poverty – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Labour’s Great British Energy is a good start – here’s how to make it work for everyone

Posted on September 29, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

In a packed auditorium in Liverpool, Labour leader Keir Starmer stood at a plinth emblazoned with the words “A Fairer, Greener Future”. It was the key theme of this year’s party conference and is evident in Starmer’s landmark policy announcement: the creation of a new publicly-owned energy company, Great British Energy.

The company would effectively be a start-up to grow British renewables. So while Great British Energy is not nationalisation of the electricity sector (or of any one energy company), it would represent a new and different sort of organisation positioned to fund new projects while working to remove the hurdles faced by new wind and solar projects.

This follows calls from various organisations for a new way of generating and providing electricity. For many, the scale of action needed to both reach net zero and address energy poverty is incompatible with the current model of doing things, which focuses on paying shareholders and avoiding riskier investments.

Like EDF in France or Vattenfall in Sweden, Great British Energy would be state-owned. But it would be independent, making its own investment decisions and working closely with private energy companies.

Being backed by the government, the new company can take on riskier investments. This might be in bigger projects or in new, innovative technologies such as tidal energy. Rather than paying shareholders, the profit that this company makes can then be reinvested in new projects, or for cutting bills or insulating homes.

Great British Energy is one part of a broader approach that Labour has put forward, including measures on energy efficiency and an £8 billion national wealth fund to help decarbonise industry.

The public supports public energy

Despite some concerns about how these policies might be sold on the doorstep, there is public support. Polling in May 2022 showed that 60% of UK voters support bringing energy companies into public ownership – and such patterns of support have remained relatively constant.

Popular campaigns have called for nationalising the sector. Others have highlighted how the current system prioritises shareholders over addressing energy poverty.

Offshore wind farm viewed from a beach — Renewable energy has become a national security issue for the UK.
Colin Ward/Shutterstock

When Labour raised a similar policy in the 2019 election, it was treated as foolish by much of the media. Yet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its aggressive use of disruptions to its natural gas exports to Europe as a political weapon have changed energy politics in Europe.

Those calling for the expansion of renewable energy used to highlight how they were greener and cheaper than fossil fuels. Events in 2022 have now made renewables the basis for energy security too.

Who makes decisions, and who benefits from them?

While this policy pledges a different type of energy company, being state-owned does not make any organisation inherently “good”. For instance, EDF in France has been caught spying on Greenpeace. Elsewhere, Vattenfall has sold off its coal power stations rather than replacing them with renewables, merely shifting emissions on to somebody else’s balance sheet.

Addressing these issues requires a reflection on who is making decisions. The proposed national wealth fund would include co-investments with private companies. But who would be involved in directing these investments and who might benefit from them?

Hydrogen energy was mentioned in several speeches at Labour’s conference, and the industry’s lobbyists were reported to have been active and hosted meetings. However, recent work has shown that any move to use hydrogen for home heating is likely unviable.

Elsewhere at the conference, climate campaigners accusing Drax, the biggest emitter in the UK, of environmental racism were reportedly removed from a meeting on net zero and green jobs.

A national energy company must also wrestle with where new renewable energy projects, which tend to demand large tracts of land, will be built and who might suffer from the impacts. Compensation payments in the UK have rewarded unfair patterns of land ownership and the monopolisation of land by the rich and the powerful.

In the UK, a small number of landowners stand to gain financially from the expansion of onshore wind, while offshore wind power is permitted by the crown estate which owns the seabed.

Wind turbines in field — Wind and solar farms can use lots of land.
Traceyaphotos2/Shutterstock

Those living nearby often receive limited compensation. In Scotland, communities living near onshore wind turbines get 0.6% of the value of electricity generated.

This does very little to address regional issues of inequality or exclusion. Community-owned projects have a better track record, providing up to 34 times the financial benefits of those built by private energy companies.

Great British Energy is a policy that many voters will support. While there remain questions about the forms it might take and how it might change the energy sector, it represents an opportunity to generate and use energy differently – as long as it is part of a broader, just energy transition.

