Tracing the roots of energy justice in action: environmental justice, climate justice, and the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act

Abstract

Energy justice is the natural and temporal progression of environmental and climate justice advocacy in the context of the escalating climate crisis. The ancestry of energy justice provides not only established legal and moral underpinnings for energy justice but also important models for applied theory and practice. This chapter first provides a review of the foundations of environmental justice and climate justice and their origins in civil rights and human rights. It then examines how contemporary definitions of energy justice arose from the theory and practice of environmental and climate justice. The chapter also critiques contemporary definitions of energy justice from a legal perspective and argues the moral and practical importance of attributing energy justice theory to its movement roots in furtherance of energy justice outcomes. Finally, it provides a case study of the passage and implementation of the 2019 New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act as a framework for energy justice movement, theory and legal practice in action.