The Interactive Framework for a Just Transition Based upon Energy Justice

• In Event: The Limits and Possibilities of Democratic Environmental Social Movements

Abstract

Tackling various forms of conflicts and inequities inevitably accompanied by energy transitions, more scholars have proposed diverse themes of energy justice, such as distributional, procedural, cosmopolitan, recognitive, and restorative justice (LaBelle, 2017; McCauley et al., 2013; McCauley & Heffron, 2018; Pellegrini-Masini et al., 2020). Although these theoretical attempts to enlarge the scope of energy justice concepts are helpful to further understand various practical circumstances emerging during energy transitions, at the same time, this diversity makes it more challenging to establish a practical framework for policymakers who attempt to design and implement a just transition (Pellegrini-Masini et al., 2020).
Specifically, each concept cannot fully cover conflictual circumstances in practice, but rather overlaps with each other. For example, many studies showed that more participation leads to more equitable results (distributive justice) because open and democratic procedures foster the participation of vulnerable groups (procedural justice) (Boulianne et al., 2020; Capaccioloi et al., 2017; Chilvers & Longhurst, 2016; Forman, 2017; Lennon et al., 2019). However, these two justice concepts, by nature, can also conflict with each other. When policymakers stress procedural justice more than distributional justice, it tends to weigh “the interests of powerful stakeholders and those most fluent in the technocratic language” more than “the concerns of the less-educated members of highly impacted minority and low-income communities” (Ottinger et al., 2014, p. 663).
Therefore, to consider these interactions between the competing energy justice concepts, I focus on the six core themes in relation to energy justice (distributional, procedural, universal, and particular justice in addition to environmental and developmental value), then propose a new framework that emphasizes the interaction of these core themes. Based on this interactive framework, I will demonstrate practical cases of synergies and tensions in the policymaking process of NY’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
This paper thus aims at the following research questions: 1) What are the different concepts of energy justice that various discourse coalitions present in the policymaking process of the CLCPA? 2) What types of interactions (tensions or synergies) are emerging in relation to the competing energy justice concepts during the policymaking process? 3) How can these interactions influence (drive or impede) the transitional processes? In responding to these research questions, I attempt to connect the real conflictual or cooperative issues in the policymaking process of the CLCPA to the interactive framework to unpack, for example, the tensions or synergies between distributive and procedural justice.
To do so, I will analyze the meeting recordings and official documents uploaded on the NYS Climate Act website in addition to the NYS Assembly public hearing and related memoranda. Analyzing this data, I will display various forms of tensions or synergies based on the discursive interaction between different agents during the policymaking process of the CLCPA. Comparing different storylines shows how various discourse coalitions conflict with or make a compromise around key themes including environmental justice and a just transition.
In doing so, through abductive analysis, which “constitutes a qualitative data analysis approach aimed at theory construction,” I first analyze various storylines in relation to the various energy justice concepts, then, identify “two kinds of surprise” – novelty (a new experience) and anomaly (an unexpected experience) (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012, pp. 169-171). For example, in case of tensions or synergies between the energy justice concepts that are expected based on the interactive framework, I will code these storylines as novelty because they are expected but not present in the current energy justice conceptualization. In case of new data to contradict my theoretical framework, I will code these storylines as anomaly. Second, I revisit and recode these identified novelties and anomalies in relation to the interactive framework, revised if needed, to better capture tensions or synergies between various energy justice concepts.
By connecting these conflictual interactions to the interactive framework of energy justice, it is possible to conceptualize the dynamic interactions that emerged during the policymaking process of energy transitions. It thus contributes to a more integrative understanding of energy transitions that is undergirded by both theory and practice. Also, it is possible to find the key factors to promote synergies and mitigate tensions during energy transitions. Consequently, this synthesized framework can be applied to messy realities while providing policymakers with more chances to achieve a just transition (Jenkins et al., 2017; Sovacool & Dworkin, 2015).

Authors

• Paul Inseok Jo, SUNY, University at Albany

• Jennifer Dodge, SUNY, University at Albany