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Commentary by Vivek Shastry, Andrew Kamau, Qëndresa Krasniqi + 1 more • December 13, 2023
This commentary represents the research and views of the authors. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Center on Global Energy Policy. The piece may be subject to further revision.
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Energy enables almost everything we do—we need it to cool our homes, cook our food, drive our cars and buses, and power our schools, industries, and hospitals. It is also critical for earning a living and living well. In essence, energy enables opportunity, and the lack of it impedes individuals, communities, and countries from harnessing their fullest potential. This commentary, part of the Energy Opportunity Lab program at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, contextualizes the scale of persistent energy burdens in both emerging and developed economies, and introduces “energy opportunity” as a solutions-centric framework for research and practice that propels change.
Energy poverty, which involves issues of access, adequacy, reliability, and affordability,[1] is a pervasive global problem, but one that features most prominently in emerging economies. Whereas over 760 million people across the globe lacked access to electricity in 2022, four out of five of those individuals resided in sub-Saharan Africa.[2] Even as the number of people without access to electricity has declined from 1.1 billion globally in 2010, representing considerable progress, the pace of change has not been rapid enough, especially in a region like Africa. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that, under current policies, 660 million people will still be without electricity access in 2030, with 85 percent of them living in sub-Saharan Africa.[3] Moreover, many households in emerging economies previously categorized as having access to modern energy services actually had only limited, unreliable, and costly access, which is inadequate to support a decent standard of living.[4] Over 3 billion people around the globe are estimated to have unreliable electricity services.[5] Access to clean cooking technologies lags even further behind, with an estimated 2.3 billion people globally relying on traditional biomass fuels for cooking, a practice that claims millions of lives each year due to indoor air pollution.[6]
Energy access is a necessary condition for economic development. Scholars and practitioners have challenged the notion that providing a lifeline level of electricity to households, to power a few lights and charge a phone, automatically improves development outcomes.[7] Energy plays a critical role in enabling productive uses. Without electricity, hospitals cannot deliver basic healthcare,[8] schools cannot utilize modern teaching tools, farmers cannot mechanize their operations, food gets wasted due to lack of cooling, and businesses struggle to keep their equipment running.[9] Recognizing this reality, households and industries in emerging economies are demanding more and better quality electricity,[10] while governments along with philanthropic and private-sector organizations are focusing on catalyzing the myriad opportunities that energy can enable to promote the fulfillment of healthy and productive lives.
Among the biggest bottlenecks for scaling up energy for development is lack of financing. This is particularly true for African countries, which, in addition to energy poverty, face disproportionate impacts of climate change.[11] African countries account for nearly 18 percent of the world’s population but attract only 3 percent of global energy investment.[12] Due to perceived and actual risks, the cost of capital to finance clean energy projects in Africa is often at least two to three times that in developed economies, making clean energy prohibitively expensive for end users.[13] Against the backdrop of persistent underinvestment and difficulties in accessing multilateral debt, African leaders are exploring local sources of financing, such as public-private partnerships (PPPs) and sovereign bonds, as well as the prospect of redirecting current investments in expensive high-emission electricity sources to financially and environmentally sustainable alternatives.[14] For example, African countries are estimated to be spending over US $20 billion annually to operate around 125 gigawatts (GW) of fossil fuel backup generators.[15] On a levelized cost basis, running diesel generators can be up to seven times more expensive than running captive solar PV plants.[16] In addition to having a higher carbon footprint, the persistent use of generators results in high manufacturing and food processing costs, which get passed on to poor consumers and leads to a higher cost of living.[17] Replacing fossil fuel backup generators with renewable energy sources is one example of how local sources of capital can be redeployed to achieve the twin goals of reducing both poverty and harmful emissions.
Energy poverty is not unique to emerging economies.[18] In applying the term to developed economies, researchers of energy poverty have expanded the definition to include the specific issues impacting the populations under study.[19] A relatively well-established literature exists on energy poverty in the UK, for instance, which in its most narrow form has focused on “fuel poverty”—the inability of households to afford sufficient energy to heat their homes.[20] Scholars working on the United States have likewise used the term,[21] though the related concepts of energy burden and energy insecurity are far more common in US academic and policy arenas.
