Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System (2021) / Chapter Skim
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3 To What End: Societal Goals for Deep Decarbonization
3 To What End: Societal Goals for Deep Decarbonization
Pages 117-162
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energy transitions responds to three broad challenges: (1) the responsibility to ensure that the transition to a carbon-neutral economy benefits all Americans and addresses the harms that it creates; (2)
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. Some of the world's largest technology, finance, energy, and transportation firms have already initiated major changes to their operations that reduce the use of fossil fuels and increase energy efficiency, including Apple, Google, BP, General Motors, Ford, Delta Airlines, and BlackRock (Somini and Penney, 2020)
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economic system to replace the burning of fossil fuels with alternative, carbon-neutral and low-pollution means of creating, transporting, and using energy.1 1 In using the phrase "the energy system," the committee recognizes that energy is, in reality, a complex system-of-systems that encompasses a wide range of technologies and societal, market, and regulatory arrangements responsible for the production and distribution of diverse energy resources, including fuels and electricity, as well as the myriad systems in which energy is used (e.g., buildings, transportation, food, communication, water, manufacturing, and more) for diverse human purposes.
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Research has demonstrated a "social gap" between widespread general support for renewable energy technologies yet relatively slow uptake (Dwyer and Bidwell, 2019; Rai and Beck, 2015; Boudet, 2019)
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energy economy has left people out, left some communities bearing excessive burdens of pollution and related public health problems, and led to communities dependent on fossil-energy resource extraction with limited lifetimes. The committee finds that making progress on mitigating the effects of climate change depends on navigating the energy transition in socially responsible ways.
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toward deep decarbonization goals necessarily involve heterogeneous costs and benefits across communities and regions in the United States. Inevitably, public support for necessary policy actions (see Chapter 4)
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, thus helping rebuild a more foundational basis of trust. Evidence strongly shows that, especially during times of significant technological change, robust public engagement using these kinds of strategies can deliver significant benefits with respect to both designing technological futures that effectively meet the needs of the public and strengthening public support for processes of change (Narrasimhan et al., 2018)
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In the 20th century, the electrification of cities, industry, and rural communities and the creation of world-leading automobile, oil, and gas industries played key roles in transforming America into a global economic and military power. Today, as described below, if the United States can leverage and sustain existing widespread public support for climate action and mobilize it in favor of the coordinated set of policy actions described in Chapter 4, the country has a similar opportunity not only to help minimize impacts of climate change but also to leverage deep decarbonization to strengthen U.S.
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have been put forward to ensure that the U.S. transition to a low-carbon economy is a just transition and is informed by the experiences of vulnerable communities, including with environmental justice.1 In addition to these just transition proposal examples, several pieces of proposed legislation have been drafted in Congress and political party platforms and political candidates have included just transition recommendations as well.
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including fenceline communities • Consultation fatigue • Unreclaimed infrastructure and associated health risks Native American nations and rural • Economic opportunity versus local cost communities whose economies, • Racial injustice tax revenues, or lands are currently • Environmental justice dependent on or impacted by • Health and well-being coal and oil and gas development • Less tax revenue for schools and other publicly supported or potentially impacted by future services renewable energy development Clean energy industry workers and • Looking for (better, long-term) jobs workers in the energy efficiency • Professional development/advanced training industry Communities facing high energy • Affordable electricity costs and burdens that contribute to • Accessibility and connectivity to immediate and distant perpetuating or exacerbating poverty areas/regions • Access to opportunities and financing to improve infrastructure to reduce costs and take advantage of renewable energy opportunities 126
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Just Transition European Union (EU) Development, reskilling, The Just Transition Platform Platform (2020)
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equity, gender equity, for justice, including climate, due participation, good socioeconomic, and political governance, respect for dimensions in a balanced human rights way to reflect the legitimate justice claims of a broad range of potential allies for a just energy transition alliance.
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social contract for deep decarbonization because they address the critically important question: To what ends, beyond carbon-neutrality, should the United States pursue deep decarbonization? These four considerations, described below, are not necessarily comprehensive.
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In the United States, the energy transition is expected to generate public and private investments in new energy technologies and infrastructure worth several trillion dollars (IRENA, 2019)
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Innovation, Competitiveness, and Jobs The committee defines the objectives of leveraging investments in the energy transition to strengthen the U.S. economy in terms of four goals: Goal 1: Deep decarbonization policy in the 2020s should lay the groundwork for ensuring that the United States has access to growing, reliable, low-cost, clean energy supplies as an essential foundation for a sustainable, resilient, diversified, equitable, and growing economy throughout the 21st century.
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The United States is a world leader in innovation. Key clean energy technologies have been invented and pioneered in the United States, and the United States leads the world in research investments in clean energy and in the development of a number of future technologies that are likely to play a significant role in achieving deep decarbonization.
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. Innovation in these domains will help ensure that the United States has the flexibility to respond quickly to rapid changes in energy markets, climate change impacts, and technological trajectories as it pursues deep decarbonization.
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. The United States was a leader in developing clean energy technologies like wind and solar, but has ceded much of that leadership to other countries as these technologies have matured and become cost-competitive (Lewis, 2014; Platzer, 2012)
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energy infrastructure by 2050. The renewable energy industry and energy efficiency industry are both high-growth sectors of the U.S.
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energy and that these diverse communities are treated fairly and equitably. Defining Equity and Inclusion for Clean Energy Transitions The committee defines just, equitable, and inclusive transitions in terms of three key normative goals: Goal 1: The benefits of clean energy should be distributed broadly and equitably, and likewise its burdens, risks, and costs.
