Beyond Oil 2025: Changing Climate Futures

The Call for Abstracts is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted an abstract to the Beyond Oil conference. 

You can now register for the conference.

• Deadline for presenters: August 15th
• Deadline for audience participants: October 9th

The 2025 theme is "Changing Climate Futures"

Is society inevitably moving beyond oil? 

We are confronted by ecological degradation, social fragmentation, and climate change. Moving beyond oil entails transforming our resource-driven economy, consumer society, and relationship with capital.  This moment of change presents an opportunity to rebuild the economy, society, and the world in more sustainable, convivial and equitable ways. Imagining and enacting alternative climate futures is a key element in moving society beyond oil.  

Since 2015, the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation’s biennial Beyond Oil conference has broadened and pluralised understanding of societal futures beyond oil, championing engagement with climate and energy futures. Research at this critical juncture of transition as we shoot past 1.5˚C global warming is pivotal towards redefining and identifying scope for the change in trajectory we so urgently need. How can society move beyond oil? What futures can be made feasible by whom? What societal, political, and economic effects are held in the grasp of possible climate futures? For our 10th anniversary, we invite social scientists and humanists to jointly grapple with these foundational ethical, ontological, and epistemic questions of our time. 

Join us in a collective reckoning of the present, informed by the past, and intent on shaping transformative climate and energy futures. 

Confirmed speakers for the conference:

• Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University
• Andy Stirling, Professor of Science and Technology Policy, University of Sussex
• Early Career Researcher keynote: Lara Santos Ayllon, PhD Candidate, University of Edinburgh
• Petter Gulli, 12 years.
• Thea Emilie Maubach-Vindenes, Spokesperson, Verdens beste nyheter (The world's best news)
• Anne Beate Hovind, Chairwomen, Future Library Trust
• Lisa Röstlund, Journalist and author of "Norgeparapoxen" (EN: The Norweigan Paradox).
• Devyn Remme, PhD Candidate, CET/University of Bergen

Beyond Oil is an interdisciplinary and international conference organised biennially by the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen. We provide an arena to discuss how to move society beyond oil, in its broadest sense.

Practical information 

• The format for the parallel sessions is 8-minute presentations followed by group discussions.   
• The conference will be organized in line with the CET Low- Carbon Travel Policy.  
• This is an in-person-only conference, but keynote sessions will be streamed, recorded and posted online subsequently. We are also working on offering hybrid arrangements for some plenary sessions. Let us know if you are interested in presenting digitally.  
• Questions can be sent to beyondoil@uib.no  

Conference fee 

• 1500 NOK (this includes lunch and refreshments on both days) 
• Conference dinner is an extra 450 NOK 
• Bachelor and Master's students: 300 NOK 

If you have a good reason for a fee waiver, please submit a short explanation to beyondoil@uib.no once you have submitted an abstract. Registration and payment will be opened after the CFA deadline.

Important dates

• Call for abstracts deadline: March 28th
• Call for abstracts notification: No later than May 2nd 
• Registration and payment deadline for abstract presentation: August 15th
• Registration deadline for audience participation: October 9th

Conference venue: UiB Learning arena NG5, University of Bergen. Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen.  

Please note, we are planning an evening event on Tuesday, the 21st of October. 

About Bergen:  

Bergen is a small medieval city nestled between seven mountains. Together with the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, we have a rich climate community spanning natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, psychology, medicine and the arts. 

How to get there: 

We encourage ground transport to the conference where possible.  

If you arrive at Bergen Train station, you are already in the middle of Bergen city. The train station is within walking distance of most facilities in the city centre, including the Læringsarena, NG5. 

If you arrive at Bergen Airport, Flesland, there are several ways of getting to the city centre: 

• Bergen light rail runs from Bergen airport to ‘Byparken’, which is in the city centre. The trip takes 45 minutes. 
• The airport bus (Flybussen) has frequent departures to the city centre. The bus ride will take 25-45 minutes, depending on the traffic. 

Follow updates and the conversation on LinkedIn and Bluesky #Beyondoil25.