Climate policy and the siting of renewable energy projects; towards common but differentiated responsibility at the community level

Abstract

Renewable energy receives state support in most western countries, with the aim to reduce fossil fuel use and thus mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Communities may benefit from these subsidies by setting up community-owned renewable energy projects, but to date their overall contribution to UK renewable energy targets has been very small. The most substantive involvement of local people in renewable energy production has been to reduce renewable energy production by resisting wind farm proposals. In response, developers have started to offer benefits to local communities. What is the moral justification of such ‘community benefits’ from a policy that is already for the common good, and for projects that in general have very few physical effects on people? In this paper I argue that there is a need for a common and spatially explicit justice framework, not just to underpin the siting and development of low carbon energy projects, but also to (simultaneously) engage with other domains of climate policy. I propose some dimensions of such a framework and discuss why its adoption can put the community at the forefront of renewable energy developments; not as passive or reactive ‘impacted communities’ and not necessarily as out-right owners of energy generation projects, but as proactive local stakeholders involved in the governance of the view, the wind and the greenhouse gas emissions in their area, willing and able to decide what ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ should mean at their local level vis a vis national and international duties and obligations in climate and energy policy.