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economy are widely distributed across all communities, including buildings, equipment, and automobiles in the possession of households and businesses in low-income, indigenous, and rural communities and communities of color and people with disabilities, many of which will struggle to transition to carbon neutrality without policies that support and reflect their distinct needs and contexts. Significant and sustained efforts will be required to strengthen and expand public participation in energy decision making in order to counter both misinformation and efforts to hamper public engagement in climate policy that threaten the social contract for deep decarbonization (Bush, 2019; Whitehouse, 2015)
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. Given the need to sustain a strong social contract for deep decarbonization, it is critical for policy makers and philanthropic actors to continue to work together to strengthen public participation and climate equity by scaling up support to organizations representing environmental justice communities (Lerza, 2011)
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Furthermore, strategies for innovative clean energy transitions are positioned to reduce energy burdens and create solutions that are economically generative for these communities -- for example, through opening up ownership, investment, and employment opportunities in clean energy to low- and moderate-income communities and enhancing the value of energy for low-income users. This will be particularly important as the country pursues decarbonization initiatives that extensively implicate infrastructure in low-income communities -- for example, in improving energy efficiency and electrifying energy end uses in residential and commercial buildings, as well as electrifying vehicles.
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The Philadelphia Energy Campaign, which was launched in 2016, includes an investment in energy efficiency and clean energy projects of $1 billion over 10 years and focuses on municipal buildings, K-12 schools, affordable housing, and small busi nesses. The campaign, through 2019, has seen some early successes including $136 million in active projects and 1,301 new jobs.
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. From an ethical perspective, this uneven distribution of costs, risks, and benefits -- and the unequal power of these communities to self-determination in energy decision-making and to influence energy choices to create fairer and more equitable outcomes -- is unjustified and presents a significant opportunity to leverage a clean energy transition to create more just futures for these communities.
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This research should pay special attention to considerations of equity and inequality in existing and future energy systems design and operations. Significant new investments will be needed to analyze and assess the complex dynamic relationships between energy and economic insecurity and the differential implications of energy transitions and systems for a wide variety of communities disadvantaged by existing energy systems and policies; to measure the social and economic outcomes of transition plans and their distribution across different groups; to develop strategies and frameworks for improving the inclusiveness of energy decision making, including especially through improving the effectiveness of community engagement and participation methods; to develop effective strategies of knowledge and policy coproduction with diverse communities for the energy system to enhance the relevance 142
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Deep decarbonization will result in direct changes to the oil, gas, and coal industries; electric utilities; air, truck, and rail transport; and automobile manufacturing, sales, service, and fueling. It will also require significant changes to the industries that supply parts and equipment, financing, and other support for energy and transportation sectors.
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. Public policy interventions can help support groups impacted by energy transitions through a variety of mechanisms.
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Supporting workers and communities during the transition to a low-carbon energy system involves four goals. Goal 1: Workers and communities should have accurate information about how clean energy transitions could impact them and should have access to viable economic transition strategies.
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; however, coal workers and solar panel workers require different skill sets and there is not necessarily an easy and direct transition. Policy programs and financial incentives that encourage renewable energy development, such as solar, are needed to support the developing market, which includes training workers for jobs in a clean energy economy (Cha, 2017)
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Goal 3: Companies should be held accountable for ensuring that fossil fuel energy infrastructures are properly decommissioned and that their long-term environmental impacts are remediated to prevent the creation of persistent environmental contamination and associated health impacts for local populations. Fossil fuel infrastructures are ubiquitous across the U.S.
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could also address such issues with regard to gas-pipeline abandonments. In New Mexico, the Energy Transition Act (ETA)
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Unless addressed through effective support programs, these costs will include both direct job losses and losses to public revenues, indirect job losses and declines in general business revenues in impacted communities that lose major industries, threats to community and worker identities and happiness, persistent geographies of economic decline, and resentment, anger, and perhaps even opposition to decarbonization. The kinds of challenges confronting workers, families, communities, and businesses in communities impacted severely by the transition result from both market and policy failures.
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The second is that without policy reform, the energy infrastructure transitions associated with the transition to a carbon neutral economy will exacerbate development challenges rather than benefits in many places that host energy projects. Local planning would also be significantly enhanced by the inclusion of capacity building for workforce and community transitions within corporate social responsibility and sustainability metrics for the sectors of the economy facing major economic transformations, including oil and gas, automobile manufacturing, and the financial sector.
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Prioritizing effective investments, therefore, works to bolster the social contract for the U.S. transition to carbon neutrality by maximizing the impact of each investment and by lowering political opposition tied to concerns about costs and regulation.
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In the present context, where the case for carbon neutrality is already made, focusing on the aggregate benefits of decarbonization itself at this stage is unnecessary. Focusing on the aggregate economic costs of proposed policies, and seeking to lower them, ensures that resources remain available to tackle other social problems as well as promoting economic well-being.
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argues that the acid rain trading program did not concentrate emissions in Black or Hispanic communities, but did concentrate emissions in poorly educated communities. Similarly, environmental justice advocates anticipated, warned about, and ultimately documented hot spots from air toxics and criteria pollutants resulting from California's greenhouse gas emissions trading program that required follow up policies to reduce inequitable impacts (Cushing et al., 2018)
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The establishment and maintenance of a social contract for a national low-carbon economic and energy transition demand attention and consideration for the full array of implications of policy choices for the economy and society. REFERENCES Allison, G
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2020. The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition.
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2011. Public engagement with large-scale renewable energy technologies: Breaking the cycle of NIMBYism.
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2017. Guiding Principles and Lessons Learnt for a Just Energy Transition in the Global South.
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2013. The social dimensions of energy transitions.
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2019. Deployment of Deep Decarbonization Technologies: Proceedings of a Workshop.
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2020. The Role of Public Participation in Energy Transitions.
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2014. Public engagement with offshore renewable energy: A critical review.
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