Paola Velasco Herrejon
(University of Oslo)
Niall Dunphy
(University College Cork)
Breffní Lennon
(University College Cork)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Energy transitions
Sessions:
Thursday 7 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Understanding the lived experiences of energy poverty in the Global North and South.
Panel P12a at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
The panel aims to extend our understanding of the lived experiences of energy poverty in the Global North and South by exploring the methods used to identify energy-poor households, characterising those most at risk, and discussing practices for supporting energy-vulnerable households across regions
Long Abstract:
Energy poverty is a condition predicated on a combination of high energy prices, low household incomes, poorly performing or energy inefficient buildings and appliances, and other specific household energy needs. While income level is an important factor, not all those who suffer from monetary poverty are energy poor and indeed not all those in energy poverty are necessarily income poor. Energy poor households are faced with the choice of using an above-average portion of their income on heat, light, cooling, cooking and appliance use; or going without these essentials, resulting in a cold and uncomfortable home and reduced living standards. The consequences include significant deteriorations in people’s physical health and mental well-being, along with premature death related to severe winter and summer conditions, as well as more restricted lifestyles and social exclusion.
The efforts to reduce energy poverty have continued globally both in developing and developed countries during the past decades. While a great deal of effort is expended on analysing energy poverty at the macro-, or the meso-, level there remains a gap in our collective understanding of how best to identify and engage with energy-poor households at the local level. This is true across both developing and developed contexts. Identifying those suffering from energy poverty can be a major obstacle to the efficient implementation of energy poverty policies. However, the variable causes of energy poverty in different contexts mean that the adequate identification of energy-poor households remains a critical challenge.
This panel aims to provoke a conversation that extends our understanding of the lived experiences of energy poverty at the household level, across developed and developing contexts. This includes exploring the range of methods to identify energy-poor households, measure energy poverty and characterise those most at risk or vulnerable to energy poverty, including instances of so-called “hidden energy poverty”. Finally, the session will also aim to discuss the most appropriate practices for supporting energy-poor households across regions.
The session will follow the panel format proposed by this year’s conference: contributors will be asked to submit videos/audio recordings or a written version in advance and will be encouraged to start with a two-minute pitch to highlight their main contribution and ask a provocative question for participants to reflect on and discuss during the session.
In this presentation, I will discuss an extreme case of energy poverty that challenge the north/south global divide in the study of energy poverty and its various definitions. I will further make the link between energy poverty, health and community resilience.
Paper long abstract:
Energy poverty has been recognized as a global social and public health challenge. Availability of and accessibility to energy infrastructure is a core element of community resilience—a concept that characterizes a community's ability to promote health and well-being, and to cope with and recover from adversity. We conducted a quantitative survey in order to explore the interplay between these two experiences among residents of two types of Bedouin communities in Southern Israel: townships and informal settlements, which differ in their accessibility to energy infrastructure. We report a significant negative association between experiences of energy insecurity and perceived community resilience, especially with regard to trust in leadership and emergency preparedness. This indicates that energy insecurity is not only a personal or a household burden, but rather an issue that has broader communal and social aspects (and consequences) -one that should be tackled at the local and municipal levels. Our study deepens the current understanding of the processes and factors that may promote or impede community resilience and health in the global North by establishing a clear link between place-related physical and perceptual resources. The unique case-study presets the notion of "extreme energy poverty", which we use to describe situations in which households have no reliable access to grid-based electricity despite the availability of a modern grid in situ or in proximity.
Among the experience of energy-poor, distrust in institutions is widespread. While trust can strengthen the coping capacities of energy-poor households, a lack of trust, however, even cuts people from the support they could attain and thus deepens the state of energy poverty.
Paper long abstract:
Trust is a fundamental ingredient of prosperous democracies. In Europe, trust in existing elected democratic institutions seems to be fading while authoritarian nationalist movements grow. The experience of neglect, ignorance, and inferiority is among the interpretations to explain this.
With this paper, we get down to explore the link between the experiences of households in a state of energy poverty and their trust in institutions and social networks. Based on qualitative data from ten different European countries, we will show how a lack of trust in both public and private institutions is widespread among energy-poor households. Instead, our interviewees show distrust in a variety of dimensions. In contact with institutions, they report about experiences of powerlessness, bad and unfair treatment, and feelings of inferiority. While a share of the interviewees does trust single individuals, e.g. officers, in institutions, some trust only their own social networks and some have no trust in anyone. While trust in networks or (people in) institutions can strengthen the coping capacities of energy-poor households, a lack of trust, however, even cuts people from the support they could attain and thus deepens the state of energy poverty.
