1. Humanizing Socio-Technical Systems with Energy Justice
Kirsten Jenkins
Research Fellow in Energy Justice and Transitions

2. Context

3. The starting point…
Many forget (or fail to acknowledge) that ethics is a fundamental aspect of sustainable development.
How do we make sure decisions, processes and outcomes are socially just?

4. Low-carbon transitions are of a particular kind because they concern a normative and collective good problem. They are ‘purposive transitions’, which are ’deliberately intended and pursued from the outset to reflect an explicit set of societal expectations or interests.’

5. An attempt to humanize energy issues

6. Theoretical background

7. Empirical and normative applications
Justice: The act of being morally right or fair, and providing equal rewards for equal merit
Tenet
Evaluative
Normative
Authors
Distributional
Where are the injustices?
How should we solve them?
John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Brian Barry
Recognition
Who is ignored?
Who is responsible?
How should we recognise?
How do we achieve responsibility?
Nancy Fraser, Gordon Walker
Procedural
Is there fair process?
Which new processes?
The Magna Carta, Edward Coke, Thomas Jefferson
Cosmopolitanism
Is everyone afforded equal moral rights?
How do we engage in global decision-making?
Immanuel Kant, Charles Beitz, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, David Held, Thomas Pogge, Peter Singer

8. Distributional justice – ‘what’?
Equity, proximity and siting
1970s America – Dumping in Dixy
‘The physically unequal allocation of
environmental benefits and ills and the uneven distribution of their associated responsibilities’
(Walker 2009)

9. Justice as recognition – ‘who’?
Representation
How people are involved in environmental decision-making, or who (and what) is given respect
‘People who are subject to both cultural injustice and economic injustice need both recognition and redistribution’
(Fraser 1997)

10. Procedural justice – ‘how’?
Fairness and social inclusion
‘Equitable procedures that engage all stakeholders in a non discriminatory way’ (Walker 2009; Bullard 2005)
Justice in “doing”

11. Normative and empirical explorations

12. The book details a long list of current energy injustices
Human rights abuses
Energy-related civil and military conflict
Energy poverty
Growing negative externalities
Marginalization and exclusion of stakeholders
 Largely descriptive
Source: Sovacool, BK, R Sidortsov, and B Jones. Energy Security, Equality, and Justice (London: Routledge, 2014)

13. Conceptualizing philosophical principles:
Topic
Concept(s)
Major philosophical influence(s)
Energy Efficiency
Virtue
Plato and Aristotle
Energy Externalities
Utility
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick
Human Rights and Social Conflict
Human rights
Immanuel Kant
Energy and Due Process
Procedural justice
Edward Coke, Thomas Jefferson, Jürgen Habermas
Energy Poverty
Welfare and happiness
John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum
Energy Subsidies
Freedom
Robert Nozick, Milton Friedman
Energy Resources
Posterity
Ronald Dworkin, Brian Barry, Edith Brown Weiss
Climate Change
Fairness, responsibility, and capacity
Peter Singer, Henry Shue, Paul Baer, Stephen M. Gardiner, Dale Jamieson, Simon Caney
 Largely conceptual

14. Examining case studies
 Largely descriptive again

15. Synthesis into a conceptual framework:
“a conceptual account of justice, even if well-grounded in philosophical theory, is of little consequence unless it can actually inform and influence energy practices, decision-makers and public choices”.

16. An impact-oriented approach

17. Synthesis into the MLP
EJ can expose exclusionary niches before they develop
The EJ framework provides a way actors to normatively judge regimes, potentially destabilising existing them using moral criteria
Framing EJ at the landscape level could exert pressure below, leading to reappraisal of our energy choices and the integration of moral criteria
(Google’s interpretation of the MLP = My Little Pony)

18. Niche Regime Landscape
Case studies
Niche Regime Landscape

20. Kirsten Jenkins k.e.jenkins@sussex.ac.uk @jenk2021 On ResearchGate