Energy and the Good Life: Capabilities as the Foundation of the Right to Access Energy Services

ABSTRACT

Access to an adequate level of uninterrupted, high quality, affordable, sufficient and useful energy services varies dramatically across countries. While some nations still experience energy poverty and struggle to fulfil basic needs, others consume well over what is considered sufficient to sustain wellbeing and human flourishing. These imbalances represent fundamental injustices that must be urgently addressed and resolved. Given current inequalities, this paper asks, in general, whether it is possible to establish a human right to energy and, more specifically, whether the Capabilities Approach (CA) can provide a solid theoretical foundation for the claim to a human right to access energy services. We argue, on the one hand, that it is possible to identify concrete ranges of individual energy consumption that, if “translated” into useful energy services, constitute the adequate (not just minimal) preconditions for achieving core capabilities in different geographical contexts. On the other hand, we use the CA as a normative framework to argue for a capability-based human right to access necessary energy services such as nutrition, cooking fuel and electricity. We support these claims in two main ways. First, by looking at how individual energy consumption impacts human development and wellbeing. Second, we offer a comparison between access to specific energy services and the Human Development Index (HDI). The human right to access necessary energy services should be understood in both moral and legal terms. It should be integrated within both the international United Nations human rights framework and international energy law.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights
• energy access
• energy ethics
• energy justice
• energy services
• capabilities approach (CA)

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank student assistant Atilla Celik for his invaluable help in the data collection and literature review for this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 This means, for example, that unless groundbreaking technological innovations occur soon, “some inefficiencies cannot be recouped as a result of infrastructures currently employed [such as those] for ground and air transportation” (Martínez and Ebenhack 2008, 1432). Consider also that, in 2017, 86% of the world’s Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) still consisted of non-renewable sources (IEA 2017).

2 Although here we use the term “developing”, we are aware of the debate concerning the use of alternative phrases such as Global South/North. We maintain that in the case of access to certain energy services, the use of “developing” is more appropriate when, for example, access to electricity is not available to all.

3 Data Source: World Bank dataset: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.PCAP.KG.OE. See also IEA and World Bank (2015), UNIDO and UN Women (2015).

4 This assumption can of course be criticized. In the debate about conceptualizing and defining energy services, for instance, there is an important technical distinction between energy carriers and energy services (e.g. heating fuels vs warm living space; electricity vs illumination) that can be further elaborated, for example, through the proposal of an “Energy Service Cascade” (Kalt et al. 2019). Although we are aware of this debate and the possible nuances involved, here we assume that nutrition, cooking fuels and electricity can be considered necessary energy services that can lead to ulterior “second-level” energy services, that is what actually enhances capabilities (e.g. being well nourished, read in the dark, operate a computer). Our decision is consistent with energy and well-being studies and essentially depends on the necessity to avoid confusion between the notion of energy service and that of energy capabilities as they are further discussed in this paper.

5 Both The Millennium Development Goals Report (UN 2015) and the Sustainable Development Goals Report (UN 2016) addressed energy poverty, access and justice as they relate to sustainable human development.

6 The SDG7 “seeks to promote broader energy access and increased use of renewable energy, including through enhanced international cooperation and expanded infrastructure and technology for clean energy” (UN 2016). See also: https://sdgcompass.org/sdgs/sdg-7/ and https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg7. R. Hillerbrand (2018) has recently presented constructive criticism of the dichotomic formulation of SDG7 and a proposal to reframe it in light of the socio-technical nature of energy systems and the CA.

7 See for example, Frigo (2018a, 2021), Miller (2014), Sovacool (2013), Audouze (1997), Biviano et al. (2016), Biviano (2018), Cross (2019), Gardoni et al. (2014), Halsnæs (2013), Kimmins (2001), Mitcham and Smith (2013), O’Neill-Carrillo et al. (2008).

8 Throughout, we embrace the use of the plural “capabilities” because it adequately stresses the plurality of “doings and beings” a person should be able to access and achieve. This choice resonates better with the list of capabilities provided by Nussbaum and mirrors the recent attention given to the “gendered” dimension of energy poverty and access (UNIDO and UN Women 2015; Lapniewska 2019; Pueyo and Maestre 2019; Winther et al. 2020; Wiese 2020). Indeed, according to D. Gasper, Nussbaum’s approach is a “more substantive Aristotelian version and attempts to apply such conceptions to women’s lives” (Gasper 1997).

9 It should be noted that although individual energy consumption may affect several capabilities, some of them may be difficult (or even impossible) to measure. Thus, we are somehow forced to focus on “visible” functionings such as being well-fed, schooling, reading at night, longevity, and so forth.

10 Our attempt is in a way similar to recent scholarship that has addressed issues of energy equality and energy sufficiency (Calwell 2010; Darby and Fawcett 2018; Samadi et al. 2017; Steinberger and Roberts 2010; Thomas, Thema, and Kopatz 2017; Toulouse et al. 2017; NégaWatt 2018; Pellegrini-Masini 2019).

11 For Nussbaum, this aspect of human development should be understood in political terms and relates to at least three core capabilities, namely, “emotions”, “affiliation” and “control over one’s environment”.

