the rights to extraction or to electricity that are at stake but over the 722 fundamental power relations and rights (all too often “rights” claimed without a legal basis) to 723 resources. In this light, why actors go to such extremes to enforce one way of production becomes 724 simultaneously more understandable and more deplorable; the conflicts aren’t even about getting 725 a service to the people who may need it. What is so violently enforced in all these cases is also 726 the dominance of the interests of powerful actors over the local population. 727 This dominance, as the article shows, based on underlying power relations, is replicated in the 728 different subnational economies of coal in India, in particular, and across different countries and 729 commodities more generally. It must be further investigated to understand why coal continues to 730 reign, across different scales, despite global concerns of climate crisis and local concerns of 731 adverse impacts on health and environment. 732 733 Acknowledgements 734 We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and editor Oliver Petit for their valuable 735 comments as well as the time they put in for reviewing this paper. We are also thankful to Joan 736 Martinez-Alier for his constant support during the writing process, and to Federico Demaria, 737 Giorgos Kallis and Nagraj Adve for proving comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. 738 Brototi Roy acknowledges the support from the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced 739 Grant ENVJUSTICE (No. 695446). Anke Schaffartzik acknowledges the financial support from 740 the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the ‘María de Maeztu’ program 741 for Units of Excellence (MDM-2015-0552) and from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) through 742 Hertha Firnberg project T949. 743 744 745 746 25 747 References 748 Adve, Nagraj. 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