7 - Approaching Energy and Climate Justice: Working Towards More Just Scholarship, Pedagogy and Praxis

Summary

The terms ‘energy justice’ and ‘climate justice’ are increasingly prevalent in scholarly, government and activist debates on the environment, and readers of this volume have likely encountered them in contemporary conversations about tackling climate change. The energy sector contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions (US EPA, nd). The production of energy is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions; in 2010 the energy supply sector accounted for 35 per cent of global emissions (Bruckner et al, 2014). Transforming the energy sector is of paramount importance to taking action on climate change. One of the main imperatives of climate action is to decarbonize the energy sector such that as a society we derive energy services from sources that do not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The energy sector is crucial for providing much- needed energy services to humanity, such as lighting, cooking, heating, cooling, communications, transportation and powering most livelihood activities, for the benefit of people all over the world. These benefits are not evenly distributed, however, as we have tremendous inequalities in the quality and quantity of energy access, such that one in ten of the global population does not have access to electricity, and 2.6 billion people rely on biomass energy sources for their subsistence needs in ways that cause premature death and disease in the most marginalized populations in the world (SEforALL, nd). The geographic and social spread of energy injustices follows a predictable pattern of other inequalities in the world such that low- and middle- income countries have a larger percentage of their populations without access to reliable and safe energy services. Furthermore, within any country or region, historically marginalized groups such as Tribes or rural populations tend to be provided fewer energy services than wealthier or more privileged groups.

Energy and climate justice are relatively new terms that emerged in the late 2000s and can mean a variety of different kinds of research and work. Scholars from various disciplines working on energy have articulated how energy, climate and justice are, or should be, related. At the outset of this chapter I provide a brief literature review for the reader to feel situated in the literature. However, this is not a chapter about the intellectual, philosophical or political history of the concept of justice and how that theoretically applies to scholarly work on energy and climate.