Energy insecurity manifests in the form of economic hardships, physical deficiencies, and coping strategies.[22] In 2020, 33.5 million US households experienced some form of energy insecurity, defined as a household’s inability to meet its energy needs adequately.[23] Over two-thirds of these households reduced their food or medicine expenditures to pay for energy costs, over one-third received disconnection notices due to their inability to pay the utility bills, and over one-third left their homes at unhealthy temperatures.[24] These burdens are disproportionately shouldered by low-income households and those belonging to racial or ethnic minorities.[25] Although government home energy assistance programs exist in the US, many households face administrative barriers to accessing them.[26] Thus, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) had one of the lowest participation rates of any federal social safety net program in 2018, with coverage reaching only 20 percent of the 72.2 million individuals who were eligible.[27]
Some energy burdens can be traced back to structural issues related to energy utility practices and policies. These burdens may be compounded by the way utilities design rates. For example, increasing fixed charges on utility bills has been found to have a regressive effect on low-income customers, who may consume less electricity to begin with.[28] In an attempt to reduce utility costs and limit financial stress, many energy-insecure households engage in energy-limiting behaviors.[29] The risk of disconnection due to non-payment of energy bills propels those facing this acute burden to lean more deeply into coping strategies.[30] Another dimension of utility practices that is receiving increased attention in the aftermath of recent storms is disparities in power outage management and restoration. Recent research based on data from managed outages during Hurricane Isaac (2018), Winter Storm Uri (2021), and Hurricane Ida (2021) showed income- and race-based inequities in power restoration.[31] Power outages can have severe health consequences, such as carbon-monoxide poisoning (from poor ventilation of fumes from stoves, heaters, vehicles, etc.) and exacerbation of COPD and gastrointestinal illnesses (from poorly refrigerated food), particularly for individuals relying on electricity-dependent medical equipment.[32]
Home energy deficiencies such as poor insulation and inefficient appliances also induce physical and psychological hardships, with households unable to maintain comfortable temperatures and sometimes being exposed to extreme temperatures.[33] Energy-insecure households thus experience higher rates of poor sleep quality and mental disorders.[34] Moreover, through its link to housing insecurity, energy insecurity disrupts work, school, and day care arrangements as well as social networks.[35] Promoting warmth and energy efficiency in the home are among the most effective housing and socio-economic determinants of interventions for improving health outcomes.[36]
The previous two sections indicate the extent to which researchers have documented energy poverty, burdens, and insecurities, both in emerging economies and in developed economies such as the United States. This problem-centric literature has focused on the critical task of analyzing the multidimensional and intersectional nature of these issues, their causes, and their impacts on lives and livelihoods. Building on this work, energy equity and energy justice researchers and practitioners have developed tools, frameworks, and policies to recognize and/or reverse these historic injustices across the energy continuum[37]—from planning and production to access and utilization. Energy justice research, for example, focuses on how policy tools and regulatory practices can be used to help communities that have been harmed by the energy system in the past and address the unequal distribution of ills attributable to the production or consumption of energy today.[38] These efforts have swung the pendulum of energy research and practice from problem-centric dimensions to restorative dimensions. In devising and trying to enact solutions, energy equity and justice scholars and practitioners will, of course, need to grapple with the same challenge of balancing the energy trilemma (energy security, equity, and sustainability)[39] that has proven so challenging to the environmental and climate justice movements out of which they emerged[40]—a topic the authors intend to explore in future work.
The concept of energy opportunity is an extension of this pendulum swing from a restorative to a solutions-centric approach that frames sustainable energy as a catalyst for well-being, peace, and prosperity (Figure 1).
