The Energy Transition as a Portal to Exploring the Justice Dimensions of Global Sustainability

Abstract

In this chapter I examine a sociotechnical system deemed central to achieving global sustainability, renewable energy. Through a focus on Canadian policy, I explore carbon reduction through fuel substitution and electrification, common pathways being promoted to advance an energy transition. By combining a transformative climate justice framework with an examination of embodied energy injustices, I centre an interrogation of power and injustice to examine the existing and magnified impacts of low-carbon pathways, particularly on peoples and communities that are marginalized. I argue that the problems of injustice encountered across the energy transition are endemic to achieving sustainability overall, and that we need to ground our ambitious commitments to address climate change and global sustainability in considerations of justice and injustice if we are to make headway on addressing these crises.

1. Introduction

Late 2023, The United Nations University (UNU) and the Global Systems Institute (GSI) with the University of Exeter, each publicly released reports that identify how multiple life-system Earth processes are perilously close to risk tipping points. “A risk tipping point is the moment at which a given socioecological system is no longer able to buffer risks and provide its expected function, after which risk of catastrophic impacts to these systems increases substantially” ([1], p. 4). The UNU identifies 25 interconnected tipping points across Earth systems, five of which are already close to being crossed due to existing levels of climate change warming and three more threatened to occur in the 2030s as the global average temperature exceeds 1.5^o Celsius. The GSI [2] emphasizes how existing governance systems institutions and decision-making processes are inadequately responding to the level of threat posed by these negative tipping points. They argue, “[t]he current approach of linear incremental change favoured by many decision makers is no longer an option” ([2], p. 3) and instead they need to adapt to facilitate transformational change. Similarly, the independent scientists who authored the 2023 UN Global Sustainable Development Report [3], insist that global sustainability will not be achieved through fragmented and incremental change, and business-as usual approaches. “The only way forward is to transform how we think, live, produce and consume in order to achieve a new equilibrium that balances resilience, security and well-being, and does so in harmony with nature” (p104).

Justice and equity are key to achieving global sustainability. As Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, succinctly states: “Justice is an essential part of the environmental discussion” [4]. Such awareness informed the Brundtland Commission [5], which understood sustainable development as being “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Likewise, justice and equity have been integrated into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by grounding them in three principles: a human rights-based approach, leave no one behind, and gender equality and women’s empowerment [6].

Yet, in the translation and implementation, sustainability has been attenuated, obfuscated, and subverted. Too often understandings of sustainability, be they conceptual or translated into initiatives, strategies and actions, treat the larger socio-political power dynamics as incidental contingencies external to the challenges facing much of humanity, in order to allow business-as-usual to proceed. In the process, justice, equity and fairness are consigned as optional supplements that are narrowly defined or as matters to be considered after the fact, or by someone else, rather than being a guiding framework for advancing sustainability. While there is no way for a single initiative or activity to address the full range of sustainability challenges, routine considerations of justice and injustice are paramount to fundamentally addressing the multiple socioecological crises facing humanity. Technical solutions play a role in transitions, but too often are framed as ‘the solution’; yet achieving sustainability requires transformative approaches that address the root causes of the problems, and enact new ways of doing, relating and being.

To illustrate this pattern of conceptual oversight as it pertains to sustainability, I’ll interrogate some of the chains of injustice associated with common energy transition pathways, supply-side decarbonization policies focused on fuel substitution and electrification. While often necessary components of energy transition, these initiatives are far from sufficient to address the complexities of how energy is deeply integrated within modern sociotechnical extractive systems, not only nationally, but globally. Such attenuation not only is largely ineffective in achieving global sustainability and transition, but it frequently propagates injustices by exacerbating the already uneven and unequal burdens associated with climate change without adequately attending to the differential responsibilities for action [7, 8].