Our case study in Langas examines how COVID-19 restrictions and VAT reintroduction on LPG have hampered progresses on clean energy transitions across Kenya and explores the compounding environmental, health, social, and gendered effects of regressing to being energy poor.
Paper long abstract:
Access to clean energy (e.g. liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), electricity) has been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Global South, up to 25% of households have reverted to polluting fuels (e.g. charcoal, wood, kerosene) for their domestic energy practices. We examine the combined effects of COVID-19 restrictions and a 16% Value Added Tax (VAT) re-introduced on LPG in Kenya in July 2021 on domestic energy practices in Langas, a peri-urban informal settlement in Western Kenya.
LPG is considered a clean fuel due to lower air pollution emissions and a reduction in deforestation compared to biomass or kerosene. The Kenyan government invested great efforts to scale up its use, which increased from 3,5% in 2006 to 24,4% in 2020. However, the target of 35% of households using LPG by 2030 has been hampered by COVID-19 restrictions and the VAT re-introduction. We examine the joint effects of these two income shocks using a mixed-method approach that draws from quantitative survey data and from 6-months ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Langas. We showcase the lived experiences of regressing to energy poverty and we highlight that switching away from LPG does not only translate into using different fuels but in users having to readjust their practices to different ways to provide energy and food for their families. These changes have compounding social, economic, and gendered effects that deteriorate standards of living, health and environment. As poorer households were most affected by these economic events, pre-existing inequalities in energy access have widened across the country.
In what has been referred to as 'double energy vulnerability', a household simultaneously faces both energy poverty and transport poverty. This can result in trade-offs, prioritising one essential need over the other and inter- and intra-household differences.
Paper long abstract:
Everyday experiences of poverty are made visible through a variety of essential domains and sectors where poverty is acutely felt. It is increasingly recognised that there are important overlaps between these dimensions. In what has been referred to as 'double energy vulnerability', a household faces both energy poverty and transport poverty simultaneously. This can result in trade-offs, decisions about prioritising one essential need to ensure another is possible (e.g., transport overheating, or vice versa). Such decisions are not easily made, and they can have distinct spatio-temporal characteristics as these decisions can vary between space and time and across different household members, and result in stark inter- as well as intra-household differences. People with socio-demographic and contextual vulnerabilities are particularly at risk of double energy vulnerability. Based on 59 household interviews across the four nations of the United Kingdom, we provide new empirical evidence on the lived experiences of double energy vulnerability. We show that agency (or the lack thereof), negotiating and prioritising between energy and transport, and missing out on leisure or enjoyable activities, are ways in which people manage and are impacted by double energy vulnerability. We also provide recommendations for policy and practitioners in how this double precarity could be recognised and addressed.
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Niall Dunphy (University College Cork)
Breffní Lennon (University College Cork)
Short Abstract:
The panel aims to extend our understanding of the lived experiences of energy poverty in the Global North and South by exploring the methods used to identify energy-poor households, characterising those most at risk, and discussing practices for supporting energy-vulnerable households across regions
Long Abstract:
Energy poverty is a condition predicated on a combination of high energy prices, low household incomes, poorly performing or energy inefficient buildings and appliances, and other specific household energy needs. While income level is an important factor, not all those who suffer from monetary poverty are energy poor and indeed not all those in energy poverty are necessarily income poor. Energy poor households are faced with the choice of using an above-average portion of their income on heat, light, cooling, cooking and appliance use; or going without these essentials, resulting in a cold and uncomfortable home and reduced living standards. The consequences include significant deteriorations in people’s physical health and mental well-being, along with premature death related to severe winter and summer conditions, as well as more restricted lifestyles and social exclusion.
The efforts to reduce energy poverty have continued globally both in developing and developed countries during the past decades. While a great deal of effort is expended on analysing energy poverty at the macro-, or the meso-, level there remains a gap in our collective understanding of how best to identify and engage with energy-poor households at the local level. This is true across both developing and developed contexts. Identifying those suffering from energy poverty can be a major obstacle to the efficient implementation of energy poverty policies. However, the variable causes of energy poverty in different contexts mean that the adequate identification of energy-poor households remains a critical challenge.
This panel aims to provoke a conversation that extends our understanding of the lived experiences of energy poverty at the household level, across developed and developing contexts. This includes exploring the range of methods to identify energy-poor households, measure energy poverty and characterise those most at risk or vulnerable to energy poverty, including instances of so-called “hidden energy poverty”. Finally, the session will also aim to discuss the most appropriate practices for supporting energy-poor households across regions.
The session will follow the panel format proposed by this year’s conference: contributors will be asked to submit videos/audio recordings or a written version in advance and will be encouraged to start with a two-minute pitch to highlight their main contribution and ask a provocative question for participants to reflect on and discuss during the session.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 7 July, 2022, -