In this sense, it is closely related to “capabilities” approaches emerging in the energy justice literature, which focus on “facilitating the realization of individuals’ diverse potentials and abilities to participate more productively in social, economic, and political life.”[41]
The energy opportunity concept offers several important advances. First, by fostering collaborative research involving practitioners and frontline communities, it can not only further evidence-based practices but also generate often-overlooked, practice-based evidence,[42] bridging the gap between what we know and what we do.[43] Second, it brings research on energy poverty, burdens, and insecurity in emerging and developed economies under one purview—two research strands that hitherto rarely been in conversation. [44] Although the nature of these energy issues may be different, those who face them are united by the vulnerabilities they face, stemming from the historical legacies of structural discrimination and often exacerbated by climate stresses.[45] Third, it provides a platform for sharing best practices regardless of where they originate, including and especially those stemming from the innovations, scholarship, and practice-based leadership of members of impacted communities.[46] This means not only that a farmer in rural Nigeria can aspire to the same energy opportunities as a farmer in New York, but also that New York can potentially learn from and adapt innovations in Nigeria. Finally, by situating solutions closest to those with lived experience of the problems, the energy opportunity framework can evolve as a bottom-up strategy.
The roots of the energy opportunity concept can also be found in international nongovernmental practice. Increasingly, NGO practitioners have sought to devise interventions to promote UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7—sustainable energy for all—in ways that encourage the achievement of other UN SDGs (e.g., universal healthcare, education, gender equality, and poverty eradication).[47] This holistic approach is central to energy opportunity research, which can focus on the catalytic role of affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy in promoting sustainable development, well-being, and social progress, as shown in Figure 2.
The terminological shift that “energy opportunity” makes is critically important because the language we use determines how problems are defined, solutions are developed, and decision makers are mobilized to take action.[48] Meanwhile, the shift in perspective that it promotes reveals significant research gaps that need to be filled, including the topic of energy burdens in lower-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which are greater than in any other region in the world.[49]
Energy can enable well-being and sustainable development opportunities in both developed and emerging economies. In developed economies, spending less on energy relative to other basic necessities can allow individuals to maintain healthy indoor temperatures, meet critical medical needs during prolonged power outages, weatherize their homes, and enjoy the benefits of energy efficiency and clean energy technologies. In emerging economies, individuals can improve their health by reducing the physical intensity of their labor and the use of polluting fuels in daily life. By engaging in productive businesses and public services powered by reliable energy, individuals also stand to develop their social and human capitals through enhanced household income, business skills, financial literacy, and community connections.[50] Businesses in emerging economies can save money on expensive generators, stabilize their operations, develop new clean energy products to a vast underserved market, gain competitive advantage, expand their offerings, and generate more employment. Nurturing local economies can create employment opportunities and social security for individuals who might otherwise consider migrating in search of such opportunities. Governments in emerging economies can strengthen healthcare and education infrastructure, save billions of foreign exchange dollars otherwise spent on imported fuel and generators, set up new supply chains, target energy investments to create wealth in vulnerable communities, and improve the resilience of their infrastructure to the increasing ravages of climate change.
Practitioners, governments, and civil society have been highlighting the urgent need to accelerate the use of reliable, affordable, and clean energy as a means of sustainable development and social progress. Decades of research documenting energy poverty, burdens, and insecurity, and of practical action on energy equity and justice, has laid the groundwork for conceiving an ambitious and solutions-centric research agenda on energy opportunity. However, for energy opportunity to become a fully transformative construct, the concept must be widely adopted and deliberately developed as the basis of a field of study and practice. Researchers can advance this agenda by continuing to engage in cross-disciplinary collaborations, centering the perspectives of frontline communities, and emphasizing solutions-oriented approaches that bridge research with policy and practice.[51] Timely dissemination of findings through accessible mediums, coupled with a commitment to ethics and integrity, will be essential in ensuring that the pursuit of this research paradigm aligns with and extends principles of equity and justice,[52] ultimately facilitating positive impacts in the form of development, well-being, and social progress.
[1] International Energy Agency et al., “Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report, 2023,” June 2023, https://www.iea.org/reports/tracking-sdg7-the-energy-progress-report-2023.
