Nareeka Ahir

Nareeka is currently researching critical mineral and forest carbon markets in Southeast Asia, with a focus on land acquisition processes. Her work uses a political ecology lens to explore aspects of sustainable development and just transitions embedded in international climate change mitigation strategies. She has previously researched the politics of nickel, cobalt, rare earth elements, oil and gas production in the Middle East and Africa. Nareeka is a recipient of the Bloomsbury scholarship.

Prior to joining SOAS in 2023, Nareeka spent five years in the private sector as a senior commodity market analyst. She specialised in natural resource extraction and geopolitics at S&P Global Commodity Insights in London, and Wood Mackenzie in Singapore. Her work involved developing quantitative energy supply models and supporting energy transition projects for governments and banks in Southeast Asia. She has a BSc in Geophysics from Imperial College London.  

Alongside her PhD, Nareeka is a contributing sustainability researcher at the Critical Minerals Association UK. She has also attended COP29, the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, as an NGO delegate. She is currently participating in an International Carbon Markets Masterclass by the Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance. Nareeka is interested in contributing to additional projects related to climate policy and development. 

Nareeka’s PhD project is supervised by: Dr Giuseppina Siciliano (Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Development, SOAS), Dr Izabela Delabre (Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography, Birkbeck), and Professor Thomas Tanner (Director of CeDEP, the SOAS Centre for Development, Environment and Policy). 

Her research draws upon the following modules which she completed during her MSc at SOAS: Political Ecology of Development (Dr Lisa Tilley), Law and Natural Resources (Professor Philippe Cullet), Global Energy and Climate Policy (Dr Harald Heubaum), Problems of Development in the Middle East and North Africa (Professor Gilbert Achcar), and War to Peace Transitions (Professor Jonathan Goodhand and Professor Christopher Cramer). 

She holds an MSc in Environment, Politics & Development from SOAS, University of London, and a BSc in Geophysics from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London. 

• Critical minerals; 
• Carbon markets; 
• Natural resource politics; 
• Resource governance; Land acquisitions; 
• Land rights; just transitions; 
• Green transitions; 
• Political ecology; 
• Climate change mitigation; 
• Subsurface resource extraction; 
• Environmental policy; 
• Sustainable development