These policies are coming at a time of spirallling energy costs and energy poverty for millions, and any national energy company must make addressing this a priority. Labour’s energy efficiency plans show that the party is intent on doing so. The cheapest electricity is the electricity that we don’t use, after all.

It is also politically savvy: some of the areas worst affected by energy prices are in marginal seats. A national energy company playing a central role in funding and directing renewable schemes would allow them to be better targeted, would allow funding for unprofitable projects, and any financial returns could be used to further support families and communities.

But there is still room for Labour to be more ambitious. Great British Energy could be the first step towards an inclusive energy transition, but we must think about what comes next.

——————————-

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Ed Atkins

Cost of living crisis: the health risks of not turning the heating on in winter

Posted on September 20, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

People in the UK might be tempted to keep their heating turned off to offset the large increases in energy bills this winter. A recent YouGov poll, revealed that 21% of respondents would not turn their heating on until at least November. Could the health of these people be endangered?

Before COVID, an average of 25,000 extra deaths occurred between December and March compared with any other four-month period of the year. Even if COVID did not exist, the cost of living crisis could result in the toll from the coming winter being worse than usual.

The Marmot review (a report investigating the effects of cold homes and fuel poverty) estimated that 21.5% of all excess winter deaths could be attributed to the coldest 25% of homes in the UK population.

This would suggest that 5,000 extra deaths occur in winter because people live in cold homes. But this does not mean the cold homes cause the deaths. People who live in cold homes may have other disadvantages, making them less able to survive winter.

Would it make any difference whether they leave their heating on or off? Studies suggest temperatures should be kept to at least 18℃ to minimise the risk to health, but how easy is it to maintain this if homes are poorly insulated?

Research into what is best for people’s health ideally relies on randomised controlled trials to tell us about cause and effect. But it would be unethical to conduct a trial where some people were told to leave their heating off and others were told to keep it on to see if it had any effect on mortality. Instead, we have to rely on what are known as “longitudinal studies” where people are followed over many years and respond regularly to questionnaires.

In one such study in the 1970s, the British Regional Heart Study recruited thousands of men, then in middle age, from across Great Britain. In 2014, around 1,400 of these men, then aged 74-96 years, answered a questionnaire that included questions on home heating.

One question asked whether, during the previous winter, the respondent had: “Turned off the heating, even when you were cold because you were worried about the cost?” One hundred and thirty men (9.4%) said yes. These men seemed no more likely to die in the following two years than men who had replied no.

A larger study would have given a more robust answer. And in the absence of other direct evidence, we have to draw conclusions from indirect evidence, such as this.

The most vulnerable

Recently, researchers in Sweden tried to assess a range of questions about the effects of energy use, fuel poverty and energy efficiency improvements on people’s health. They systematically reviewed all the relevant studies on the topic. One of their findings showed consistently across four studies the link between fuel poverty and premature death.

The British Regional Heart Study showed that fuel poverty was more likely to be found among people who were single, poor and working class. This suggests that people who are the most financially vulnerable will be those most likely to leave the heating off. As with climate change, the poorest are hit hardest.

So far I have only discussed effects on health in terms of death, which in the UK concerns mainly older people. The winter deaths that occur are usually the result of heart disease, stroke and respiratory disease. Yet increasing attention has also been paid to the strong effects of the cold on mental health.

The Marmot review quoted studies that drew attention to the depressive effect of living in a cold home. Children in adolescent years may seek respite and privacy away from home, with consequent exposure to mental health risks. The misery caused by financial pressures only add to this burden.

Because the most financially vulnerable people are also the most vulnerable in their health, it should follow that interventions at government level are urgently needed to offset the likely health crisis looming from increased energy costs.

The most vulnerable will need the most help. Yet a common paradox seen in public health is that interventions applying to the whole population will lead to more lives saved than those targeted only to those at greatest risk.

This is because there are far more people in the population at moderate risk than at high risk. Only a modest proportion of people at moderate risk will benefit. Yet because this group is so much larger than the high-risk group, more lives may be saved among those at moderate risk.

