Divestment, energy incumbency and the global political economy of energy transition: the case of Adani’s Carmichael mine in Australia

Divestment campaigners are relatively new entrants to climate activism but have already made important contributions to the efforts of their climate movement allies. Through their strategy of directly targeting those financial actors responsible for the funding of fossil fuel production, they now play an increasingly key role in the decarbonization project. Despite these efforts divestment faces significant constraints. These constraints are illustrated in our study of the anti-Carmichael mine campaign in Australia. While the persistent campaign of divestment actors helped convince many financiers to decline funding the mine, in the end the mine was approved to proceed. This is no surprise, given the on-going resilience of fossil fuel financing and of the energy regime that sustains it. To understand the key elements of this resilience, and how it impacts divestment strategy, this paper situates divestment more directly in the contemporary globalized political economy and in the related politics of energy regime incumbency. The findings apply both to our specific Australian case and to the politics of divestment more broadly.Policy Insights The continued funding of fossil fuel production highlights the limitations of national and international climate policy negotiations to achieve significant change.Divestment addresses these policy disappointments through its direct targeting of the financing of fossil fuel production.The Carmichael coal mining case in Australia highlights the constraints climate actors confront in shifting climate policy decision-making away from incumbent energy regime actors – both financial and political.The case’s trajectory raises both national and global climate policy implications, particularly the on-going resilience of fossil fuel financing and the networks and practices that sustain it.