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There is no consensus in the social sciences on the terms used to describe the transition from a world with high environmental impacts based on resource extraction and stock energies, to a world that is less threatened by multiple risks over the long term. Sustainable development, sobriety and transition have been or are still being debated, particularly in history. This article proposes a new approach to these issues, based on the notion of energy de-escalation. It explores the interest of a notion that insists on the process itself, on its difficulty and its incarnation, while also describing the final horizon, of lower energy and power consumption. This article is the translation of the original in French : Arnaud Passalacqua, Annaïg Oiry, Roberta Pistoni, « Pour une histoire des désescalades énergétiques », JEHRHE, n°13, Hiver 2024.

There is no consensus in the social sciences on the terms used to describe the transition from a world with high environmental impacts based on resource extraction and stock energies, to a world that is less threatened by multiple risks over the long term. Sustainable development, sobriety and transition have been or are still being debated, particularly in history. This article proposes a new approach to these issues, based on the notion of energy de-escalation. It explores the interest of a notion that insists on the process itself, on its difficulty and its incarnation, while also describing the final horizon, of lower energy and power consumption. This article is the translation of the original in French : Arnaud Passalacqua, Annaïg Oiry, Roberta Pistoni, « Pour une histoire des désescalades énergétiques », JEHRHE, n°13, Hiver 2024.