Equity, climate justice and fossil fuel extraction: principles for a managed phase out

Abstract

Equity issues have long been debated within international climate politics, focused on fairly distributing reductions in territorial emissions and fossil fuel consumption. There is a growing recognition among scholars and policymakers that curbing fossil fuel supply (as well as demand) can be a valuable part of the climate policy toolbox; this raises the question of where and how the tool should be applied. This paper explores how to equitably manage the social dimensions of a rapid transition away from fossil fuel extraction. Fossil fuel extraction leads to benefits for some people (such as extraction workers) and harms for others (such as pollution-affected communities). A transition must respect and uphold the rights of both groups, while also staying within climate limits, as climate impacts will fall most heavily on the world's poor. This paper begins by reviewing how extraction affects economies and communities and the different transitional challenges they face. Based on that review, it then examines three common equity approacheseconomic efficiency, meeting development needs, and effort-sharing. Drawing lessons from the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, the paper proposes five principles as a basis for equitably curbing fossil fuel extraction within climate limits:(1) Phase out global extraction at pace consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C;(2) Enable a just transition for workers and communities;(3) Curb extraction consistent with environmental justice; (4) Reduce extraction fastest where doing so will have the least social costs;(5) Share transition costs fairly, according to ability to bear those costs. Key policy insights:. Fossil fuel extraction is unlikely to be a viable path to development because the Paris Agreement goals require most fossil fuel use to be ended within a generation; . Extraction should be phased out fastest in diversified, wealthier economies that can better absorb the transitional impacts; . Governments of extracting countries should enact ambitious industrial policy to diversify their economies, alongside economic and employment policies to enable a just transition; . The costs of a just transition should be borne by those most able to bear it: poorer countries can reasonably demand financial support.

Curbing fossil fuel supply to achieve climate goals

“…International cooperation on supply-side climate policy can further send an important signal to policymakers, investors, companies, consumers and civil society, that the world is moving beyond a fossil fuel economy. Crucially, as Muttitt and Kartha (2020) and Newell and Simms (2020) emphasize in their contributions to this issue, international cooperation is also needed to ensure that such a transition takes place in an equitable way.…”

Approaches to energy transitions: Carbon pricing, managed decline, and/or green new deal?

“…This piece departs from other reviews of energy transitions which have primarily focused on the concepts of energy and climate justice (especially analyzing how the burdens associated with transition should be shared between the global north and the global south (see, for example, Armstrong, 2020; Muttitt & Kartha, 2020; Newell & Mulvaney, 2013) and energy democracy (especially the potentials for distributed and community or publicly‐owned energy systems and increased participation in decision‐making (see, for example, Becker & Naumann, 2017; Szulecki, 2018). Instead, this article is primarily concerned with categorizing and comparing different paths toward wholescale transition that are or could be immediately pursued by jurisdictions with the power to enact climate legislation and implement climate policy.…”

“…Since the late 2000s, a growing chorus of academics and movements have been suggesting that wholescale energy transitions, on a timeline and carbon budget consistent with maintaining a habitable planet, require a managed decline of fossil fuel production. Building on decades of community resistance movements to fossil fuel extraction and nongovernmental research and advocacy (Carter & McKenzie, 2020), academics are now calling for policies that restrict the supply of fossil fuels and support renewable energy transitions (Erickson, Lazarus, & Piggot, 2018; Frumhoff, Heede, & Oreskes, 2015; Green & Denniss, 2018; Muttitt, 2016; Muttitt & Kartha, 2020; Paul, Santos Skandier, & Renzy, 2020; Piggot, Erickson, van Asselt, & Lazarus, 2018). Importantly, contributors to this approach do not reject demand‐side policies outright, but they do argue that green capital approaches alone have proven vastly insufficient to meet the scale and scope of the climate challenge ahead of us.…”

“…This literature suggests that efforts to reduce GHG emissions should take into account the theft of resources, labor, and life which were central to the industrialization of empires, now the Global North, and how limiting fossil fuel consumption and production (stranding assets in the ground) might infringe on the Global South's rights to development (Armstrong, 2020; Caney, 2016). Le Billon and Kristoffersen (2019) and Muttitt and Kartha (2020) suggest that climate justice principles that account for the legacies of uneven global development be used to decide the scale and pace of decarbonization. For example, high‐income countries (that have a greater ability to pay for transition), countries with the largest historical cumulative per capita production of fossil fuels, and places where the social costs of reducing extraction are lowest should take the lead and be most aggressive in their draw‐downs.…”

An equitable redistribution of unburnable carbon

“…Kartha et al argue that an equitable approach would minimise economic disruption, supporting economic diversification and ensuring the provision of energy services and investment in job creation, and be based on a fair distribution of costs 13 . Muttitt and Kartha go on to set out a set of principles to apply to an equitable transition away from fossil fuel production 15 .…”