12 According to Sovacool et al. (2019), cosmopolitan justice refers to global externalities and “focuses on ensuring the wellbeing of persons, rather than communities or nations, treating every human equally” (589).

13 He asks: “Should it be just a matter of putting supply infrastructure in place (the right to have access) or should it extend to ensuring that the demand for energy that is needed to sustain basic levels of well-being can be realised by all citizens (the right to be able to use)?” (Walker 2015, 30). So, especially in energy-poor countries, it is important to remember that being able to access energy is not the same as, for example, having 100% connection of households to the electricity grid (access only).

14 See: http://www.engager-energy.net/aims-and-objectives/.

15 See: https://righttoenergy.org/a-propos/.

16 See Table 1 in the Supplementary materials.

17 On a similar note, G. Walker has noted that “the right to energy has been seen as a prime candidate for entry into the international United Nations human rights framework, taking its place alongside other ‘second generation’ socio-economic rights such as the right to water, shelter and food, as a basic necessity for all people” (Walker 2015, 26).

18 The Human Development Index (HDI) is the statistical measure (composite index) developed by the United Nations that has been used most frequently as it is able to grasp several variables that are widely recognized as the preconditions for human well-being, or one may say a “good life” (knowledge and understanding, a long and healthy life, and an acceptable standard of living). But there are other statistical tools such as the Social Progress Index (SPI) developed following the writings of Amartya Sen, Douglass North, and Joseph Stiglitz and available since 2014 (Social Progress Imperative 2019) or the World Happiness Report published since 2012 (Helliwell, Layard, and Sachs 2018, 2019).

19 It should be noted that, on this topic, the literature presents a myriad of terms used along with “wellbeing” (e.g., “quality of life”, “social progress”, “happiness”, “life fulfillment”, “human flourishing”, “standard of living”, and so forth). The meaning of these notions can be rather controversial and may change depending on the different disciplines. It is only possible to overcome these inconsistencies by assuming that the various terms refer to similar “degrees” of wellbeing that people can reach. The most important point remains the “significance of access to modern energy services in the poverty debate” (Bradbrook and Gardam 2006).

20 Our graph has intentionally omitted a few of these countries, which, although moving quickly toward more renewable energy, are still largely dependent on their abundant fossil fuel reserves (e.g., Bahrain [0.81, 443.65], Brunei Darussalam [0.85, 363.12], Kuwait [0.8, 384.29], Qatar [0.85, 750.38], or the United Arab Emirates [0.85, 320.22]).

21 For instance, energy consumption per capita does not account for diversity in energy access among different people in a nation. Moreover, it is an aggregate indicator that does not tell us what types of energy source or technology are in use. Finally, according to Arto et al., it does not measure the actual amount of energy consumed by the end users, i.e. the energy footprint (2016, 3).

22 What is the value that energy adds to human life? For Martínez and Ebenhack “real energy demands are not for quadrillion BTUs or kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe), but for the work or services provided to the end-user” (Martínez and Ebenhack 2008). Day, Walker, and Simcock (2016) also mention that “a few researchers and organisations have started to approach the diagnosis of energy sufficiency/energy poverty from the basis of the energy services accessed or achieved, which would be in line with the recognition discussed above that a range of energy services are crucial for eliminating poverty and realising the millennium development goals” (257). See also Modi et al. (2005). A similar point was discussed by G. Walker in his presentation at the “Right to Energy” workshop held in Groningen in January 2020.

23 A different, perhaps eco-modernist, position on this issue is offered, for instance, by Joseph A. Tainter who proposes a historical perspective and claims that, when it comes to energy transition, “problems are inevitable, requiring increasing complexity, and conservation is therefore insufficient to produce sustainability. Future sustainability will require continued high levels of energy consumption to address converging problems” (Tainter 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giovanni Frigo

Giovanni Frigo is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Philosophy of Engineering, Technology Assessment & Science (PhilETAS) Research Group at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Born and raised in the Italian Alps, he studied at the University of Verona, Italy, and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. In 2018 he received his PhD in environmental ethics from the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, TX, USA. His interdisciplinary research focuses on the fundamental links between ethics and energy.

Manuel Baumann

Manuel Baumann is a Full Researcher at KIT-ITAS, lecturer for energy systems at Aalen University and coordinator of the sub-program 6 “Energy storage: Techno-economics and sustainability” of the Joint Program for Energy Storage of the European Energy Research Alliance. He holds a bachelor’s degree in energy economics, a master's degree in environmental and energy management and received his PhD from the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (UNL) in cooperation with KIT-ITAS in 2018. His activities are focused on decision-making methods, techno-economic modelling and life cycle assessment of energy storage technologies.

Rafaela Hillerbrand

Rafaela Hillerbrand is a Professor of Philosophy of Science and Technology and the head of the Philosophy of Engineering, Technology Assessment & Science (PhilETAS) Research Group at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). She holds PhDs in philosophy (2005) and theoretical physics (2008). From 2006 to 2008 she held a position as a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford. Before joining KIT, Dr Hillerbrand worked as an associate professor at TU Delft and was head of the interdisciplinary research group Ethics for Energy Technology (EET) at the Human Technology Centre (HumTec) at RWTH Aachen University. She serves on expert committees to advise policy and industry on questions concerning the development of sustainable (energy) technologies.