A tale of two coals: the politics of time in coal phase out

Collective social and political imaginaries of energy transitions are underpinned by a particular temporality of linear, teleological paths of progress and modernity, conjuring an abstract future. But what happens when the future is suddenly here? Drawing on sociological and related literatures on ruination and decay, this article offers insights into how different actors respond when they find the temporalities through which they understand the world disrupted. Using empirical insights from the coal phase out process in Alberta, Canada, I analyse how different actors navigate temporal disorder and seek to re-instate temporal order. In doing so, I argue that the temporal is political, offering a novel lens for examining the power dynamics entangled in the phase out of fossil fuels.