On 3 November, we are grateful to welcome an inspiring presentation by Dr Cristina Espinosa, an Ecuadorian Environmental Social Scientist and Assistant Professor of Sustainability Governance at the University of Freiburg. Cristina earned her PhD in Environmental Governance from Freiburg, where her dissertation won the Erasmus Prize for the Liberal Arts and Sciences. She also holds a BA in International Relations, Sociology, and Latin American Studies from Universidad San Francisco de Quito. 

A former Fellow of the Young Academy for Sustainability Research, Cristina coauthored Welt im Wandel, a graphic novel exploring the “polycrisis” of our times. She previously led the Politics of Natural Resources research cluster at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute and contributed to environmental policy projects for the German Environmental Agency. Her research sits at the crossroads of Political Ecology, Feminist Science and Technology Studies, and Decolonial Thinking, exploring how communities, knowledge systems, and non-human nature intersect in environmental politics.

Cristina will tackle a relevant question: What does “meaningful climate action” really mean in a world hungry for critical minerals?

As the global push for decarbonization accelerates, so does demand for resources like lithium, copper, and nickel—fuelling new waves of mining in the Global South. While this expansion is framed as part of the green transition, it often comes at the cost of Indigenous lands, rural livelihoods, and ecosystems. 

Through a political ecology lens and drawing on her fieldwork in Ecuador, Cristina will unpack the tensions between global climate ambitions and local socio-ecological struggles. She will show how affected communities resist extractivist “green development” models and create alternative pathways toward more just, inclusive, and ecologically grounded climate action.