Beyond Oil Conference
The Beyond Oil conference is an interdisciplinary conference held bienially since 2015. The next conference is on the 22nd and 23rd of October, 2025.
Is the world inevitably moving beyond oil?
We are confronted by ecological degradation, social fragmentation, and climate change. Moving beyond oil entails transforming our resource-driven economy, consumer society, and relationship with capital. This moment of change presents an opportunity to rebuild the economy, society, and the world in more sustainable, convivial and equitable ways. Imagining and enacting alternative climate futures is a key element in moving society beyond oil.
Since 2015, the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation’s biennial Beyond Oil conference has broadened and pluralised understanding of societal futures beyond oil, championing engagement with climate and energy futures. Research at this critical juncture of transition as we shoot past 1.5˚C global warming is pivotal towards redefining and identifying scope for the change in trajectory we so urgently need. How can society move beyond oil? What futures can be made feasible by whom? What societal, political, and economic effects are held in the grasp of possible climate futures? For our 10th anniversary, we invite social scientists and humanists to jointly grapple with these foundational ethical, ontological, and epistemic questions of our time.
Join us in a collective reckoning of the present, informed by the past, and intent on shaping transformative climate and energy futures.
See here for full details about the Beyond Oil 2025 conference.
Previous Beyond Oil conferences
2023 Beyond Oil: Refuelling Transformation
October 17 - 18, 2023
Society is inevitably moving beyond oil. And yet, the ongoing energy crisis demonstrates that transforming to low-carbon societies is bound up in multiple crises, backlashes and setbacks. Fossil fuel displacement remains both urgent and challenging. We have the knowledge and technology needed, and with political and individual will, we can refuel transformation in a just and inclusive manner. The historical moment also asks us to rethink, re-evaluate and reflect on existing transformative efforts.
Join us in a collective reckoning of the present, informed by the past, facing the future.
Speakers:
- Zarina Patel, Associate Professor, University of Cape Town
- Helene Ahlborg, Assistant Professor, Chalmers University of Technology
- Derk Loorbach, Professor and director of DRIFT, Erasmus University Rotterdam
- Jessica Jewell, Associate Professor, Chalmers University of Technology & UiB.
- Ketan Joshi, Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC)
- Alexander Dodge, Associate Professor, NTNU
- Marie Claire Brisbois, Senior Lecturer, University of Sussex
- Eva Maria Fjellheim, PhD fellow, University of Tromsø
2021 Beyond Oil: Prioritising Climate Change
October 20 - 21, 2021
Society is inevitably moving beyond oil. However, ambiguous targets and plans for phasing out fossil fuels are not sufficient for solving the climate emergency. Climate action must be a priority across all areas of society. We must ask ourselves what it means to prioritise climate action - for the individual, our economy, our political decisions, and our societal institutions. How can we overcome simplistic binaries between welfare and convenience on one hand, and responding to the climate emergency on the other?
How do we mobilise the societal change necessary to make the prioritisation of climate action a reality?
Speakers
- Dr. Kimberly Nicholas, Lund University.
- Dr. Stuart Capstick, Cardiff University and Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation (CAST Centre).
- Dr. Charles Ogunbode, University of Nottingham.
- Dr. John Broome, University of Oxford
- Dr. Vigdis Vandvik, University of Bergen and
- Natalia Golis, Local Politician
2019 Beyond Oil: Deep and Rapid Transformations
October 16 - 17, 2019
Society is inevitably moving beyond oil. However, current rates of change are well below what is necessary to limit global warming to two degrees or less. Low and zero-carbon pathways will require systematic changes in economies, polities and societies. This will affect areas of the world and portions of populations unevenly. Furthermore, existing inequalities hinder the capacity for urgent change. Sustainable transformation must thus simultaneously address the geophysical and socioeconomic challenges of the early 21st century.
How can we accelerate transformation?
Speakers:
Keri Facer, University of Bristol/University of Uppsala
Jessica Jewell, Chalmers University of Technology
Eirik Wærness, Equinor
Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School
Lorraine Whitmarsh, Cardiff University
2017 Beyond Oil: Mobilising Alternative Futures
October 25 - 26, 2017
Society is inevitably moving beyond oil. The direction that this transformation will take is still highly uncertain. Transformations to societies beyond oil involve deliberate choices that lead to different outcomes with regards to power, justice, inequality and human-nature relations.
Speakers:
Kevin Anderson, University of Manchester/University of Uppsala
Josefin Wangel
Miranda Schreurs
Rangit Bharvikar
2015 Beyond Oil: Geographies of climate and energy transformations
October 21 - 22, 2015
Society is inevitably moving beyond oil.
Are we moving beyond oil? How are climate and energy transformations experienced in different parts of the world? What measures do we need to take to move our energy systems in a renewable direction?
Beyond Oil through the years