Buildings in the UK clearly need to be better insulated, but these sorts of interventions will come too late for this winter. Mitigating the rising costs of energy must be the only way forward to allow homes to be heated to a comfortable level and prevent a tidal wave of excess winter deaths.

—————————-

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Richard Morris, Honorary Professor in Medical Statistics, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Richard Morris

Watch Richard speak more about this issue in our Cabot Conversations video on Heatwaves and Health.

How energy-saving advice can hurt the most vulnerable households

Posted on September 20, 2022April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

Households are facing an unprecedented energy crisis, and the most vulnerable will suffer the most.
Solarisys/Shutterstock

With UK households facing a dire energy crisis, there has been no shortage of advice from politicians, experts and journalists about how to save energy. Not all of this advice has been good.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson suggested that buying a new kettle for £20 could save households £10 a year on electricity bills – a comment that was criticised for being unhelpful as well as wildly out of touch with the everyday struggles of Britons.

Prompting similar criticisms, former Conservative MP Edwina Currie said that rather than catastrophising about the 80% increase in the price of energy in October, we should be lining our radiators with tinfoil to save energy.

Some advice, like that provided by Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis and the Energy Savings Trust, can be useful or even obvious. Switching off appliances on standby and draught-proofing your house are two examples. But telling people to rely on tips like drying your hair at the office or burning books for warmth can be unrealistic, absurd or downright dangerous.

In the right setting, energy advice can be beneficial for households and communities. One example is energy cafes, which have demystified energy bills with community events that provide face-to-face advice.

But advice is not a substitute for the government providing the wide-reaching financial support and investments in energy efficiency necessary to assist households at the sharp end of the crisis. Put simply, lining your radiator with tinfoil is not going to fix the scale of energy price hikes anticipated for the coming year.

When energy-saving advice hurts households

A focus on energy-saving advice and “hacks” can perpetuate a misguided and potentially dangerous narrative: that if only low-income households were more prudent, efficient and sensible with their energy use, they would not be struggling to pay their rising bills.

Recent evidence from UCL’s Institute of Health Equity reaffirmed the devastating impacts that being without sufficient energy can have on physical and mental health. Its estimates suggest that 10% of excess winter deaths can be directly linked to fuel poverty – and 21.5% of those deaths are linked to cold homes.

For the most vulnerable households, popular advice can be exclusionary or even insulting. Telling people to shower at the gym, or to plug their phone in at work, assumes that they have a gym membership or work in an office where they can safely leave devices to charge.

And households are already cutting back. Indeed, in the face of the recent price hikes, the charity National Energy Action argued that for millions of low-income households, there is nothing left to cut. They are already being priced out of warmth and power.

Evidence from the Resolution Foundation shows that low-income households will have to cut back spending on non-essentials by three times as much as better-off households to afford their energy bills this winter.

Close-up of a finger turning off a light switch — While some energy-saving advice is useful, it’s no replacement for government action.
eggeegg/Shutterstock

Asking households to reduce or shift energy demand – “energy rationing” – has been widely discussed as a mechanism for managing the potentially limited, expensive and volatile energy supply forecast for the coming winter. While new prime minister Liz Truss has ruled out blackouts, experts warn that the UK should be prepared for both scheduled and unscheduled periods without power due to supply restrictions.

Reductions in demand for energy at the household level need to be carefully designed to target those who can do so safely, without endangering their health. Those with higher energy needs who are often already disadvantaged by the energy system need to be prioritised. This means older people, young children and people with disabilities or long-term health conditions.

Energy demand reductions should be targeting high-consuming affluent households or energy services that might be considered excessive or luxuries.

People living on low incomes are typically very good at managing limited budgets and making resources stretch as far as possible. In fact, low-income households are often much better at reducing energy consumption than their relatively affluent counterparts.

We cannot and should not expect households who are struggling to afford basic necessities – including warmth, hot water, clothes washing and lighting – to “hack” their way out of this unprecedented hike in the cost of energy.

