Minimum Standards of Access to Energy Services: Underpinning Energy Justice and Legal Action

Abstract

AbstractThe just energy transition is not simply about moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Justice in energy systems is about establishing a framework that identifies when and where injustices occur and how best law and policy can respond. This chapter proposes that access to energy services should have irreducible minimum standards in transitioning energy systems for fairer and sustainable global development. It surmises that these minimum standards should help define what the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 on ‘access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’ look like in practical terms. And that this ought not to be a mere aspirational target, but a legal norm. On a global scale, using energy justice as a core principle of international energy law to achieve this, it suggests that the five tenets of the energy justice framework (distributive, procedural, recognition, cosmopolitan, and restorative justice) are interdependent and could remedy global disparities in the just energy transition. It concludes that two tenets (restorative and recognition justice) are pivotal in establishing a minimum acceptable standard of universal energy access.