Ending the Energy-Poverty Nexus: An Ethical Imperative for Just Transitions

Journal Article · Wed Aug 10 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Science and Engineering Ethics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-022-00383-4· OSTI ID:1884277

Biswas, Saurabh ^[1]; Echevarria, Angel ^[2]; Irshad, Nafeesa ^[2]; Rivera-Matos, Yiamar ^[2]; Richter, Jennifer ^[2]; Chhetri, Nalini ^[2]; Parmentier, Mary Jane C. ^[2]; Miller, Clark A. ^[2]

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1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
2. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)

Arguments for a just transition are integral to debates about climate change and the drive to create a carbon-neutral economy. There are currently two broad approaches rooted in ethics and justice for framing just energy transitions. The first can be described as internal to the transition and emphasizes the anticipation, assessment, and redressing of harms created by the transition itself and the inclusion in transition governance of groups or communities potentially harmed by its disruptions. In this article, we propose a second approach to ethics and justice in an energy transition, which we describe as systemic or societal in scope. This approach complements attention to the proximate dynamics and impacts of the transition process with a focus on the distant societal and economic outcomes the transition brings into being and how they compare to conditions prior to the transition. It poses the question: do the transformative social, economic, and technological changes wrought by energy systems create more just societies and economies, or do they instead reinforce or recreate long-standing injustices and inequalities? We illustrate this approach with an assessment of one of the most significant existing forms of energy injustice: the energy-poverty nexus. We argue that the energy-poverty nexus reflects configurations of socio-energy systems that create complex, extractive feedbacks between energy insecurity and economic insecurity and, over time, reinforce or exacerbate poverty. We further argue that just energy transitions should work to disentangle these configurations and re-design them so as to create generative rather than extractive feedbacks, thus ending the energy-poverty nexus and creating long-term outcomes that are more just, equitable, and fair.

• Research Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: UK AID; USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830; EE0008570
• OSTI ID: 1884277
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 2377956
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA--175205
• Journal Information: Science and Engineering Ethics, Journal Name: Science and Engineering Ethics Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 28; ISSN 1353-3452
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
Energy transition Solar energy Energy ethics Sociotechnical systems Users
energy ethics
energy transition
sociotechnical systems
solar energy
users