Navigating tensions between rapid and just low-carbon transitions

Abstract

In this Perspective, we suggest that research on just transitions and energy justice needs to better attend to the increasingly important trade-offs arising from issues related to speed and acceleration of low-carbon transitions. We identify and elaborate two important tensions that policymakers face when they want to simultaneously achieve both just and rapid low-carbon transitions. First, the way in which participatory processes may increase justice but slow the speed of action; and second the way in which incumbent mobilization can accelerate transitions but entrench injustices. Such an analysis shifts the focus from mapping justice dimensions to acknowledging the inevitable trade-offs and winners and losers produced by transition processes as a first step to better navigating them.

Keywords

• carbon
• transitions
• energy justice
• energy transitions
• equity