——————————–

This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Caitlin Robinson, Research Fellow, School of Geographical Science, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Global trading: the good, the bad and the essential

Posted on January 18, 2021April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

In our last post, we began our journey considering food supply chains in times of pandemic and we touched upon their history. Here, we further consider some of the flaws in our globalised food systems and the historical trading patterns upon which they are based, which have remained largely unquestioned for centuries. Food is essential but the way consumer demands have shaped our food systems through overproduction and consumption is not.

We find ourselves dependent on socially unequitable and environmentally degrading global supply chains. Not all supply chains are created equal and there is no denying that in this crisis we need to pull together to meet ventilator demand and that staying global could be vital. Yet when it comes to food supply chains we need to think differently. How did we get to system where a banana costs 15p? And why do those who labour the most receive the least?

Source: Fairtrade Foundation 2014; Banana Link 2015

The figure below shows how small-scale farmers and workers have been squeezed within food value chains in the last 24 years

Source: Oxfam Ripe for Change report, 2018 p. 18

Despite this clear inequality, we often justify these practices and prices to ourselves by considering them outside their context, disregarding their very real costs. Economically, these inequalities are justified by ‘free trade’. Socially, we like to think that our consumption provides jobs. As Unilever describes it, by purchasing their products, they ‘feed the farmers that feed us’. We are creating jobs, but what do we say to the 8 year olds that are picking our cocoa? Environmentally, our consumption patterns in the global North are changing the landscape for food producers globally. For instance, coffee growers are finding it increasingly difficult to grow their crops as global temperatures fluctuate. Those who can, move to find the ‘right’ conditions, those who cannot experience the first wave of climate apartheid and poverty.

Poverty is both a macro-economic and a micro-economic problem. Poverty in ‘developing’ countries cannot be understood without reference to the global political economy that is controlled by ‘developed’ countries. The exploitative relationship between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries is a major driver of poverty and hazard for the people of the ‘developing’ countries. The global supply chains of multinational companies are often the mechanisms through which this exploitation is organised. Our quests for new foods and superfoods, such as quinoa, has priced these developing nations out of their own staples.

Surely though, it must be better for local food producers in the UK? But increasingly, only large-scale producers are able to compete. And despite Brexit, and the push for local people doing local jobs, we are lacking essential food workers. This pandemic has highlighted our shortage of ‘local’ people to do manual jobs and the likelihood is we will once again have to import workers to do this essential work – we are even having to turn to volunteers for this essential work. And this isn’t unique to the UK. The French government, for example, has officially called upon unemployed people to join the “army of agriculture” to feed the nation.

UK farmers are no strangers to exploitation either

Now, more than ever, is the time to reflect on our consumption patterns and think about what we are eating. We need to consider the real cost of food, and as food poverty spreads, we call for more inclusionary food systems for all, which we believe will help us to avoid future pandemics.

——————————-

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Lucy McCarthy and Lee Matthews and Anne Touboulic from the University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon. This blog post first appeared on the University of Nottingham Future Food Beacon blog. View the original blog.

Dr Lucy McCarthy

Capturing the value of community energy

Posted on August 26, 2020April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Energise Sussex Coast and South East London Community Energy are set to benefit from a new business collaboration led by Colin Nolden and supported by PhD students Peter Thomas and Daniela Rossade. This is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council with match funding provided by Community Energy South from SGN. In total, £80,000 has been made available from the Economic and Social Research Council Impact Accelerator Account to launch six new Accelerating Business Collaborations involving the Universities of Bath, Exeter and Bristol. This funding aims to increase capacity and capability of early career researchers and PhD students to collaborate with the private sector. Match funding from SGN (formerly Scotia Gas Network) provided by Community Energy South for this particular project will free up time and allow Energise Sussex Coast and South East London Community Energy to provide the necessary company data and co-develop appropriate data analysis and management methodologies.

The Capturing the value of community energy project evolved out of the Bristol Poverty Institute (BPI) interdisciplinary webinar on Energy and Fuel Poverty and Sustainable Solutions on 14 May 2020. At this event Colin highlighted the difficulty of establishing self-sustaining fuel-poverty alleviation business models, despite huge savings on energy bills and invaluable support for some of the most marginalised segments of society. Peter also presented his PhD project, which investigates the energy needs and priorities of refugee communities. With the help of Ruth Welters from Research and Enterprise Development and Lauren Winch from BPI, Colin built up his team and concretised his project for this successful grant application.