I undertake an integrative assessment of the local and global implications of energy transition policy choices by engaging with a transformative climate justice framework combined with an examination of embodied energy injustice. Combining these two frames of analysis assists in centring an interrogation of power and injustice in the critical analysis of low-carbon pathways. Questions of justice are relevant to most discussions related to the solutions and strategies used to address the impacts of climate change: from who gets what, to where the infrastructure will be located, for whom the impacts of both climate change and responses to it are most severely experienced, to whose knowledge counts and who gets to decide in these debates, and what are the sources, allocation, and prioritization of funding for mitigation and adaptation [9]. Making power a central focus in critically examining energy transition discourse, policy and actions directs attention to “the social and institutional relations and inequalities that both produce climate change and profoundly shape responses to it” ([10], p. 1). High-level climate and energy transition discourse tends to frame climate change as largely a scientific problem with a technocratic solution, and in so doing obscure both the highly political nature of these debates and the highly uneven impacts and patterns of exchange [10, 11].

To outline some of these situated justice effects, I examine the Canadian government’s energy transition policies and programs. Key Government of Canada documents I utilized include: the Emission Reductions Plan (ERP) and supporting materials released by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the lead department for advancing the ERP, supporting documentation related to the ERP provided by the Canada Energy Regulator, the performance audit of the implementation of the ERP as compiled by the Auditor General of Canada, and related energy data compiled by Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada.

2. Transformative climate justice

In its most basic framing, the concept of climate justice has been utilized to highlight how climate change is having the most severe impacts on those who are the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) that destabilize the planet, and how these same individuals and communities are the most excluded from the decision-making processes about how to respond to climate change and its effects [10]. In short, climate change has uneven and unequal burdens [8]. Vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change both reflect and exacerbate structural injustices driven by race, class, caste, ethnicity, gender, ableism and speciesism. The policies and programs adopted for climate change mitigation and adaptation can generate economic benefits and improved well-being but when not firmly rooted in principles of justice across the energy chain they often magnify injustices [12]. People and other beings in many parts of the world are already struggling with loss of livelihood, displacement, environmental degradation, pollution, natural resource depletion, food insecurity and habitat loss, and these circumstances are intensified by climate change. For those facing severe disadvantages, these are not future scenarios that may eventualize, but rather existing realities that are well past tolerable levels and beyond their capacities to adapt [13].

There are four pillars central to transformative climate justice: distributive, procedural, recognition and intergenerational. Distributive justice concerns issues related to who benefits and who loses, or who is disproportionately burdened because of projects, programs and policies meant to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. In a globally carbon-constrained context, distributive justice also raises issues about who is most responsible (current versus historical) and entitlement (whose needs are most pressing, and who decides who can emit how much?) [10]. Procedural justice focuses attention on the inclusion and exclusion of individuals and groups in processes for making decisions, and in ensuring that these processes are fair, accountable and transparent [10]. They are four key elements integrated within procedural justice [14]: “(1) access to information; (2) access to and meaningful participation in decision-making; (3) lack of bias on the part of the decision-makers; and (4) access to legal processes for achieving redress” (p437). Issues of procedural justice often arise in place-based and natural resource projects, and raise questions about free, prior and informed consent related to industrial development and resource allocation decisions [10]. Recognition justice is related to distributive and procedural justice, but it fills a gap that arises when the unequal power relations between different actors is not considered [15]. Recognition justice attempts to address this oversight by focusing on the differences between Indigenous, subaltern and other marginalized groups and the dominant society, and how these differences are embedded within and manifest in sociocultural and institutional historical and contemporary actions and processes. Grounded in human dignity, recognition justice draws attention to understanding differences alongside protection of equal rights for all by extending consideration for the cultural, social, economic, and political marginalization and discrimination some communities have had to and continue to endure [10]. An example is the recognition of the carbon debts associated with the colonial and racialized ways in which the exploitation of fossil fuel and mineral resources has caused myriad social, cultural and economic injustices for Indigenous communities, and often resulted in dispossession that undermines their land relations central to their culture and identity. Finally, intergenerational justice highlights the exacerbated and long-term injustices created by climate change and holds current decision-makers and polluters accountable for the impacts of their decisions and actions on the well-being of future generations. Future generations will not have the same opportunities to satisfy their own needs because of the decisions being made today and hence, will be confronted with increased risks and burdens due to escalating GHG levels [16].

