#5 Energy Justice & The Capability Approach

The Capability Approach in Conversation

In this episode, we discuss energy justice and what a capabilities fromework can bring to it. We were joined by Dr Nathan Wood who helped put the episode together, Professors Lucie Middlemiss and Joohee Lee.
Professor Lucie Middlemiss

Professor Lucie Middlemiss joined the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds in 2004 as a Teaching and Research Fellow. She completed her PhD in the School in 2009 and subsequently became a Lecturer in Sustainability the same year. In 2017, she was promoted to Associate Professor in Sustainability and full Professor in September 2021. Professor Middlemiss earned an MSc in Environmental Management from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and spent five years working in publishing. She currently chairs Fair Energy Futures, an initiative focused on addressing energy injustice and inequality, while also co-leading the Leeds Relational Energy Group. Additionally, she co-leads the ‘Fuel Poverty Evidence’ project.

https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see/staff/1422/professor-lucie-middlemiss

Energy poverty and social relations: A capabilities approach:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.05.002
Professor Joohee Lee

Joohee Lee is Assistant Professor in the Department of Climate and Energy at Sejong [pronounced Se-Jong] University and Research Fellow at the Foundation for Renewable Energy & Environment. She researches issues of energy justice, climate justice, just and sustainable transitions, bottom-up and community-based transitions, and citizen empowerment. She earned a PhD in energy and environmental policy at the Center for Energy & Environmental Policy (CEEP) at the University of Delaware, United States. Operationalising capability thinking in the assessment of energy poverty relief policies: Moving from compensation-based to empowerment-focused policy strategies. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 22(2): 292-315. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2021.1887108. [3] Lee, Joohee, John Byrne, and Jeongseok Seo. (2023). Chapter 7: Re-imagining energy-society relations: An interactive framework for social movement-based energy-society transformation. In Majia Nadesan, Martin Pasqualetti, and Jennifer Keahey, eds., Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures. Elsevier. Pp. 59-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822796-1.00007-3.

Operationalising Capability Thinking in the Assessment of Energy Poverty Relief Policies: Moving from Compensation-based to Empowerment-focused Policy Strategies:

https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2021.1887108

Dr Nathan Wood;
Nathan is a postdoc at the Fair Energy Transition Center in the Netherlands, based at Utrecht University and Eindhoven University of Technology. He recently completed his PhD Energy, Capability, and Justice: a foundation for a normative account of energy systems, in which he focused on using moral and political philosophy to better understand the ethical problems arising from energy systems and their governance.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7b7Qdp4AAAAJ&hl=en&inst=7240083048524121927&oi=sra

Tensions, capabilities, and justice in climate change mitigation of fossil fuels

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.02.014