Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions (2024) / Chapter Skim
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2 Energy Justice and Equity ABSTRACT The U.S. federal government has put forth a whole-of-government equity agenda through a series of executive orders and legislation.
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air pollution from the construction of new infrastructure or from the continued combustion of fossil fuels, can undermine the success of an equitable carbon-neutral future. This transition is not merely a technological transformation of the energy sector; it is a fundamental and wholesale transformation that will affect numerous sectors and nearly every household.
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BOX 2-1 Key Terms Energy justice -- the provision of safe, affordable, and sustainable energy to all individuals (Jenkins 2018) through the incorporation of recognitional, procedural, and distributional equity into energy design, ownership, governance, and implementation.
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Latino, and other communities of color in decisions on environmental policymaking, enforcement, and remediation (Méndez 2020)
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justice is the siting of energy infrastructure: an energy justice approach considers whether the location of energy infrastructure makes energy more affordable or accessible for historically disadvantaged households whereas an environmental justice approach broadly considers whether the location of energy infrastructure unequally burdens a near-by community. Key to the energy justice movement is access to new energy system benefits and access to clean and affordable energy for everyone.
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distributional inequalities to create energy inequities and have made recommendations to target the social and political practices of exclusion through which these inequalities are generated (Schlosberg and Collins 2014; Walker 2009)
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socioeconomic and demographic metrics 4 allows for the identification of individuals who are most 22F vulnerable, underserved, or marginalized (Hernández et al. 2014; Jenkins 2018)
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FIGURE 2-2 National energy burdens across subgroups compared with the national median energy burden. Orange bars show energy burden for low-income populations.
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Accessibility, Acceptability, and Adoption Disadvantaged communities are often economically excluded from, reluctant to adopt, or unaware of opportunities to install low-carbon technologies. This might be owing to fear of hidden costs, program limitations, lack of trust in governmental, inadequate outreach and information, insufficient capacity, and inequitable and predatory financing (Madrid 2017; Méndez et al.
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effects of these practices are still evident today. Figure 2-3 shows the interplay of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation Risk Rating and disproportionate nitrogen oxides (NOx)
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TABLE 2-2 Operationalizing Energy Justice in Energy-Relevant Programs Principle Operationalization Program Suggestions Recognitional Incorporate baseline assessments of • Clearly define the vulnerable and disadvantaged Equity existing environmental burdens and groups a program intends to benefit and engage harms on local communities and with. ensuring that clean energy projects and investments do not further add to • Design programs, community-adapted strategies, those burdens, and if they do, the and capacity-building methods tailored to specific project location and scale should be disadvantaged groups.
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Stakeholder's Environmental Justice Concerns Several environmental justice and energy justice organizations have raised concerns about aspects of recent decarbonization policies and their impacts on the environment and on disadvantaged communities. Although advocates acknowledge the positive investments in air pollution monitoring, urban tree planting programs, and measures that address legacy harms and climate change, there are concerns that some investments "are not aligned with centering overburdened communities in decisionmaking or transitioning away from fossil fuels" (We Act for Environmental Justice 2022)
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BOX 2-2 Equity Impacts of Carbon Capture and Storage Though decarbonization technologies will reduce GHG emissions, they will have different impacts on communities owing to varying environmental, health, and quality of life benefits and harms. CCS will not likely be a first choice for emissions reduction from emitting processes because other lowemission generating resources are lower cost and avoid both GHG emissions and local air pollution.
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potential continued investment in oil, methane-derived hydrogen, and biofuel as energy sources. There are concerns that these investments do not prioritize GHG emissions mitigation, which could lead to increases in pollutants and hazardous waste in communities already suffering the greatest impacts of fossil fuel combustion.
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Assessment of Recent Federal Actions Significant steps have been taken by the federal government to support the nation's decarbonization agenda. By going beyond a narrow focus on GHG emissions mitigation to include quality jobs, public health, and environmental justice, these efforts open unique opportunities to leverage synergies and intersections between the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2 and the 27F advancement of U.S.
