Seminar: "Scales, impacts, and vulnerable groups: A critical justice perspective on four low-carbon transitions", by Benjamin Sovacool

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Benjamin Sovacool, from the University of Sussex Business School (UK), will be giving an online keynote on “Scales, impacts, and vulnerable groups: A critical justice perspective on four low-carbon transitions”.

MdM Keynote Speaker Series 2023
 

Title: “Scales, impacts, and vulnerable groups: A critical justice perspective on four low-carbon transitions”

Speaker:  Benjamin Sovacool,  Professor of Energy Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School (UK)  


Date: Tuesday, 5th of September 2023  
Time: 16h
Online: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87483498655?pwd=ekc1ckRUQWd0d2p0TzJWL09qV2dwdz09 

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY and RESEARCH INTERESTS 

Benjamin Sovacool is a researcher and consultant on issues pertaining to global energy policy and politics, energy security, energy justice, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation. His research focuses on renewable energy and energy efficiency, the politics of large-scale energy infrastructure, designing public policy to improve energy security and access to electricity, the ethics of energy, and building adaptive capacity to the consequences of climate change. Currently, he is a “Distinguished Visiting Energy Professorship” at the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School.  

With much coverage of his work in the international news media, he is one of the most highly cited global researchers on issues bearing on controversies in energy and climate policy. 

 
TOPIC of the KEYNOTE 

What are the types of injustices associated with low-carbon transitions? Relatedly, in what ways do low-carbon transitions worsen social risks or vulnerabilities? Lastly, what policies might be deployed to make these transitions more just? The presentation answers these questions by first elaborating an “energy justice” framework consisting of four distinct dimensions—distributive justice (costs and benefits), procedural justice (due process), cosmopolitan justice (global externalities), and recognition justice (vulnerable groups). It then examines four European low-carbon transitions—nuclear power in France, smart meters in Great Britain, electric vehicles in Norway, and solar energy in Germany—through this critical justice lens. In doing so, it draws from original data collected from 64 semi-structured interviews with expert participants as well as five public focus groups and the monitoring of twelve internet forums. It documents 120 distinct energy injustices across these four transitions. It then explores two exceedingly vulnerable groups to European low-carbon transitions, those recycling electronic waste flows in Ghana, and those mining for cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The presentation aims to show how when low-carbon transitions unfold, deeper injustices related to equity, distribution, and fairness invariably arise.