[2] Laura Cozzi et al., “Access to Electricity Improves Slightly in 2023, but Still Far from the Pace Needed to Meet SDG7,” International Energy Agency, September 15, 2023, https://www.iea.org/commentaries/access-to-electricity-improves-slightly-in-2023-but-still-far-from-the-pace-needed-to-meet-sdg7.
[3] Laura Cozzi et al., “For the First Time in Decades, the Number of People without Access to Electricity Is Set to Increase in 2022,” International Energy Agency, November 3, 2022, https://www.iea.org/commentaries/for-the-first-time-in-decades-the-number-of-people-without-access-to-electricity-is-set-to-increase-in-2022.
[4] Setu Pelz, Shonali Pachauri, and Narasimha Rao, “Application of an Alternative Framework for Measuring Progress towards SDG 7.1,” Environmental Research Letters 16, no. 8 (August 2021): 084048, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac16a1.
[5] John Ayaburi et al., “Measuring ‘Reasonably Reliable’ Access to Electricity Services,” Electricity Journal 33, no. 7 (2020): 106828, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tej.2020.106828.
[6] IEA et al., “Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report, 2023.”
[7] Michaël Aklin et al., “Does Basic Energy Access Generate Socioeconomic Benefits? A Field Experiment with Off-Grid Solar Power in India,” Science Advances 3, no. 5 (May 1, 2017): e1602153, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1602153; Marc Jeuland et al., “Is Energy the Golden Thread? A Systematic Review of the Impacts of Modern and Traditional Energy Use in Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 135 (January 1, 2021): 110406, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.110406; Ankit Kumar, “Justice and Politics in Energy Access for Education, Livelihoods and Health: How Socio-Cultural Processes Mediate the Winners and Losers,” Energy Research & Social Science 40 (June 1, 2018): 3–13, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.11.029; Alam Hossain Mondal and Dieter Klein, “Impacts of Solar Home Systems on Social Development in Rural Bangladesh,” Energy for Sustainable Development 15, no. 1 (March 1, 2011): 17–20, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2010.11.004. Muhammed Rafi, Mohemmad Naseef, and Salu Prasad, “Multidimensional Energy Poverty and Human Capital Development: Empirical Evidence from India,” Energy Economics 101 (September 1, 2021): 105427, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105427.
[8] Vivek Shastry and Varun Rai, “Reduced Health Services at Under-Electrified Primary Healthcare Facilities: Evidence from India,” PLOS ONE 16, no. 6 (June 4, 2021): e0252705, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252705; Vivek Shastry and Sophie M. Morse, “The Gendered Implications of Energy Gaps in Health Care: A Comparative Analysis of Haiti, Senegal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Health Care for Women International 44, no. 9 (October 12, 2021): 1–23, https://doi.org/10.1080/07399332.2021.1964503.
[9] Vivek Shastry, “Energy, Gender, and Development: A Study of the Linkages between Access to Reliable Electricity, Primary Healthcare, and Rural Livelihoods, through a Gender Lens,” University of Texas at Austin, 2023; Ana Pueyo, Marco Carreras, and Gisela Ngoo, “Exploring the Linkages between Energy, Gender, and Enterprise: Evidence from Tanzania,” World Development 128 (April 1, 2020): 104840, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104840.
[10] Todd Moss et al., “The Modern Energy Minimum: The Case for a New Global Electricity Consumption Threshold,” Energy for Growth Hub 30 (2020), https://energyforgrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FULL-Modern-Energy-Minimum-final-Jan2021.pdf.
[11] International Energy Agency, “Africa Energy Outlook 2022,” 2022, https://www.iea.org/reports/africa-energy-outlook-2022.
[12] Ibid.
[13] International Energy Agency and African Development Bank Group, “Financing Clean Energy in Africa,” 2022, https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/5afce034-9bd7-451a-ac36-1b35c63aaf5e/FinancingCleanEnergyinAfrica.pdf.
[14] African Development Bank Group, “Financing a Just Transition in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities,” 2022, https://www.afdb.org/sites/default/files/2022/12/09/financing_a_just_transition_in_africa-challenges_and_opportunities_final_1_2.pdf.