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• Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization to "coordinate the identification and delivery of Federal resources to revitalize the economies of coal, oil and gas, and power plant communities." • White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council to "develop clear performance metrics to ensure accountability and publish an annual public performance scorecard on its implementation." • White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) to provide recommendations to the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council "on how to increase the Federal Government's efforts to address current and historic environmental injustice." The establishment of each of the above groups supports the application of the recognitional and distributional equity principles to federal legislation.
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equitable data practices. The continued focus on including equity frameworks into federal action will support the equitable implementation of recent and future net-zero policies and programs.
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Recommendation 2-1: Codify the Justice40 Initiative. Congress should enact legislation that codifies either the Justice40 Initiative or an alternative, equally stringent quantitative target to provide a clear standard that the entire federal government will use to measure progress against fairness, equity, and justice goals.
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appropriated funds and tax expenditures will have on underserved, low-income, and disadvantaged communities. IRA spending programs that support fossil fuel reduction present multiple opportunities for equity and justice co-benefits.
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these communities. The committee recognizes there cannot be one single definition for disadvantaged communities that applies to all programs because federal and state programs may have different target populations and related burden indicators for target population identification.
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Finding 2-4: The decarbonization provisions in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act are likely to slow the United States' emissions that contribute to climate change, primarily through reduced fossil fuel combustion, with local air quality benefits that are likely to have positive equity and justice impacts. Many provisions are also specifically directed at equity and justice, including block grants, subsidies to improve technology uptake, and top-up funding for projects in disadvantaged communities.
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State Initiatives Despite the challenges produced by the complex political landscape of the United States, states and cities that have taken climate-mitigation actions represent two-thirds of the nation's population and economy (Zhao et al.
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Transformative Climate Communities Program (TCC) Anticipated Outcomes and Funded Projects Anticipated Outputs Impacts • Active Transportation • 57 new housing units • 20,816 metric tons of avoided • Affordable Housing and • 42 new battery-electric vehicles for a GHG emissionsa Sustainable Communities car-sharing network • 14,832,662 miles of averted • Food Waste Prevention and • 1,458 new street trees travel in passenger miles Rescue • 784 kW of solar power on affordable • $4,826,413 in energy cost • Low Carbon Transportation multi-family and single-family savings for solar PV and street • Rooftop Solar and Energy homes tree beneficiaries Efficiency • 200 TCC area individuals trained for • 337 direct jobs, 112 indirect • Urban and Community Forestry residential solar installation projects jobs, and 190 induced jobs • Urban Greening supported by TCC funding a Measured in CO2e.
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regional solutions that are designed to be relevant to local communities (Beckfield 2022)
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change (NASEM 2021)
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plans. The TCTACs will act as the connector between the NTC and regional or local organizations that need support during the transition.
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metrics can also serve as justification for continued and increased financial support from federal agencies and philanthropic organizations. In support of efforts to develop an energy equity framework, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory conducted a literature review and identified 3 equity metric types (Tarekegne et al.
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school education. The current version of the tool identifies 27,251 census tracts as disadvantaged or partially disadvantaged (White House 2022c)
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design is common, even within programs designed to address environmental racism. At the federal level, race-neutral criteria are often selected to develop tools that will survive "legal challenges that would stymie their efforts" (Friedman 2022)
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community-level initiatives also offer insights that can inform future programmatic and policy efforts to create a just energy transition through a bottom-up approach. However, as noted in the committee's Pathways to a Just and Equitable Transition workshop, the communication of these lessons learned will benefit from publicly accessible and standardized data (NASEM 2023a)
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resilience. Additional impact and outcome metrics should be reported by federal agencies as relevant to specific decarbonization program and policy goals.
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Actor(s) Responsible for Sector(s)
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Bauer, G.R.
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Burkett, M
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Chi, S
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DOE-EERE (Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy)
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EO 14096, 88 Federal Register 25251 (April 21, 2023)
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Hernández, D., and S
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LA SAFE (Louisiana's Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments)
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Miller, C.A.
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Pollin, R., and B Callaci.
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Segreto, M., L Principe, A
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U.S. HUD (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development)
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Wüste, A., and P Schmuck.
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