Basing “Energy Justice” on Clear Terms: Assessing Key Terminology in Pursuit of Energy Justice

Abstract

The Energy Justice framework provides an opportunity to reveal and reduce injustices related to unaffordable household energy and lack of residential energy access. However, little consensus exists among academic researchers, practitioners, and decision makers on the terminology to present and conceptualize problems relating to inadequate residential energy access and affordability, with terms including “fuel poverty,” “energy burden,” “energy poverty,” “energy vulnerability,” and “energy insecurity.” This diversity of concepts and their varied applications poses a miscommunication risk between researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers who seek to identify injustices along the energy continuum and achieve a just transition to a low carbon future. In an effort to offer clarity, this article compares and defines five common terms used to describe unaffordable or inaccessible domestic energy based on a robust review of existing literature. It then analyses and evaluates each concept in terms of its capacity to achieve distributional, procedural, and recognition forms of energy justice. It concludes by reviewing the benefits, limitations, and nuances of these concepts while highlighting some achievements toward energy justice.