[15] Nicholas L. Lam et al., “The Dirty Footprint of the Broken Grid: The Impacts of Fossil Fuel Back-up Generators in Developing Countries,” International Finance Corporation, September 2019, https://www.ifc.org/en/insights-reports/2010/dirty-footprint-of-broken-grid.
[16] Benjamin Attia, “Utility 3.0: How Africa Is Remaking the Grid,” Wood Mackenzie, 2022, https://www.woodmac.com/horizons/utility-3.0-how-africa-is-remaking-the-grid/.
[17] US Department of Agriculture, “Food Inflation Surged to a 14-Year High in South Africa,” May 17, 2023, https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByFileName?fileName=Food%20Inflation%20Surged%20to%20a%2014-Year%20High%20in%20South%20Africa_Pretoria_South%20Africa%20-%20Republic%20of_SF2023-0014.pdf.
[18] Stefan Bouzarovski and Saska Petrova, “A Global Perspective on Domestic Energy Deprivation: Overcoming the Energy Poverty–Fuel Poverty Binary,” Energy Research & Social Science 10 (November 1, 2015): 31–40, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2015.06.007.
[19] Stefan Bouzarovski, “Energy Poverty in the European Union: Landscapes of Vulnerability,” WIREs Energy and Environment 3, no. 3 (2014): 276–89, https://doi.org/10.1002/wene.89.
[20] Stefan Bouzarovski, “Understanding Energy Poverty, Vulnerability and Justice,” in Energy Poverty: (Dis)Assembling Europe’s Infrastructural Divide, ed. Stefan Bouzarovski (Cham: Springer International, 2018), 9–39, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69299-9_2.
[21] Dominic J. Bednar and Tony G. Reames, “Recognition of and Response to Energy Poverty in the United States,” Nature Energy 5, no. 6 (June 2020): 432–39, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0582-0; Shuchen Cong, Destenie Nock, Yueming Lucy Qiu, and Bo Xing, “Unveiling Hidden Energy Poverty Using the Energy Equity Gap,” Nature Communications 13, no. 1 (May 4, 2022): 2456, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30146-5.
[22] Diana Hernández, “Understanding ‘Energy Insecurity’ and Why It Matters to Health,” Social Science & Medicine 167 (October 2016): 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.08.029.
[23] US Energy Information Administration, “Residential Energy Consumption Survey,” 2020, https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Diana Hernández and Eva Siegel, “Energy Insecurity and Its Ill Health Effects: A Community Perspective on the Energy-Health Nexus in New York City,” Energy Research & Social Science 47 (January 1, 2019): 78–83, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.08.011; Shalanda Baker, Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition (Island Press, 2021).
[26] Miranda Simes, Tasfia Rahman, and Diana Hernández, “Vigilant Conservation: How Energy Insecure Households Navigate Cumulative and Administrative Burdens,” Energy Research & Social Science 101 (July 1, 2023): 103092, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103092.
[27] Suzanne Macartney and Robin Ghertner, “Participation in the US Social Safety Net: Coverage of Low-Income Families, 2018,” Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, US Department of Health and Human Services, 2021, https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/9e9000cb7b1e4e30c2e616e547ed9bd9/program-eligibility-participation-brief-december-2021.pdf; Andrea Nishi, Diana Hernández, and Michael Gerrard, “Energy Insecurity Mitigation: The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and Other Low-Income Relief Programs in the US,” Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, 2023, https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/publications/energy-insecurity-mitigation-the-low-income-home-energy-assistance-program-and-other-low-income-relief-programs-in-the-us/.
[28] Southern Environmental Law Center, “A Troubling Trend in Rate Design: Proposed Rate Design Alternatives to Harmful Fixed Charges,” 2015, https://legacy.uploads.southernenvironment.org/news-feed/A_Troubling_Trend_in_Rate_Design.pdf.
[29] Shuchen Cong et al., “Unveiling Hidden Energy Poverty Using the Energy Equity Gap,” Nature Communications 13, no. 1 (May 4, 2022): 2456, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30146-5.