The two business collaborators Energise Sussex Coast (ESC) and South East London Community Energy (SELCE) are non-profit social enterprises that seek to act co-operatively to tackle the climate crisis and energy injustice through community owned renewable energy and energy savings schemes. Both have won multiple awards for their approach to energy generation, energy saving and fuel poverty alleviation.

However, both are also highly dependent on grants from energy companies such as SGN with complicated and highly variable reporting procedures. This business collaboration will involve the analysis of their company data (eight years for ESC, ten years for SELCE) to take stock of what fuel poverty advice and energy saving action works and what does not, and to grasp any multiplier effects associated with engaging in renewable energy trading activities alongside more charitable fuel poverty alleviation work.

Benefits for ESC and SELCE include the co-production of a database to help them establish what has and has not worked in the past, and where to target their efforts moving forward. This is particularly relevant in the context of future fuel-poverty alleviation funding bids. With a better understanding of what works, they will be able to write better bids and target their advice more effectively, thus improving the efficiency of the sector more broadly.

It will also help identify new value streams, such as those resulting from lower energy bills. Rather than creating dependents, this provides the foundation for business model innovation through consortium building and economies of scale where possible, while improving targeted face-to-face advice where necessary. It will also explore socially distant approaches where face-to-face advice and engagement is no longer possible.

With a better understanding how and where value is created, ESC and SLECE, together with other non-profit enterprises, can establish a platform cooperative while creating self-renewing databases which enable more targeted energy saving and fuel poverty advice in future. Such data also facilitates application for larger pots of money such as Horizon2020, and the establishment of a fuel poverty ecosystem in partnership with local authorities and other organisations capable of empowering people instead of creating dependents. This additional reporting will capture a wider range of value and codify it to be submitted as written evidence to the Cabinet Office and Treasury at national level, while also acting as a dynamic database for inclusive economy institutions and community energy organisations at regional and local level.

People

Dr Colin Nolden is a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow based on the Law School, University of Bristol, researching sustainable energy governance at the intersection of demand, mobility, communities, and climate change. Alongside his appointment at the University of Bristol, Colin works as a Researcher at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. He is also a non-executive director of Community Energy South and a member of the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Peter Thomas is a University of Bristol Engineering PhD student and member of the Cabot Institute for the Environment investigating access to energy in humanitarian relief by combining insights from engineering, social sciences, and anthropology.

Daniela Rossade is a University of Bristol Engineering PhD student investigating the transition to renewable energy on the remote island of Saint Helena and the influence of renewable microgrids on electricity access and energy poverty.

Partner Companies

Energise Sussex Coast Ltd

South East London Community Energy Ltd

Community Energy South

Contact

For more information on the project contact: Dr Colin Nolden colin.nolden@bristol.ac.uk

——————————

This blog is written by Dr Colin Nolden, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Bristol Law School and Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Colin Nolden

Fostering interdisciplinarity in sustainable development

Posted on October 22, 2014April 14, 2023 by janet.crompton

On 15 October 2014, we had a fascinating talk from Prof. Wendy Gibson from the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences launching the University’s ‘Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction: Capacity Building in the face of Environmental Uncertainty’ network.

The Cabot Institute is supporting a number of ventures to foster an interdisciplinary network of academics across the University, whose work can be included under the broad ‘development studies’/’international development’ umbrella, due to its direct or indirect impact on sustainable development and poverty reduction in the Global South.

Uniquely, at Bristol, this includes academics working in the social sciences, but also in Physical Geography, Earth Sciences, Public Health, Engineering, Biological and Veterinary Sciences, to name but a few. This ‘International Development Discussion Forum’ will have a regular monthly slot and it is therefore hoped that participants will come regularly, not because they may be specialists in the topic of that month’s presentation, but in order to hear the kinds of questions that parasitologists, or engineers, or lawyers, for example, raise for development research; questions that they can, in turn, contribute to from their own discipline.

