28. Energy Justice in Theory and Practice: Building a Pragmatic, Progressive Road Map

The field of energy poverty and energy justice has received increasing attention over the past couple of decades and there is a strong consensus that efforts to reduce energy poverty and establish energy justice are urgently needed, made all the more pressing by the need to address climate change. The objective of this chapter is to provide an empirically grounded framework for energy justice. First, the chapter establishes a positive, progressive frame that recognizes the current ‘crisis’ is part of an evolutionary process that progressive capitalism has repeatedly, successfully navigated in the past. Second, it offers a comprehensive theory of justice that is consistent with the history of a progressive market economy. Third, the chapter identifies specific policies to achieve justice in the energy sector, while preserving the dynamic economic and social forces of progressive capitalist markets. Sections 1 and 2 establish the fact that energy consumption is not only a primary good and fundamental capability that humans must have to participate fully in daily life in the twenty-first century. It is an enabling resource for many, perhaps even most, other capabilities. Without energy justice, there cannot be social justice. Section 3 supports the policies recommended to advance energy justice in progressive capitalist societies by emphasizing approaches that diminish the tension between progressive policies and economic efficiency. It gives the general prescriptions that one finds in policy analyses specificity by grounding them on welfare economics, which has been informed by the theory of distributive justice in progressive capitalist society.