[30] Diana Hernández and Jennifer Laird, “Surviving a Shut-Off: U.S. Households at Greatest Risk of Utility Disconnections and How They Cope,” American Behavioral Scientist 66, no. 7 (June 1, 2022): 856–80, https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642211013401.
[31] Natalie Coleman et al., “Energy Inequality in Climate Hazards: Empirical Evidence of Social and Spatial Disparities in Managed and Hazard-Induced Power Outages,” Sustainable Cities and Society 92 (May 1, 2023): 104491, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2023.104491; Kelsea Best et al., “Spatial Regression Identifies Socioeconomic Inequality in Multi-Stage Power Outage Recovery after Hurricane Isaac,” Natural Hazards 117, no. 1 (May 1, 2023): 851–73, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-05886-2.
[32] Joan A. Casey et al., “Power Outages and Community Health: A Narrative Review,” Current Environmental Health Reports 7, no. 4 (December 1, 2020): 371–83, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-020-00295-0; Hernández and Siegel, “Energy Insecurity and Its Ill Health Effects”; Godfred O. Boateng et al., “Household Energy Insecurity and COVID-19 Have Independent and Synergistic Health Effects on Vulnerable Populations,” Frontiers in Public Health 8 (2020): 609608, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.609608; Amanda J. Harker Steele and John C. Bergstrom, “‘Brr! It’s Cold in Here’ Measures of Household Energy Insecurity for the United States,” Energy Research & Social Science 72 (February 1, 2021): 101863, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101863; Tian Tang and Hyunji Kim, “Linking Energy Policy, Energy Insecurity, and Health Outcomes,” Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy 2 (2023), https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsuep.2023.1231821.
[33] Hernández, “Understanding ‘Energy Insecurity’ and Why It Matters to Health”; Tony Gerard Reames, “Targeting Energy Justice: Exploring Spatial, Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Disparities in Urban Residential Heating Energy Efficiency,” Energy Policy 97 (October 1, 2016): 549–58, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.07.048.
[34] Hernández and Siegel, “Energy Insecurity and Its Ill Health Effects.”
[35] Kimberly A. Rollings et al., “Housing and Neighborhood Physical Quality: Children’s Mental Health and Motivation,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 50 (June 1, 2017): 17–23.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.01.004; Diana Hernández and Shakira Suglia, “Housing as a Social Determinant of Health,” Leveraging the Social Determinants to Build a Culture of Health, Philadelphia, PA, 2016, https://healthequity.globalpolicysolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Housing2.pdf.
[36] Hilary Thomson et al., “Housing Improvements for Health and Associated Socio-Economic Outcomes,” The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, no. 2 (February 28, 2013): CD008657, https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008657.pub2; Philippa Howden-Chapman et al., “Effect of Insulating Existing Houses on Health Inequality: Cluster Randomised Study in the Community,” BMJ 2007;334:460, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17324975/; Bruce Tonn, Erin Rose, and Michaela Marincic, “Cascading Benefits of Low-Income Weatherization upon Health and Household Well-Being,” Building and Environment 242 (2023): 110470, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132323004973; Bruce Tonn, Erin Rose, and Beth Hawkins, “Evaluation of the US Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program: Impact Results,” Energy Policy 118 (2018): 279–290, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421518301836.
[37] Diana Hernández, “Sacrifice along the Energy Continuum: A Call for Energy Justice,” Environmental Justice 8, no. 4 (August 2015): 151–56, https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2015.0015; Kirsten Jenkins et al., “Energy Justice: A Conceptual Review,” Energy Research & Social Science 11 (January 1, 2016): 174–82, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2015.10.004.
[38] Darren A. McCauley, Raphael J. Heffron, Hannes Stephan, and Kirsten Jenkins, “Advancing Energy Justice: The Triumvirate of Tenets,” International Energy Law Review 32, no. 3 (2013): 107–10.
[39] Raphael J. Heffron and Darren McCauley, “The Concept of Energy Justice across the Disciplines,” Energy Policy 105 (June 1, 2017): 658–67, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.018; Baker, Revolutionary Power.
