The Challenge of ‘Phasing Out’ Fossil Fuels: A Climate-Changing Transition

This chapter identifies and discusses the main markers of the entrenchment of fossil fuels within international law, through the branches of international environmental and energy law. Sections “Introduction” and “Fossil Fuels’ Technical Hegemony” develop a socio-legal analysis that illustrates the worldwide hegemony of the fossil fuels-based energy technical system and the great acceleration of impacts it has impinged on the Earth System. Section “‘The Great Acceleration’ of Impacts on the Earth System” identifies a long-lasting ab ovo structural contradiction at the core of the international legal depictions of energy as a legal object, which prioritize fossil fuels-based ‘energy production and use’ over ‘environmental protection’, while, at the same time, pledging to stop offsetting the balance of the Earth’s biosphere and its ecosystems. The fourth and final section discusses how the ongoing national overarching policies towards low-carbon, clean, energy matrices, generically labelled as ‘green deals’, are enabling the energy transition—whilst facing demanding challenges stemming from the carbon-intensive international normative frameworks.