Economic Inequality and Energy Justice: New Challenges in a Climate Emergency

Dear Colleagues,

Ray Galvin and Minna Sunikka-Blank are to edit a Special Issue of the open access journal Energies on the topic "Economic Inequality and Energy Justice: New Challenges in a Climate Emergency".

Global energy consumption is by far the largest contributor to CO₂ emissions, but after 30 years of scientific warnings of the dire consequences of unabated CO₂ emissions for the earth’s climate, emissions are continuing to increase. The scientific consensus is now that catastrophic climate change will be upon us within years rather than decades if we do not drastically reduce CO₂ emissions forthwith.

The last 30 years have also seen huge changes in society and economics. In this period, almost all high-income countries have shifted radically from being the egalitarian societies they were in the post-war decades, to highly unequal societies with increasing numbers of both desperately poor and super-rich, while working-class incomes have stagnated. Emerging economies have seen a different pattern in the same period, with hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty but, as in high-income countries, an increasing class of super-wealthy. In many other countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, poverty has continued or even deepened, while a few wealthy elites have prospered hugely. Writers such as Jeffrey Winters, Naomi Klein, Robert Reich, and Joseph Stigltz point out that a global class of multi-billionaires now has increasing power and influence over world events, often leaving elected politicians relatively powerless.

The current climate emergency takes place within this global context. Demand for energy rises persistently as average global wealth increases and the super-wealthy find new and extravagant ways to consume. Fossil fuels continue to be extracted and subsidized, as elected politicians accede to the wishes of wealthy corporations. Although engineers find new ways to save energy and produce clean energy, and social scientists devise new interventions to help individuals to reduce their energy demand, rebound effects and increasing energy demand eat into these gains, and fossil fuels continue to be in high demand.

Energy scholarship has struggled to engage with this unhappy nexus. Energy justice literature has begun to analyze how powerful, wealthy concerns often ride roughshod over vulnerable communities to reap huge profits from CO₂-emitting projects. Energy economics studies are beginning to identify correlations between the level of economic inequality and the tonnage of CO₂ emissions a society produces. More recently, scholars are identifying some of the direct links and methods that excessively wealthy individuals and concerns employ to prevent elected politicians enacting the will of the vast majority of ordinary people to reduce CO₂ emissions radically.

We invite scholars from all relevant disciplines to contribute to this discussion. Some of the questions and issues we would like to see addressed are:

• What connections are there between economic inequality and CO₂ emissions?
• Are these connections different in high- and low-income countries?
• How does today’s increasingly lopsided distribution of wealth—e.g., 25 individuals have more wealth between them than the poorest 50% of humanity—influence politicians’ attempts to make clean energy work for all?
• In what ways do women lose out (or win?) with regard to energy and economics, in general and in today’s climate emergency?
• The climate crisis is bringing new energy policies—but on whose terms? Who is included in the decision making for new policies and technologies to combat climate change?
• Is it possible to balance economic equality, sustainable growth, and energy justice in the Global South, e.g., considering problems of rapid urbanization and affordable housing?
• Who is responsible for the excessive energy consumption in product areas such as SUVs, ICT servers or air travel: the consumers or the corporations who design and market the products?
• The EU has undertaken devising a “Green New Deal”, similar to the Green New Deal advocated by US Democrats. What implications does this have for, e.g., energy justice? Energy economics? Economic inequality?
• Are there new innovative research methods we should use to understand economic inequality and energy justice?

These are only suggestions; we are open to receiving articles over a full range of the topic area, including interdisciplinary approaches, method-based papers, and research focused on either the Global South, high-income countries, or a global perspective.

Dr. Ray Galvin
Dr. Minna Sunikka-Blank
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Inequality and energy
• Inequality and CO₂ emissions
• Energy justice in a climate emergency
• Green New Deal
• Women and energy inequality
• Energy and the new climate justice movements
• Just and unjust energy transitions
• The economics of rapid CO₂ emission reductions
• Energy and governance in a climate emergency