[40] Heffron and McCauley, “The Concept of Energy Justice across the Disciplines.”
[41] Max Lacey-Barnacle, Rosie Robison, and Chris Foulds, “Energy Justice in the Developing World: A Review of Theoretical Frameworks, Key Research Themes and Policy Implications,” Energy for Sustainable Development 55 (April 1, 2020): 122–38, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2020.01.010.
[42] The call for practice-based evidence has largely emerged from the public health field. As compared to an “evidence-based practice” paradigm, which focuses on isolating the causal mechanisms through strictly controlled research studies, “practice-based evidence” focuses on studying interventions in the midst of complex realities. In 2009, for example, a guidance from the National Institutes of Health encouraged “the formation of interdisciplinary teams and practitioner-academic partnerships to conduct research in diverse community and practice environments to generate practice-based evidence about what works in program implementation and dissemination.” See more on this topic in Alice Ammerman, Tosha Woods Smith, and Larissa Calancie, “Practice-Based Evidence in Public Health: Improving Reach, Relevance, and Results,” Annual Review of Public Health 35, no. 1 (2014): 47–63, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182458.
[43] Subhrendu Pattanayak, Hannah Girardeau, and Faraz Usmani, “Achieving Universal Energy Access by Closing the Gap between What We Know and What We Do,” Brookings, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/achieving-universal-energy-access-by-closing-the-gap-between-what-we-know-and-what-we-do/.
[44] Rosie Day, Gordon Walker, and Neil Simcock, “Conceptualising Energy Use and Energy Poverty Using a Capabilities Framework,” Energy Policy 93 (June 1, 2016): 255–64, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.03.019.
[45] Jamal Lewis, Diana Hernández, and Arline T. Geronimus, “Energy Efficiency as Energy Justice: Addressing Racial Inequities through Investments in People and Places,” Energy Efficiency 13, no. 3 (March 1, 2020): 419–32, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09820-z.
[46] Carlos Tornel, “Decolonizing Energy Justice from the Ground up: Political Ecology, Ontology, and Energy Landscapes,” Progress in Human Geography 47, no. 1 (February 1, 2023): 43–65, https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325221132561.
[47] The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked objectives created and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2015, as part of the post-2015 development agenda. The SDGs emphasize the interconnected environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development, and most of these targets are to be achieved by 2030. More details on these goas can be found at https://sdgs.un.org; United Nations, “Addressing Energy’s Interlinkages with Other SDGs,” 2022, https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/Policy%20Briefs%20-2022%20Energy%27s%20Interlinkages%20With%20Other%20SDGs.pdf; Wayan G. Santika et al., “From Goals to Joules: A Quantitative Approach of Interlinkages between Energy and the Sustainable Development Goals,” Energy Research & Social Science 50 (April 1, 2019): 201–14, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.11.016.
[48] Diana Hernández, Liv Yoon, and Neil Simcock, “Basing ‘Energy Justice’ on Clear Terms: Assessing Key Terminology in Pursuit of Energy Justice,” Environmental Justice 15, no. 3 (June 2022): 127–38, https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2021.0049.
[49] Jeuland et al., “Is Energy the Golden Thread?”
[50] Shastry, “Energy, Gender, and Development.”
[51] Pattanayak, Girardeau, and Usmani, “Achieving Universal Energy Access by Closing the Gap between What We Know and What We Do.”
[52] Kirsten E. H. Jenkins et al., “Towards Impactful Energy Justice Research: Transforming the Power of Academic Engagement,” Energy Research & Social Science 67 (September 1, 2020): 101510, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101510.
Almost 34 million American households were considered energy insecure in 2020 (the latest date such data were compiled by the US Energy Information Administration), with the majority foregoing...
About one in four American households experience some form of energy insecurity. Within this group, Black, Indigenous, Latine, low- and moderate-income (LMI), and other disadvantaged communities face a disproportionately higher burden.
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Commentary by Vivek Shastry, Andrew Kamau, Qëndresa Krasniqi + 1 more • December 13, 2023