Synthetic transitions: the political economy of fossil fuel as feedstock

Joachim Peter Tilsted and Peter Newell

Review of International Political Economy, 2025, vol. 32, issue 4, 1214-1238

Abstract: With simultaneous policy and scholarly attention to the pollution crisis and the climate crisis, there is growing recognition that the two are intimately interconnected through the demand for oil, gas, and coal generated by synthetic materials. Drawing on theoretical resources from international political economy and beyond, we show how petrochemicals sit at the intersection of a number of the primary drivers of the climate crisis, including fossil fuel production and industrial agriculture. The role of petrochemicals and their place in the global political economy of transitions, therefore, warrant greater empirical and critical conceptual scrutiny. Towards this end, we suggest conceptualizing and acting upon the recognition that oil, gas and coal function as feedstock for industries central to the reproduction of modern capitalism, centering the challenge of ‘de-fossilization’. Defossilization goes beyond decarbonization as emphasized in mainstream debates on energy transitions by introducing alternatives to the use of oil, gas and coal as raw materials for synthetics. This reorientation has important conceptual and strategic implications, revealing key tensions, contradictions and challenges for furthering just and sustainable transitions.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2025.2467394

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