Coping with parasitic diseases in Africa

Trypanosomes in human blood.
Credit: University of Bristol

The topic of Wendy’s talk was the extensive research she has undertaken as a parasitologist on the tsetse fly as a vector for trypanosomes, parasites which cause African sleeping sickness, or HAT – Human African Trypanosomiasis. In light of the global media coverage of the Ebola outbreak, Wendy’s measured reminder about the ongoing impact of a lower profile disease such as HAT, on people and animals in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, was sobering. Not only does the disease have a devastating impact on affected communities, but diagnosis and the treatment of the disease are extremely unpleasant and involve protracted intervention. In situations in which people are coping with a range of daily hardships that impact upon their livelihoods, including drought, poor forage and a range of different diseases affecting human and animal populations, disease-focused approaches often fail to recognise this reality.

Interdisciplinary challenges in rural healthcare

After the talk, participants were asked to focus on three specific challenges identified by Wendy:

How to maintain momentum in control programs as we move towards disease eradication.
How to prioritise disease risks with a finite health budget.
How to get different government departments to co-operate on shared goals.

Given that the subject clearly raised so many issues relating to the challenges of public health care in sub-Saharan Africa – including issues relating to rural (as opposed to urban) poverty, governance and the state, aid and non-governmental organisations – discussions were wide-ranging. Rather than proffering standard academic critique of the material presented, participants were asked to focus on what they, positioned as they are within their own discipline, could bring to the table. Consequently, it was fascinating how different tables touched upon similar issues but nevertheless raised specific insights depending on the differing make-up of the tables and the expertise included on them.

Specific challenges identified included:

ongoing problems with top-down interventions,
the forging of rural (and regional) networks,
the difficulties in specifying the costs of such a disease,
raising the profile of a such a low-profile disease when its symptoms may take some years to become manifest, and
the difficulties of co-ordinating NGOs, aid, and governments in relation to healthcare priorities, particularly when healthcare demands are seen to ‘compete’ with each other.

And discussions continued into the networking drinks as participants identified a number of practical and funding obstacles in undertaking the kind of real interdisciplinary research that could be of such value in responding to some of the challenges relating to a disease such as African sleeping sickness.

Quotes from participants

“I knew that some of my research might be usefully applied in developing countries, but the complex challenges and the feeling that I lack a track record in ‘development research’ put me off. Through the forum I am learning about that world, and it has been a real eye-opener. I had no idea that so much was going on across the University in this area, nor that my naivety would be treated so generously in the friendly and open discussions that we’ve had so far.”

Dr. Eric Morgan, Veterinary Parasitology and Ecology

“As a scientist I want my work to be “useful”. However, translating knowledge into effective and successful, practical outcomes takes more than just generation of that scientific knowledge. This is being increasingly recognised by funders, many of whom now have a focus on interdisciplinarity, particularly for delivering outcomes that can make a difference to people living in developing countries (e.g. the Newton Fund, but also some Research Council funding calls). While the topic of this workshop was not within my scientific field, it was fascinating, and gave me insight into the realities and difficulties of implementing change that really does require the bringing together of many different aspects of knowledge. I met some colleagues that would be great to collaborate with in the future in order to better deliver effective outcomes.”

Dr. Jo House, Geographical Sciences

Future discussion

On 11 November 2014, the Cabot Institute will be supporting the next discussion forum in this series in which Prof. Thorsten Wagener will be giving a talk on his ongoing work in the field of sustainable water management. His research focuses on a systems approach, which he argues is needed to adequately understand this dynamic physical and socio-economic system with the goal to provide water security for people and nature.

—————————–
This blog has been written by Dr Elizabeth Fortin, Cabot Institute, University of Bristol Law School.

Poverty, energy and social justice

Posted on June 28, 2013April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

On June 18^th, as part of Big Green Week, the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute hosted an event entitled ‘Poverty, energy and Social Justice’, at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft.

