Planning for a Just Energy Transition: If Not Now, When?

This year saw the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th comprehensive assessment of climate change, including the third and final section, published in April 2022, outlining the urgency of transitioning to a zero carbon society (IPCC, 2022). At current projections, it is increasingly likely that global warming during the twenty-first Century will exceed the 1.5 °C limit established at successive UN COP Climate Conventions. Indeed, limiting warming to less that 2 °C relies on the rapid acceleration of mitigation efforts. Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 and should be almost halved this decade to provide a pathway to limiting heating to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. However, rather than a rapid acceleration of mitigation, the IPCC assessment notes that projected cumulative future CO₂ emissions over the lifetime of existing and currently planned fossil fuel infrastructure, without additional abatement, will exceed the total cumulative net CO₂ emissions that limit warming to 1.5 °C. In stark summary, without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is beyond reach. With understatement, the IPCC review highlights the challenge of overcoming the implementation gap between agreed greenhouse gas emission targets and projected higher global emissions.

Issues of energy security are high on political agendas for other reasons too, not least the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. In developing political and economic sanctions “the west” has been hampered by its reliance on Russian gas and oil imports. European Union member states, for example, are dependent on Russia for 40% of their gas, with Germany particularly exposed at 60%. Russia also accounts for 27% of oil imports and 46% of coal imports to the European Union. In March, the European Commission announced plans to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030, with a two-thirds reduction by the end of 2022 (EC, 2022). Between continued climate change warnings and shifting geopolitical tensions, the case for a rapid transition to clean and green energy and for measures that reduce energy demand have never been clearer or more urgent.

In relation to the energy questions posed by the war in Ukraine, while renewable energy is part of the mix of options, other political imperatives are also at play, particularly in relation to rapidly rising energy and fuel prices, which are having knock-on impacts on cost of living concerns. For politicians, this creates short term crises that lead to short term – and from a climate perspective – suboptimal responses that create longer term fossil fuel dependence. For example, as reported in The Guardian (Harvey, 2022), the US is seeking to expand imports of oil from countries previously shunned, such as Venezuela, while domestic oil and gas production from fracking is to be expanded. The UK has also sought alternative oil supply options, encouraging Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. Countries that had previously banned fracking, are now putting all options for enhanced energy security on the table for consideration. However, as emphasized by the IPCC review, we are beyond short termism – rising energy costs and energy security in an era of geopolitical instability must align with global net-zero ambitions and provide further impetus for an energy transition.

Decarbonization requires systemic change and a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to deliver a transformation of our sociotechnical systems i.e. the interlinked mix of technologies, infrastructures, organizations, markets, regulations, and user practices that together deliver societal functions (Geels et al., 2017). As highlighted by the IPCC review, cities and urban areas offer significant opportunities for emissions reductions, through lower energy consumption (such as by creating compact, walkable cities), electrification of transport in combination with low-emission energy sources, and enhanced carbon uptake and storage using nature. Moreover, wider land-use decisions beyond our cities are critical to net-zero ambitions, including protecting or enhancing carbon sinks (e.g. protecting or restoring wetlands) and increasing forestry cover. Planning ought to be centre-stage in the energy transition and wider decarbonization process. Today, spatial plans and policies rarely fail to refer to the climate action imperative and we have the tools and knowledge required to contribute to limiting warming – but does planning have its own decarbonization implementation gap between ambitions and delivery?

