Energy Justice, Just Transitions, and Renewable Energy Policies

Energy Justice, Just Transitions, and Renewable Energy Policies
Author: Walter Keady
Publisher:
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2020
Genre: Environmental justice
ISBN:

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In the United States, sub-national state policies play outsized roles in renewable energy policy. Vermont is considered a leader in renewable energy transitions, exemplified by its goal of a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. While scholars have praised Vermont's transition policies, few studies analyze it using energy justice or just transition principles. This is a crucial omission, as justice in energy transition has both moral and instrumental importance -- unjust transitions may thwart themselves by failing to achieve widespread societal support. I make initial contributions to this study using original research conducted as a member of an environmental justice partnership. First, I find that policy ignores the opportunity provided by household transition benefits to mitigate energy vulnerability, benefiting wealthy property owners instead. The same policies also appear to impact public energy governance processes, marginalizing energy vulnerable households. As an alternative, I suggest policy frameworks which characterize energy a public good. Second, I analyze discourses in Vermont's renewable energy planning documents, as well as interview discourses about Vermont's renewable energy transition, to study how these policies prevent and/or encourage just transition politics. I compare these visions against those in just transition literature, finding marginal overlap. I conclude that Vermont energy transition discourses largely prevent just transition by assuming a neoclassical economic vision. I suggest just transition advocates may use of marginal overlap to advance rhetorical claims, but that further research into what fosters the small number of existing just transition discourses in Vermont is needed.

Revolutionary Power

Revolutionary Power
Author: Shalanda Baker
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1642830674

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In September 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, completely upending the energy grid of the small island. The nearly year-long power outage that followed vividly shows how the new climate reality intersects with race and access to energy. The island is home to brown and black US citizens who lack the political power of those living in the continental US. As the world continues to warm and storms like Maria become more commonplace, it is critical that we rethink our current energy system to enable reliable, locally produced, and locally controlled energy without replicating the current structures of power and control. In Revolutionary Power, Shalanda Baker arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. She argues that people of color, poor people, and indigenous people must engage in the creation of the new energy system in order to upend the unequal power dynamics of the current system. Revolutionary Power is a playbook for the energy transformation complete with a step-by-step analysis of the key energy policy areas that are ripe for intervention. Baker tells the stories of those who have been left behind in our current system and those who are working to be architects of a more just system. She draws from her experience as an energy-justice advocate, a lawyer, and a queer woman of color to inspire activists working to build our new energy system. Climate change will force us to rethink the way we generate and distribute energy and regulate the system. But how much are we willing to change the system? This unique moment in history provides an unprecedented opening for a deeper transformation of the energy system, and thus, an opportunity to transform society. Revolutionary Power shows us how.

Energy Justice in a Changing Climate

Energy Justice in a Changing Climate
Author: Karen Bickerstaff
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2013-10-10
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1780325800

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Energy justice is one of the most critical, and yet least developed, concepts associated with sustainability. Much has been written about the sustainability of low-carbon energy systems and policies - with an emphasis on environmental, economic and geopolitical issues. However, less attention has been directed at the social and equity implications of these dynamic relations between energy and low-carbon objectives - the complexity of injustice associated with whole energy systems (from extractive industries, through to consumption and waste) that transcend national boundaries and the social, political-economic and material processes driving the experience of energy injustice and vulnerability. Drawing on a substantial body of original research from an international collaboration of experts this unique collection addresses energy poverty, just innovation, aesthetic justice and the justice implications of low-carbon energy systems and technologies. The book offers new thinking on how interactions between climate change, energy policy, and equity and social justice can be understood and develops a critical agenda for energy justice research.

