Issues in environmental justice within the European Union

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.06.025

Ecological Economics

Volume 70, Issue 11, 15 September 2011, Pages 1846-1853

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.06.025 Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper surveys pressing issues facing current and future social policies in the European Union (EU) at the juncture of social justice demands and environmental concerns. European policy-makers have in fact only recently acknowledged the notions of environmental justice and environmental inequalities, which have been part of the US policy arsenal for almost two decades. Yet, challenges to equality and fairness in the environmental domain are many and growing within the European Union. After having defined environmental justice and environmental inequalities in the European context, the paper addresses two contemporary dimensions of those challenges for EU social policies: vulnerability and exposure to environmental disaster and risk; and fairness in environmental taxation and the related issue of fuel poverty.

Highlights

► Issues within the European Union (EU) at the juncture of social justice demands and environmental concerns. ► Definition of environmental justice and environmental inequalities in the European context. ► Focus on vulnerability and exposure to environmental disaster and risk. ► Focus on fairness in environmental taxation, including fuel poverty.

Section snippets

Introduction: The American Background of Environmental Justice

Although it emerged as a public concern as early as 1820,¹ the notion of “environmental justice” was really born in the United States in the mid-1980s, in the context of the struggle for racial equality. It first served to designate at once racial and ethnic inequalities in exposure to environmental risk (pollutions, toxic waste) and the exclusion of racial minorities, especially African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans, from the definition and

Adapting and Adopting Environmental Justice in the European Union

Before getting to practical issues regarding European environmental justice, it should be made clear that two dimensions of the question co-exist: a first dimension has to do with the important ecological debt the European Union has been accumulating at least since the industrial revolution vis-à-vis poor and developing countries in terms of carbon budget and resources use (global environmental justice); the second dimension regards intra and inter-generational aspects of environmental justice

Vulnerability to Social–Ecological Disasters, Exposure to Environmental Risk

In the context of the growing concern regarding climate change impact, the notions of vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity and adaptation have gained momentum. UNEP (2007) defines vulnerability as “a function of exposure, sensitivity to impacts and the ability or lack of ability to cope or adapt” and adds that “the exposure can be to hazards such as drought, conflict or extreme price fluctuations, and also to underlying socio-economic, institutional and environmental conditions. The impacts not

Fairness in Environmental Taxation and Fuel Poverty

Climate change mitigation requires the mobilization of all available economic instruments (regulation, cap-and-trade, carbon taxes) in order first to put a price on carbon, and then to increase it gradually so as to phase out the use of fossil fuels and foster low carbon economic growth and development. In this perspective, carbon taxes are a under-used but efficient economic instrument to curb so-called “diffuse pollutions”, i.e. decentralized greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions stemming from

Conclusion: Policies, Behaviors and Attitudes

How to better acknowledge, measure and eventually reduce environmental inequalities in the European Union? Pye et al. (2008) make a number of useful recommendations in this direction to European policy-makers in order to progress and catch up not only with the US but also with best European practices:

1.
The concept of environmental justice should be adopted as a guiding principle for policy development at the European level and across all Member States as a means of addressing social concerns