As outlined in a recent RTPI study on planning and climate action, despite a clear message on the need for climate mitigation, the tension that exists within planning policy between, on the one hand, economic growth and achieving housing targets and, on the other, delivering low-carbon, resilient development, results in difficulties in delivering ambitious local climate action (RTPI, 2021). This raises two questions. Firstly, do planning decisions contribute towards decarbonizing our urban and regional systems and towards a systemic energy transition? While good practice can be identified, too much development reinforces or compounds carbon dependency. For example, a recent report by the Transport for New Homes group critiquing new residential development in England, highlights that we continue to build car dependency into places through poor design practice and location choices (Transport for New Homes, 2022). This is particularly evident in greenfield locations where new housing development is predicated on an assumption that residents drive for nearly every journey they make. Decarbonization and climate ambitions are also undermined by national economic priorities. For example, in recent decades, Ireland has become a key European centre for tech companies, including hosting European headquarters for Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal and LinkedIn alongside IT staples such as Siemens, HP, Intel, Dell, and Microsoft. Attracting and retaining the tech sector is a significant national priority, and in recent years this has included accommodating the wider infrastructural requirements of this sector. This includes the rapid expansion of data centres (to support cloud storage) as a means to further embed the tech sector within Ireland. However, data centres are hugely energy intensive and recently released statistics highlight that data centres now consume 14% of Ireland’s energy supply – this has tripled in just six years with data centres consuming 265% more electricity in the three-month period between October and December 2021 compared with the three months between January and March 2015 (Central Statistics Office, 2022). While climate action has been mainstreamed as a planning goal in Ireland in legislation and national policy, this new energy intensive land-use demand has been enabled through the planning system, as amendments have been made to planning legislation to classify large data centres as “strategic infrastructure,” facilitating a fast track, streamlined decision-making process which by-passes local planning authorities and reduces opportunities for public input. In a well-rehearsed story, critical environmental concerns and climate action ambitions become squeezed by economic growth and development delivery as planning has moved towards market-led development and a “delivery state” ethos (see Parker et al., 2020).

A second question relates to the capacity of planning systems to manage the transformative change needed for an energy transition, particularly in relation to large scale roll-out of renewable energy. The expansion of wind energy, for example, has been a contested aspect of planning across many countries, leading Ellis et al. (2009) in a Planning Theory & Practice Interface to ask if wind power has a planning problem. There are important lessons from wind energy debates that could be applied to other aspects of decarbonization. A critical issue relates to just transition concerns: both procedural (fairness, transparency, giving voice to different groups) and in relation to outcomes, particularly in ensuring benefits for “host communities” (where renewable infrastructure may be located). This may also include more diverse forms of ownership (for example, by community land trusts) to enable profits to be recycled within communities or to provide cheaper energy for local homes. Planning often has a poor track record in dealing with large-scale infrastructure proposals, which are often characterised by delayed decision-making and legal challenges. A common solution is to propose fast track planning or by closing down debate through black-box decision-making (see Rydin et al., 2018). However, an effective and just transition requires debate, persuasion, transparency, fairness, an unrelenting focus, and a great deal of urgency.

In This Issue

This issue includes five papers in our main article section. In the first paper, Nicky Morrison and Lidija Honegger examine the extent to which sustainable development principles are mainstreamed within the Design Review Process in the English planning system. As noted by the authors, the use of design review panels is now commonplace in providing independent criticism of development proposals, which can strengthen a local authority’s position in pursuing design improvements in negotiations with developers. The paper charts the approach taken by the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel, which has reframed its review process to explicitly address sustainable development through a “4 Cs” charter: community, connectivity, climate, and character. This aims to translate sustainability principles at the point of delivery in the development process rather than with a focus on narrow aesthetic criteria. While noting positive outcomes, Morrison and Honegger highlight concerns with the use of informal governance approaches that often lack transparency for the wider public, and power imbalances between developers and planning authorities related to the wider political context that can negatively impact the ability of review panels to influence design outcomes.

The second article examines issues of market-state power through an analysis of media coverage of a new national plan. In this article, Talia Margalit assesses news coverage during the formulation of Israel’s nationwide plan, TAMA38, arguing that the realm of planning has extended far beyond participatory and regulatory arenas with mass media as a critical venue for engagement. The article is based on analysis of leading Israeli online and printed newspapers to understand how mass media supports existing power structures and whether it is possible for the media to play a role in democratizing planning communications. Margalit demonstrates that while the media’s coverage of TAMA38 both reflected and supported the market’s power, the extensive nature of the coverage also had the effect of undermining the power of planning practitioners through expanding the communication of the plan beyond the terms established by the Israeli planning system. However, the media’s inclusivity was partial and selective (relating to the concerns of affluent residents) and often corresponded with a desire to increase readership, resulting in the exclusion of more marginal voices.

