Energy decisions reframed as justice and ethical concerns

By Benjamin Sovacool, R. Heffron, D. McCauley, A. Goldthau. Nature Energy, 2016

630 citations recorded by the source corpus.

All too often, energy policy and technology discussions are limited to the domains of engineering and economics. Many energy consumers, and even analysts and policymakers, confront and frame energy and climate risks in a moral vacuum, rarely incorporating broader social justice concerns. Here, to remedy this gap, we investigate how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making by reframing five energy problems — nuclear waste, involuntary resettlement, energy pollution, energy poverty and climate change — as pressing justice concerns. We conclude by proposing an energy justice framework centred on availability, affordability, due process, transparency and accountability, sustainability, equity and responsibility, which highlights the futurity, fairness and equity dimensions of energy production and use. When making decisions about energy, consumers and policymakers typically overlook moral issues, which can have profound societal consequences. This Perspective explores how ideas from justice and ethics can provide a framework to reconsider energy problems and better inform decision-making processes.

Subfields: Pollution, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cb91edc8420fd56a0d058bece081af3344ac62af

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Citations in the corpus

Spatializing energy justice (2017, background): “Further studies have built upon this work to unpack the philosophical and moral foundations for considering energy poverty to be a form of injustice (Christman and Russell, 2016; Sovacool et al., 2016, 2014).”
Temporality, vulnerability, and energy justice in household low carbon innovations (2019, background): “The global decarbonisation challenge becomes even more pressing when one considers that, despite having clear social co-benefits such as displaced pollution and reduced climate change, it still raises pressing justice issues related to equity, vulnerability, fairness, and legitimacy (Auld et al., 20”
Contestation, contingency, and justice in the Nordic low-carbon energy transition (2017, background): “That said, the NETP does acknowledge Nordic energy and climate policies already imple- mented or committed—unlike other forecasts from groups like the U.S. Energy Information Administration which try to be “policy neutral” (Gilbert and Sovacool, 2016).”
Energy justice: a policy approach (2017, neutral): “…where some individuals lack access, are challenged by under-consumption and poverty, and may face health burdens and shortened lives as a consequence of restricted energy choices (Sovacool et al. 2016); and emergent moral quandaries that question the criteria on which we base our energy choices.”
New frontiers and conceptual frameworks for energy justice (2017, background): “Even though turbines are installed in Europe, the study also found that China and South Korea accounted for about 80% of embodied emissions and resulting environmental damages across each type of turbine (Sovacool et al. 2016b).”
Harnessing social innovation for energy justice: a business model perspective (2017, methodology): “Drawing from earlier work (Sovacool et al., 2016) as well as other articles in this Special Issue (Jenkins et al.”
Reducing energy demand through low carbon innovation: A sociotechnical transitions perspective and thirteen research debates (2018, background): “Without a focus on justice, an energy efficiency revolution may fail to acknowledge the burden of not having enough energy, where some individuals lack access, are challenged by under-consumption and poverty, and may face health burdens and shortened lives as a consequence of restricted energy choic”
Energy justice in the transition to low carbon energy systems: Exploring key themes in interdisciplinary research (2019, background): “The global energy system is inherently unequal with regards to where technologies are located and who can access their outputs [15, 16].”
High energy burden and low-income energy affordability: conclusions from a literature review (2020, background): “Issues of equity permeate the transition to a smarter and greener energy economy (Sovacool et al 2016, Valentine et al 2019).”
Distributed solar and environmental justice: Exploring the demographic and socio-economic trends of residential PV adoption in California (2019, background): “Concerns related to fuel poverty and energy insecurity constitute the foundation of a growing field of scholarship on energy (in)justice, which revolves around the idea that fuel poverty violates the basic principle of distributive justice (Jenkins et al., 2016; Reames, 2016; Gross, 2007; Sovacool e”
Ordering theories: Typologies and conceptual frameworks for sociotechnical change (2017, positive): “Put another way, we need to reframe or repoliticize what technologies are (Sovacool et al., 2016).”
The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition (2020, neutral): “Pulling from these objectives, a comprehensive energy justice framework can be said to include energy availability and access, affordability, due process, accountability and transparency, and both inter-and intra-generational equity 17,18 .”
Energy justice at the end of the wire: Enacting community energy and equity in Wales (2017, neutral): “…have recently shown, opening-up and extending understandings of 1 As one example, the ‘Contemporary Applications’ of the decision-making framework (Sovacool et al, 2016: 5) highlight such processes as UNFCC with respect to responsibility, the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All initiative…”
Energy justice for all? Rethinking Sustainable Development Goal 7 through struggles over traditional energy practices in Sierra Leone (2017, background): “Since the costs of climate change will be felt most severely by the least developed countries (Thomas and Twyman, 2005) the structure of the global energy system and its climatic effects have been identified as “central justice issues of our time” (Sovacool et al., 2016, p. 18).”
Feasibility of energy justice: Exploring national and local efforts for energy development in Nepal (2017, methodology): “Energy justice is thus an inspiring approach for scholars and decision-makers who want to engage with questions such as what energy is used for, what values and moral principles ought to guide energy decisions as well as who benefits and loses (McCauley et al., 2013; Jenkins et al., 2016; Sovacool e”