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The rapid growth of heatwaves' severity have increasingly endangered citizens’ health in the last decade. Evidence points to the environmental injustice of heatwaves: inequal heatwave exposure among socioeconomic groups. Failing to use an adequate indicator of thermal comfort at a large scale, the previous studies have not adequately scrutinized the environmental justice of heatwaves and their variations across a large-scale territory. This study is novel in an unprecedented analysis of psychological equivalent temperature (PET), a comprehensive measure of thermal comfort, across socioeconomic groups and the urban-rural gradient of the Netherlands, as a proxy for factors affecting heatwave vulnerability. The results show that heatwave inequality (measured by the Gini coefficient) is higher in less urbanized areas. It shows that the population aged 25–44, immigrants, tenants, and females are the most heat-exposed groups across all levels of urbanization. However, the population aged 25–44 is more likely to be overexposed in urbanized areas, and immigrants are more likely to be overexposed in rural areas. The results open discussion on the necessity of location-specific policies protecting the most heat-exposed groups in different areas. It also paves the way for future studies using broader PET simulations and expanding their scope to include citizens' daily movements.
Environmental inequality in industrial brownfields: Evidence from French municipalities
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Recent research on environmental inequality has extended its focus from ongoing pollution to legacy pollution by examining the geography of industrial brownfields, defined as non-productive, contaminated land. This article is the first extensive brownfield analysis for a European country from an environmental inequality perspective, exploiting the political momentum in France where brownfield restoration has become a national priority. We combine data on over 7200 industrial brownfields from the 2022 geodatabase ‘Cartofriches’ with socio-economic variables at the municipality level. We demonstrate that communities with higher percentages of foreign-born and unemployed persons are disproportionately more likely to be located in proximity to brownfields. The social gradient increases significantly in communities that host more than two brownfields. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship with income, with a turning point at approximately 25,600 annually. These findings are robust across urban and rural areas, though with regional differences. Our analysis provides entry points for restorative environmental justice considerations and has important implications for Europe's just transition and cohesion policies.
Ambient air pollution-related environmental inequality and environmental dissimilarity in Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland
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Most studies suggest that people with lower socio-economic status (SES) are exposed to higher air pollution levels. Research from Europe, on the other hand, have shown mixed results, often indicating non-linear patterns, necessitating a better understanding of the context-specific manifestation of the relationship between SES and air pollution. The results of our generalized additive model show that median income of inhabitants has an inverted U-shaped relationship with air pollution in Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. However, when the spatial distribution of people belonging to certain income groups is considered in applying an environmental dissimilarity analysis, low-income people are found to be more adversely dispersed compared to other income groups. By contrasting additional built environment and socio-economic characteristics of the total population and of the low-income people's hotspots for environmental dissimilarity, we present further indications of environmental injustice regarding car ownership, heating types and ownership structure of the building stock.
How does the digital economy accelerate global energy justice? Mechanism discussion and empirical test
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In the context of climate change, just transition is particularly significant, and digitalization as a possible solution for a just transition is considered in this paper. We construct an econometric model between the digital economy and just transition by using a balanced panel dataset of 72 economies from 2010 to 2019, and explore their dynamic relationship and mechanism impacts by applying a system-generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) technique and a mediating model. The main results indicate that both the digital economy index and just transition index increase during the study period. Moreover, the digital economy not only promotes just transition, but also increases distributional justice, procedural justice, and restorative justice. In addition, the infrastructure and social impact of the digital economy also significantly increase the level of just transition; however, digital trade presents a negative effect on just transition. Finally, from the mechanism analysis, the digital economy indirectly improves just transition by increasing the level of human capital and financial development. This paper provides new ideas for realizing just transition in the future.
Promoting environmental justice in contaminated areas by combining environmental public health and community theatre practices
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Citation Excerpt :
The central focus of Environmental Justice is on discrimination, and it depends on the cultural and legal background of public policy in different countries. For example, in most European countries, environmental justice issues are predominantly perceived, analysed and framed in terms of social categories rather than in racial and ethnic terms as it is in the U.S.A. (Laurent, 2011). The Environmental Justice is commonly recognised as having two main dimensions: Distributive Justice and Procedural Justice.
Communities affected by contaminated sites are often overburdened by environmental and social fragilities living a depression in their potentialities and destabilisation in health and quality of life. The paradigm of Environmental Justice and the framework of community capacity (community capacities) are at stake in promoting environmental public health in communities affected by contaminated sites. Three community changes foreseeing the following objectives appear as priorities: centralisation in decisions regarding the use of their territories; an active (i.e. participated) role in decision-making processes; a view of a possible future without contamination. These transitions require the activation of technical, scientific, and cultural domains. While environmental public health research, especially if implemented through a community participative approach, has a central role in promoting the community capacity of ‘knowledge’, performing arts have great potential for empowering the other capacities. Different collective theatrical approaches are reviewed and analysed in the cultural domain, identifying those of community theatre as the practices with the greatest participative and transformative impact. A community-based approach for promoting environmental justice in contaminated sites requires the development of interventions integrating technical-scientific with cultural domains.
Distributive justice in environmental health hazards from industrial contamination: A systematic review of national and near-national assessments of social inequalities
2022, Social Science and Medicine
Communities where polluting human activities are sited often show disadvantage in terms of social and economic variables. Environmental distributive justice studies seek to identify common characteristics in exposed populations and highlight the presence of environmental inequalities.
We have conducted a review of the existing literature about justice in the distribution of health hazards from industrial pollution. We included papers investigating associations between social disadvantage and contamination through assessments at national or macro-area level. From each study we extracted: indicators for the social determinants of exposed communities (classified according to PROGRESS-plus categories); definition and measurement of environmental hazard (as either proximity to contamination sources, exposure to emissions or health impacts from pollutants); study design and methods; significant results.
We retrieved 45 eligible articles. Most publications were from USA and had a nationwide scope with data at municipal/sub-municipal scale. Socioeconomic position and race/ethnicity were the social determinants most often explored, followed by occupation and education; air pollution was the commonest sort of contamination, while proximity prevailed as measurement of hazard. All papers found significant associations between social dimensions and health hazard from industrial contamination: the majority of associations supported an increased burden on vulnerable categories, especially ethnic minorities and unemployed – however, several relationships were found in the opposite direction or in both ways, particularly with wealth and education, reflecting a mixed reality where potential discrimination in siting decisions coexists with socioeconomic benefits for nearby communities due to industrial development. Assessments of environmental distributive justice are lacking in most countries and those that are conducted show vast methodological heterogeneity. We recommend consistency in models and indicators, the inclusion of female-led households among indicators of social disadvantage, and the adoption of a small scale to elicit significant findings and provide meaningful policy action.

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SurveysIssues in environmental justice within the European Union

Abstract

Highlights

Section snippets

Introduction: The American Background of Environmental Justice

Adapting and Adopting Environmental Justice in the European Union

Vulnerability to Social–Ecological Disasters, Exposure to Environmental Risk

Fairness in Environmental Taxation and Fuel Poverty

Conclusion: Policies, Behaviors and Attitudes

Just sustainability: the emerging discourse of environmental justice in Britain?

The Geographical Journal

Do People Vote with Their Feet? An Empirical Test of Environmental Gentrification

Inequality and environmental protection

In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster and Race After Katrina

Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality

Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty 1987–2007: Grassroots Struggles to Dismantle Environmental Racism in the United States

Toxic wastes and race at twenty: why race still matters after all of these years

Environmental Law

Modelling the initial effects of the climate change levy

Social vulnerability to environmental hazards

Social Science Quarterly

Inégalités sociales d'exposition aux facteurs de risques environnementaux : l'exemple de l'implantation des sites industriels à risque ou polluants dans la région Nord–Pas-de-Calais

Doubled length of western European summer heat waves since 1880

Journal of Geophysical Research

Connaître ou reconnaître les inégalités environnementales ?

Addressing environmental inequalities: cumulative environmental impacts

Science Report: SC020061/SR4, Bristol

Excess mortality related to the August 2003 heat wave in France

International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health

Pollution and Poverty — Breaking the Link

The Campaign for Environmental Justice

Environmental justice and Roma communities in Central and Eastern Europe

Environmental Policy and Governance

Surveys
Issues in environmental justice within the European Union