In the next article, Stephen Averill Sherman examines urban universities in the USA and how processes of studentification of near campus neighbourhoods intersect with local policing and police communication to reinforce students’ racist crime fears and impact on how neighbourhoods near to campuses are perceived more widely. Critical in the US context is that large universities themselves employ their own police forces (distinct from more limited campus security) with full arrest powers, firearms and formal academy training. Specifically, the article examines police communications to the student population (Clery Act notices) which in turn can influence student behaviour and their perceptions of neighbourhoods. Sherman argues that crime notices often disproportionally name certain neighbourhoods, which stigmatizes some areas over others and leads to property value deflation that simultaneously enables investors to expand their portfolio of rental properties. These impacts were reinforced in one of Sherman’s case studies where a large proportion of the student population had high levels of trust in the police.

The fourth paper explores different strategies for knowledge production in planning through a comparison of nudging (emerging from behaviour science) and participation. Central to the article is the question posed by its authors, Martin WestIn and Sofie Joose – whose knowledge counts? The article examines the role of the “expert” within both nudging (in the design of nudge policies) and participatory planning (as facilitators) and how authority is assumed or challenged, and how those with authority get to define problems. The article examines both international and national (in this case, Swedish) handbooks in relation to nudging policy and participatory planning to assess problem framing and solution framing, and how each perspective addresses governance, knowledge and ethics through providing a “script” for practitioners. WestIn and Joose highlight how nudging policies rely on a top-down process guided by the expert (the nudger) in a position of authority, with citizens and planners relegated to by-standers whose actions are corrected. The participation script places citizens in a position of authority, but that role is underpinned by planners who commission or act as facilitators in the participation process. Thus, because of their expertise, facilitators are placed in a position of authority over the process itself. In summary, in nudging, experts are constructed as authoritative based on substantive knowledge, whereas facilitators aspire to provide procedural knowledge.

In the final article, Hanna Mattila and Pilvi Nummi also examine knowledge production through reflecting on the role of social media in participatory planning as a digital public sphere. Similar to Margalit’s article on how the news media impact on the public realm, this article examines the influence of social media. The authors examine social media-based participation and public participation, questioning the relationship that planners have with the digital public sphere – should planners try to manage self-organising participation, or should public opinion formation be free from the influence of public authorities? The paper draws on two surveys of planners in Finland examining their experiences of the role of social media. The results suggest that planners are not convinced that the digital public sphere (emerging from social media platforms) forms a public sphere motivated by public interests or public opinions. While recognising that social media has the potential to broaden and diversify the groups of people who participate in planning, Finnish planners emphasized the relevance of debate emerging from channels designed specifically for the purposes of planning decision-making. In contrast, social media-based discussions were perceived as producing unreliable views or as a collection of personal opinions. However, the authors caution against dismissing the digital public sphere, which has the potential to create new counterpublics that may mobilize against plans or planning decisions, suggesting the need for planning organizations to coordinate their social media engagement.