‘Social justice’ relates to making sure that current and future generations can fulfil their needs, whatever they may be, to live life to an acceptable standard. The term is often linked to ensuring that human rights are maintained and that equality is promoted within society. ‘Energy poverty’ is “a lack of access to modern energy services, defined as access to electricity and clean cooking facilities” (International Energy Agency). In the UK, a household is said to be in ‘fuel poverty’ “if more than 10% of its income is spent on fuel, to maintain a satisfactory heating regime” (Department of Energy & Climate Change, 2013).

Definitions covered, the first part of the event involved presentations from three speakers which provided an overview of poverty, energy and social justice at a variety of scales, introduced various interesting themes and shared some surprising statistics.

Simon Roberts, CSE

Firstly, Simon Roberts, Chief Executive at the Centre for Sustainable Energy, provided a national perspective on poverty, energy and social justice. The presentation brought up some interesting comparisons between the highest and lowest income households in the UK. It turns out that households with the top 10% of income emit around 16 tonnes of carbon per person per year, with aviation being a major contributor to that, whilst households with the lowest 10% of incomes emit just 5 tonnes of carbon per person per year, almost entirely from fuel and energy for their homes. It was pointed out that the lower income households emit so little largely because they can’t afford the fuel rather than because they have chosen to live low carbon lifestyles.

Energy policies, such as ‘feed-in tariffs’, in which energy companies will pay you and reduce your bills if you produce renewable or ‘green’ energy in your home, do not consider social justice or energy poverty, in that it is only the reasonably well-off – those with investable capital, that can afford such schemes. This has lead to the lower income households emitting less carbon, contributing to the cost of energy policies (like feed-in tariffs) through their bills and benefiting from the policies the least. In fact, it has been found that current energy policies have lead to the highest income households receiving reductions in their energy bill of around 12%, whilst the lowest income families are only receiving reductions of 7%. Considering how much more the lower income households could benefit from those reductions, it seems incredibly unfair that current energy policies end up benefitting those that need the reductions least. I didn’t get the impression that this outcome was aimed for by policy makers, but rather that energy policies really do need to be re-assessed so that they benefit those that need it most.

Next up was Mareike Schmidt, the Strategic Energy Programme Manager at Bristol City Council, who provided a more Bristol-centric view on matters. Mareike highlighted that, whilst there is no obligation for councils to engage with energy policy, Bristol City Council is very much eager to do so. Although funding is limited, BCC specifically would like to decrease energy bills in the city, increase jobs in the environment sector and keep energy-related money in Bristol – hopefully addressing both energy poverty and social justice in the process.

The final presentation of the evening was given by Dr Karen Bell, from the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, who provided us all with an international perspective. Dr Bell argued that energy prices cannot rise as this would not only make getting electricity even more unattainable for those that already don’t have access to it, but it would increase the number of people, globally, who live without energy by making it unaffordable to a greater proportion of the population. Some of the options left for dealing with energy poverty then appear to be the uptake of renewable energy, the reduction of energy consumption (by decreasing emissions from non-essential things, rather than making the poor reduce their consumption) or the redistribution of wealth amongst society – moving towards a more equal and ‘just’ society.

Dr Bell explained that inequality in society leads to greater consumption, as the people with the least want to have the same things are those in higher income households, leading to more consumption, more waste, and increases in behaviours such as the consumption of meat and flying around the world. By redistributing wealth within society, perhaps consumption would decrease as people may feel that they ‘need’ fewer material things when they compare themselves to others, more people would be able to afford adequate fuel to achieve a reasonable standard of living and it would even benefit the environment.

This idea of addressing inequality, rather than energy poverty directly, was one of the most memorable ideas of the evening for me; a number of other members of the audience commented on this as well.

Having gone in with very little knowledge of energy policy, poverty or social justice, I came out much more aware of all three and feeling quite enlightened, with a new perspective on problem solving in the context of society – sometimes the seemingly obvious solution (energy policy) is not the most appropriate way of going about dealing with an issue in society (e.g. energy poverty). Sometimes we need to go right back to the cause of a societal issue (inequality) to fix the symptoms. Hopefully we will begin to see change in this direction over the next couple of decades.

This blog has been written by Sarah Jones, a Geography PhD student at the University of Bristol.

Sarah Jones, University of Bristol