Photo Credit: John Englart 2019
By FREE Staff
As the U.S. undertakes the important task of redefining its energy future, experts often debate how to include the public in the process.
Over the last three and a half years, the COVID-19 pandemic has offered a new and unique example of how collective action and energy can be put towards a common societal goal to achieve change.
In 2020, governments around the world called on their citizens to mask up and social distance to keep society as safe as possible and find a way out of the pandemic. On the whole, people took it upon themselves to do just that, meaning that three years later, our world is stepping into a post-pandemic normal.
The path since 2020, while at times stilted and painful, offers climate experts an illustration of how such social movement can create real change. It’s this kind of social movement-based action that FREE researchers Joohee Lee, John Byrne, and Jeongseok Seo say is necessary to achieve a true and equitable energy transition. The three researchers explored this topic in a chapter of the 2023 book Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures.
Social movement-based energy transitions as envisioned by climate experts often include the three guiding principles of “resisting, reclaiming, and restructuring” processes. More specifically, this means resisting the fossil fuel energy agenda, reclaiming social and public control over the energy sector, and restructuring the energy sector to better support democratic processes, social justice and inclusion, and environmental sustainability, write Lee, Byrne, and Seo.
The three authors take these concepts even further, highlighting the need for a justice-based energy transition, as well as the adoption of the commonwealth principle of energy responsibility and the importance of community trust in rolling out a new political system.
“Finally, organizing principles guide practical restructuring strategies, and it is our observation that the most progressive strategies are often pursued by polycentric, non-governmental, and citizen-empowering tools,” the authors write. “The overarching goal of this energy commons movement is to reframe energy decisions as a province of localities and citizens.”
To create this system of collective action and responsibility, it starts with empowering citizens in the energy transition. Energy services are produced and distributed almost entirely through industrial-scale energy infrastructures, such as power plants and electric grids owned by private companies or government entities, leaving the average resident with little say in how they receive their energy.
“Individuals have no choice but to passively consume the energy services provided by decision-makers and operators of existing energy systems even if the energy services they use may contradict their environmental stewardship,” Lee, Byrne, and Seo write. “Consumers, therefore, are given no significant role in determining or contributing to their own energy future.”
A social movement-based energy transition overhauls this structure.
The new system deploys bottom-up, polycentric decision-making systems that empower more members of society to take active roles in the energy transition. This approach includes leveraging a commonwealth economy, in which community members collectively pursue the goal of less energy usage and harnessing locally available, renewable resources. The goal of this system is not profits but collective improved wellbeing.
“By treating energy (especially renewables) as a social as well as an ecological commons, rather than as a commodity that could only be accessed through private markets, citizens can choose to stop continuing on the energy path controlled by investor-owned utilities and to build momentum to replace cornucopian energy economics with a commonwealth form,” the authors write.
Social movement-based transitions are based on the idea that individuals can take central roles in the energy system. It builds upon the idea of collective empowerment, rather than remaining beholden to corporate or even governmental energy interests.
This system does away with only a top-down approach to energy policy setting, instead employing localized and distributed governing power to non-traditional actors. In doing so, it gives more people the chance to feel empowered in determining their energy futures.
“The primary functions of local energy projects are to serve and empower people interested in energy transitions that, literally, energize creativity and innovation,” Lee, Byrne, and Seo write. “They are not about practicing best (or most efficient) management of the resources but about identifying community energy needs and realizing their shared climate-energy visions.
The state of Delaware is a prime example of a government entity that has begun deploying such a form of energy policy. In 2007, the state introduced the first Sustainable Energy Utility, a non-profit community utility model created to help energy users consume less energy and access local, sustainable energy sources.
The SEU allows non-traditional actors like small businesses and faith-based groups to be part of the energy transition. It’s since been introduced in other jurisdictions, including Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
Rewriting the U.S.’s energy future is a huge task that will take the work and creativity of many people to accomplish. It is vital that policymakers integrate community-led approaches like a social movement-based concept, to allow more people to have a say in their energy futures.