The Interface for this issue (edited by Courtney Knapp, Jocelyn Poe and John Forester) explores the reparative or healing potentials of planning practices. As stated in the introduction to the Interface collection, “If we are to acknowledge and atone for histories of racialized and gendered violence, exploitation and neglect in our communities, we must do better to create healthy conditions for enduring kinship, solidarity, and mutuality.” The aim of the Interface is to explore what the editors refer to as reparative praxis – “to involve dialogue and action, acknowledgement and atonement” in order to take responsibility for past harms and also importantly, to create and imagine new futures. In the first contribution, Michael Méndez examines the role of the reflective practitioner in the context of racial and environmental justice. While Méndez recognizes the inherent structural racism that is embodied in planning practice, he also notes that people underpin environmental values and are also central to understanding how government works and how policies are developed. This requires examining planning cultures (alongside institutions), the make-up of the profession and working practices to understand how systemic unjust advantage is continuously reproduced. In this context, genuine reflective practice can be a powerful tool for planners to rethink prior actions and “learn how in the future they can better challenge multiple forms of inequality embedded in the urban planning profession.” The second contribution is by Claudia B. Isaac, who examines neighbourhood advocacy based on her own experience of community engagement in Albuquerque City, USA. Isaac highlights the profound differences between neighbourhoods in relation to their racialized histories, philosophies of redevelopment, priorities and alliances with key actors. The differences between two neighbourhoods led Isaac to question her approach to community engagement which had been underpinned by a belief that shared goals and a common approach could be found between neighbourhoods impacted by a redevelopment scheme. Isaac demonstrates how neighbourhoods can derive their own strategies for healing, repair and reparation from loss, in this case the closing of a major economic engine in the locality. This is followed by Kathryn Quick’s reflections on issues relating to Whiteness and justice to address legacies of harm and trauma through an assertive, anti-racist agenda. Quick draws on her experience of dialogue and “just talk” as a process designer and discussion facilitator for multi-stakeholder dialogues about policing and public safety. While expressing frustration over the slowness of the struggle for social justice, Quick concludes that “striving to confront Whiteness through local actions is meaningful, and dialogue is a crucially important part of planners’ work for justice and repair.” In the third contribution, Nicole Lanphier explores trauma-informed planning and healing centred engagement. Lanphier draws on two examples from an Irish context. In one example, a proposal for a new greenway led to a collective trauma response triggered by past experiences of perceived anti-social behaviour. This perspective allowed the planning facilitators to move beyond easy presumptions of “NIMBY” style objections to understand the local lived experiences of residents. In the second example, Lanphier charts a housing redevelopment in a community experiencing persistent economic and social problems, including past experiences with a heroin epidemic in the 1980s. In this example, a grassroots community garden scheme provided a healing space and a focal point for various community projects. This leads Lanphier to argue for an assets-based approach to dealing with past trauma with an aspiration towards healing and transformation. The Interface concludes with a contribution by Mia Charlene White, who asks: “can planning ever be held accountable for the trauma and pain its labors have wrought over the centuries?” For White, accountability seems impossible but necessary and is pursued within the classroom context. This draws upon trauma-informed pedagogy linked to the idea of “planning [a]s a site of memory, but whose memory and to what end?” This embraces the idea that planning is a theory of communal trauma, which in turn enables a debate on the potential of reparative planning. Linking all the contributions in this Interface is the power of drawing stories and experiences from practice and the reflective learning underpinning each contribution to confront power and legacies of planning.

For this issue, the Debates and Reflection section comprises two Comment articles and a Book Review. In the first Comment article, Aleksandar Slaev and Sonia Hirt reflect on planning and pluralism in post-socialist Bulgaria. Drawing on a case study of Varna City, the authors trace distinct phases in city planning in former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe – from centralized planning in the post-war era, to a rejection of all planning (from central planning to city masterplans) following the fall of communism in favour of market processes, and finally the more recent emergence of decentralized planning. Through their case study, the authors trace the limitations of the turn to decentralized planning but are optimistic that a deepening of democratic institutions demonstrates how planning and markets can benefit from each other. In the second Comment contribution, Constance Carr and Markus Hesse explore the role and power of large digital corporations in shaping contemporary planning through providing essential urban infrastructure through digital platforms. To examine this theme, Carr and Hesse compare the power of these new infrastructural providers to the influence of Robert Moses in imposing his vision of infrastructural expansion in mid-twentieth century New York – in this sense, the authors focus on the theme of power brokers in urban development. To illustrate this connection, the article examines two cautionary tales: firstly, Amazon’s search for a second HQ building in New York, and secondly, Alphabet Inc’s Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. This section concludes with Burcin Basyazici and Ece Ceylan Baba’s book review of Transnational Architecture and Urbanism: Rethinking How Cities Plan, Transform and Learn (Routledge, 2020) by Davide Ponzini, which critique’s factors behind transnational projects, the prevalence of starchitects and the spectacularization of urban development.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).