Benjamin K. Sovacool, professor of earth and environment at Boston University, spoke at a climate justice event held at the Dana Samuel Trask Building on Friday about his work on social inequalities in the transition to low-carbon energy sources. discussed and recommended several policy initiatives. reduce them.
Co-hosted by The School for Environment and Sustainability and the School of Public Policy, the event began by highlighting the research Sovacool undertook to understand the different impacts of four prominent low-carbon technologies. Electric vehicles and solar panels.
The study finds that all four technologies perpetuate social inequalities between humans and non-humans across racial, class and gender lines, across geographies and generations. rice field. Sovacool said it is important to consider not only the existence of each inequality, but how they are related and exacerbate.
“Unfortunately, these four inequalities are not only present in all four innovations, they are interrelated and compounded,” Sovacool said.
Rackham student Carl Hoesch told the Michigan Daily after the event that he had always been inspired by Sovacourt’s work. Said Sovacourt’s research on energy justice applies directly to his own research.
“His work is not only evocative, it is also calming,” says Hoesch. “We are all invested in the energy transition, and while many of us are strong proponents of many of the technologies he talked about, such as solar, smart meters, and electric vehicles, he In many ways it led to reality…of a sense of justice.”
Sovacool also described studies examining the energy transition in France, Germany, Norway and the UK. The research combined input from expert interviews, community focus groups, and internet forums to document the fraudulent interventions to combat climate change. The research team found 120 distinct injustices attributed to these energy transitions, such as the high cost of electric vehicles and human rights violations in uranium mining.
Sovacour said he also found that the effects of these injustices disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
“Our list of 120 judges is a sober laundry list, but even with fraud analysis, it doesn’t really focus on the community,” said Sovacool. . “We also found that much of the impact was not evenly distributed and tended to migrate to the more susceptible roots.”
These frauds are not inevitable, said Sovacourt, and many could be mitigated with actionable policy changes that strengthen the impact of green technologies. He cited the government’s deployment of smart meters in the UK as an example of climate policy improvements. According to Sovacool, UK smart meter his users who change energy suppliers will have to replace their meters, often leading to frustration and confusion.
Sovacool also pointed to Norway’s policy of prioritizing incentives for electric vehicles over promoting the use of public transport.
“One of our (survey) respondents said the tax benefits Tesla Model S owners got from the Treasury Department in 2018 were worth 20,000 bus tickets.” says Sovacool. “So what the policy did was privilege car travel and private individual car travel, potentially allowing over 20,000 trips aboard low-carbon mass transit. is.”
Environment and Sustainability Professor Pamela Jagger told the audience that Sovacourt’s research on climate change is having broad implications for policy makers.
“I am particularly familiar with his work on the energy transition, energy justice,” Jagger said. “He also works on energy security, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. and has been taken away.”
After his speech, Sovacourt told the Michigan Daily that he hoped the campus community (and anyone passionate about mitigating the impacts of climate change) would keep in mind the importance of individual decisions. .
“I like to remind people that the decisions we make about energy aren’t just about electrons or dollars or cents, they’re actually ethical decisions,” Sovacourt said. , when deciding whether to get in the car, when deciding whether to have beef or vegetarian dinner, when deciding what career path to follow, which politicians to support, where to go. If you’re investing money, they can all actually be ethical decisions that make assumptions about the future and the environment.”
Daily Staff Reporter Samantha Rich can be reached at sammrich@umich.edu.
Comments
Post a Comment