Energy Justice

Energy Justice
Author: Darren McCauley
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2017-08-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319624946

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This book re-conceptualizes energy justice as a unifying agenda for scholars and practitioners working on the issues faced in the trilemna of energy security, poverty and climate change. McCauley argues that justice should be central to the rebalancing of the global energy system and also provides an assessment of the key injustices in our global energy systems of production and consumption. Energy Justice develops a new innovative analytical framework underpinned by principles of justice designed for investigating unfairness and inequalities in energy availability, accessibility and sustainability. It applies this framework to fossil fuel and alternative low carbon energy systems with reference to multiple case studies throughout the world. McCauley also presents an energy justice roadmap that inspires new solutions to the energy trilemna. This includes how we redistribute the benefits and burdens of energy developments, how to engage the new energy ‘prosumer’ and how to recognise the unrepresented. This book will appeal to academics and students interested in issues of security and justice within global energy decision-making.

Handbook on Energy Justice

Handbook on Energy Justice
Author: Stefan Bouzarovski
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2023-05-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1839102969

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Offering a unique and critical perspective on energy justice, this Handbook delves into an emerging field of inquiry encapsulating multiple strands of scholarship on energy systems. Covering key topics including generation, transmission, distribution and demand, it explores fundamental questions surrounding policy, climate change, security and social movements.

Energy Justice and Energy Law

Energy Justice and Energy Law
Author: Iñigo del Guayo
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2020-05-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198860757

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Energy justice has emerged over the last decade as a matter of vital concern in energy law, which can be seen in the attention directed to energy poverty, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There are energy justice concerns in areas of law as diverse as human rights, consumer protection, international law and trade, and in many forms of regional and national energy law and regulation. This edited collection explores in detail at four kinds of energy justice. The first, distributive justice, relates to the equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of energy activities, which is challenged by the existence of people suffering from energy poverty. Secondly, procedural (or participation) justice consists of the right of all communities to participate in decision-making regarding energy projects and policies that affect them. This dimension of energy justice often includes procedural rights to information and access to courts. Under the concept of reparation (or restorative) justice, the book looks at even-handed enforcement of energy statutes and regulations, as well as access to remedies when legal rights are violated. Finally, the collection addresses social justice, with the recognition that energy injustice cannot be separated from other social ills, such as poverty and subordination based on race, gender, or indigeneity. These issues feed into a wider conversation about how we achieve a 'just' energy transition, as the world confronts the urgent challenges of climate change.

Just Transitions

Just Transitions
Author: Edouard Morena
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-11-20
Genre: Employee rights
ISBN: 9780745339924

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How can we secure jobs in the shift towards sustainable production?

The Power of Energy Justice & the Social Contract

The Power of Energy Justice & the Social Contract
Author: Raphael J. Heffron
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2024-01-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3031462823

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This open access book focuses on the energy sector and will make a significant contribution to its continued evolution. For many years, the energy sector has been missing a raison d’etre and now finally there are increased calls for that to be justice. Hence, this book will develop the concept of energy justice and how it needs to be formalised in a new ‘social contract’ with all stakeholders in society. The focus will be on improving legal systems at local, national and international levels while ensuring that justice is a core issue within energy law, the legal system and more broadly in society.

Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South

Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South
Author: Ankit Kumar
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2021-06-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000397440

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This book explores how, in the wake of the Anthropocene, the growing call for urgent decarbonisation and accelerated energy transitions might have unintended consequences for energy poverty, justice and democracy, especially in the global South. Dilemmas of Energy Transitions in the Global South brings together theoretical and empirical contributions focused on rethinking energy transitions conceptually from and for the global South, and highlights issues of justice and inclusivity. It argues that while urgency is critical for energy transitions in a climate-changed world, we must be wary of conflating goals and processes, and enquire what urgency means for due process. Drawing from a range of authors with expertise spanning environmental justice, design theory, ethics of technology, conflict and gender, it examines case studies from countries including Bolivia, Sri Lanka, India, The Gambia and Lebanon in order to expand our understanding of what energy transitions are, and how just energy transitions can be done in different parts of the world. Overall, driven by a postcolonial and decolonial sensibility, this book brings to the fore new concepts and ideas to help balance the demands of justice and urgency, to flag relevant but often overlooked issues, and to provide new pathways forward. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy transitions, environmental justice, climate change and developing countries. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003052821 has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.