Contested renewable energy projects in Latin America: bridging frameworks of justice to understand ‘triple inequalities of decarbonisation policies’

ABSTRACT

Renewable energy (RE) projects are increasingly contested. We present bio- and wind energy projects in Argentina, Mexico, and Nicaragua with reference to different frameworks of justice. We bridge the concept of energy justice with insights from climate change and climate justice research and argue that the social groups facing energy injustices related to the implementation of RE projects face a situation of ‘triple inequalities of decarbonisation policies’: they are negatively affected by climate change although, from a global and historical perspective, they have not contributed much to it, and now face injustices related to the mitigation of climate change. We underscore this argument by presenting cases of wind energy generation and biomass production for fuel. We conclude that relating different strands of justice debates with a historically grounded analysis of triple inequalities can imply the denial of RE projects by actors who belong to marginalised groups – despite of a global urgency of decarbonisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Renewable energies
• energy justice
• environmental justice
• climate justice
• socioecological inequalities

Acknowledgements

The authors thank colleagues from Freiburg and Jena University for helpful comments on the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We speak of energy justice and are aware of analytical and content overlaps with term energy democracy (Becker & Naumann, 2017; Szulecki, 2018; Morris & Jungjohann, 2016). According to Szulecki (2018, p. 26). Energy democracy is focused on political repercussions whereas energy justice as conceptual, analytical and decision-making tool (Sovacool & Dworkin, 2015) is bound to attention on moral impacts of political, individual or business decisions related to energy.

2 Social movements have developed a qualitative understanding of climate justice in the last years, about the different possibilities to adapt and mitigate climate change. There is a growing confluence of the ideas of climate and environmental justice and movements for climate justice have developed a more sophisticated and critical understanding of the term (Brunnengräber and Dietz (2016, p. 161). Recent movements as Fridays for Future integrate demands of environmental justice more and more into their understanding of climate crisis and its connection to social inequalities and power asymmetries.

3 The literature on environmental justice and energy justice has a clear normative focus. Therefore, there is no systematic distinction between inequalities and injustices; social differences are welcome, but all barriers that hinder equal human capabilities (in Sen’s sense) are unjust and ‘inequalities are therefore violations of human rights, preventing billions of human beings from full human development’ (Therborn 2013, p. 41).

4 The case study was conducted by Anne Tittor and VirginiaToledo López in 2017-2020.

5 VUDAS stands for Vecinos Unidos en Defensa de un Ambiente Sano and means United Neighbours in Defence of a Healthy Environment.

6 The case study was conducted by Anne Tittor in 2015-2016

7 4.158 hectare is the amount of land the company legally is permitted for planting oil palm; it is also the number found in corresponding statistics. Environmental NGOs in the area argue that the enterprise is planting oil palm on larger areas (5.567 hectares in 2010) Fundación del Rio (2011, p. 51).

8 This case study was conducted by Rosa Lehmann between 2014-2017

9 For current data see https://amdee.org/.

10 For statistical overview see the corresponding country websites of the International Energy Agency (IEA): https://www.iea.org/countries/mexico; https://www.iea.org/countries/argentina; and https://www.iea.org/countries/nicaragua.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research funding of the junior research group ‘Bioeconomy and Inequalities. Transnational Entanglements and Interdependencies in the Bioenergy Sector’ [grant number 031B0021].

Notes on contributors

Rosa Lehmann

Rosa Lehmann is a Junior Professor for Innovation and Sustainability in Ibero-America at the Heidelberg Centre for Ibero-American Studies (HCIAS) at Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany. She holds a Ph.D. in political science and her work covers socioecological conflicts and inequalities related to renewable energies and the bioeconomy with a regional focus on Latin America. Her research interests include further political ecology, development and sustainability studies, and social movements.

Anne Tittor

Anne Tittor is a postdoctoral researcher in the junior research group ‘Bioeconomy and Inequalities. Transnational Entanglements and Interdependencies in the Bioenergy Sector’ (BMBF) at the Institute of Sociology at Jena University, Jena, Germany. She is a sociologist by training and holds a Ph.D. in political science. Her research interests are political ecology, social inequalities, extractivism, bioeconomy, social movements as well as environmental, social and health policies with a regional focus on Latin America.