Navigating tensions between rapid and just low-carbon transitions
Peter Newell, Frank W. Geels, Benjamin K. Sovacool
Abstract
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.