Climate Neutrality 2050, Inequalities and Just Transformation: Case of Upper Nitra, Slovakia after the End of Coal Mining.

The decision to phase out coal in Upper Nitra, Slovakia was made and the mine was definitely closed in 2023. Although central role of the mining industry has been steadily declining as the region economy, impacts on the direct and related jobs and the loss of well-paid jobs causes many uncertainties, and influence different social groups differently. The EU and the government want to make the region an example or success story of regional decarbonisation for reaching 2050 climate neutrality. In the same time, the recent end of coal mining makes it possible to examine these processes in real time and in the context of specific local conditions shaped by the national and supranational frameworks, neoliberalisation policies, and impacts of the EU and the state interventions. The paper present results of the ongoing research based on analyses of cross-sectional perspectives related to socio-economic, socio-political, socio-cultural and gender aspects of the transition to a low-carbon economy. Our approach is based on researching socio-political context of technological drama, Actor- Network theory (A NT) and local field of power. The Bourdieu' field of local power shapes responses and/or coping strategies of different actors exposed to the technological change. There are 3 perspectives in political context here: Imposing, coping and resisting. Or what Brian Pfaffenberger (1992) coin in the concept of technological drama as technological regularization, technological adjustment and technological reconstitution. We focus on the hierarchically structured social space in the region affected by decarbonisation and how it influences the regional economic and social transformation in the perspective of external and internal factors and pressures. The paper specifically focusses on the low-income groups in the process.