Energy Democracy & Climate Justice: Diversifying Power and Resisting Oppression in Fossil Fuel Phase-Out & Renewable Transformation

To date, climate action in the United States has focused on technological solutions with limited attention to social change and social justice. The technocratic focus on optimizing the reduction of carbon emissions has resulted in missed opportunities to leverage the transformation away from fossil fuels to renewables to address growing socio-economic and racial inequities. Fossil fuel phase-out and renewable transformation offer opportunities to redistribute power (literally and figuratively), to resist oppressive fossil fuel based power structures, and diversify leadership to avoid perpetuating systemic injustices. Despite this potential - depending on how the renewable energy transition progresses - energy system changes could perpetuate, rather than reduce, vulnerabilities, injustices, and inequalities. The emerging social movement of energy democracy provides a valuable lens to guide participation and governance of fossil fuel phase-out and the renewable energy transformation. The energy democracy concept offers a framework to consider whether climate and energy policies are contributing to reducing, rather than perpetuating, vulnerabilities and inequalities associated with legacy fossil-fuel-based energy systems. By explicitly acknowledging and connecting how energy systems impact political, economic, institutional and cultural outcomes, energy democracy re-articulates energy system change as an opportunity to redistribute and diversify political and economic power among individuals, communities, and organizations. Redistributing who is included, who is excluded, who benefits and who is disadvantaged is critical to effective fossil fuel phase-out. To mobilize the transformative change that is needed, the United States strategy on climate and energy must explicitly link the "climate emergency" with advancing social justice. This transformative politics requires diversifying leadership in climate and energy.