Climate justice as both a concept and praxis has evolved from an examination of the impacts of climate change on disadvantaged communities to also consider the justice dimensions of energy transition to a post-carbon economy. Energy transition signifies a shift in an energy system from one dominant source of energy or set of energy resources to another [17, 18]. In popular discourse, the term ‘just transition’ signifies employment losses in fossil-fuel industries and the economic and social consequences of such labour disruptions on communities, regions and businesses supporting them, and decline in services and amenities reliant on these legacy industries [19]. While the discourse of energy transition is often framed as a solution to the social problems or worries of the present, these processes nevertheless produce winners and losers. Potential benefits such as new employment opportunities, involvement in decision-making processes, and access to advanced, low-carbon and efficient technologies are unevenly spread across populations and socio-economic groups [17]. Energy transitions also typically result in increased energy insecurity as the cost of energy rises, at least in the short- to medium-term, which disproportionately impacts rural, racialised, low-income, elderly and renting populations, as well as communities in the Global South. Hence, failures to adequately engage with the configurations of justice and injustice in energy transition can “lead to aggravated poverty, entrenched gender [and racial] bias[es], and non-participation as outcomes or by-products of ‘blinkered’ decision-making” ([18], p. 67).

Increasingly scholars and activists concerned about the justice dimensions of energy transition are exploring and applying the concept of energy justice. Sovacool and Dworkin [14] define energy justice as “a global energy system that fairly disseminates both the benefits and costs of energy services, and one that has representative and impartial energy decision-making” (p436). They elaborate that energy justice involves three key elements: costs or how the hazards are imposed on others; benefits and access, and; procedures for decision making or concerns with due process and representation. Sovacool and Dworkin’s definition of energy justice draws attention to both local and global impacts, structures and processes, and inspection of how energy production has increasingly expanded the ‘commodity frontiers’ across borders, particularly in the form of industrialization and extractive activities in middle and low-income countries. Yet amongst policy makers, scholars and activists, energy justice is often distilled down to what some call the ‘3 A’s’: availability, accessibility and affordability [18]. As a part of this, energy justice advocates tend to conflate harms with injustices, not considering the differences between environmental harms experienced by affluent communities versus the injustices imposed on impoverished, historically marginalized communities [20].

Pursuit of a just and democratic energy transition requires consideration of all four pillars of justice (distributional, procedural, recognition and intergenerational) in alignment with a focus on “energy availability and access, affordability, due process, accountability and transparency and inter- and intra-generational equity” ([17], p. 570). Such analyses necessitate investigation of the contextual and intersectional axes of oppression and differentiation that operate across the full energy system assemblage [8]. The transition pathways promoted by national and international policies are largely embedded within concentrated patterns of existing economic and political power and can be expected therefore to systematically produce highly uneven and inequitable consequences within and across societies, as well as magnify existing injustices [10]. Hence, efforts to mitigate and adapt to the impacts from climate change will necessarily not only benefit some groups over others but constrain the pathways available, leading to maladaptation, and even violence, for others. As Newell and Adow [11] explain, “the technologies of control furnished in the colonial era, such as direct extraction and dispossession of land and livelihoods, are now getting replayed through climate colonialism in the form of green grabs and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) forest projects” (p33).

Understandings of environmental and climate justice are seen by many Indigenous and racialized scholars and activists to be bound to Western commitments to modernity and colonial exploitation, favoring particular sources of knowledge, justice and ways of being in the world [8, 21]. For example, distributive equity implies nature is a distributable good – resource, commodity, or externality – which is antithetical to many Indigenous cosmologies which centre around relational modes of being, living in relation to other humans and nonhumans in non-dominating and non-exploitive ways [7, 22]. Therefore, transposing Western concepts of justice, energy assemblages and transition frameworks to the global South, and to Indigenous and vulnerable communities across the global North, runs the risk not only of being maladaptive but of imposing additional burdens on human and more than human communities [7]. There are multiple understandings of what constitutes energy access and need, and numerous ways to configure the sociotechnical elements for energy provision and wellbeing with differential impacts on various populations and communities [23]. Consequently, valuing experiential and lived knowledge situated in specific places should be central in energy transition decision-making. Transformative climate justice makes the case for a plurality of climate knowledge and appropriate accommodation of this reality. It emphasizes dramatic shifts in decision-making processes that allow for a broader range of actors and voices, and different forms of knowledge and wisdom shaping energy transition and climate adaptation priorities [10, 24].

Energy transitions are technologically, socially and politically constituted; they “are composed of technologies, infrastructures supporting their use, specific business and financing models, social practices, and policy instruments and regulations” ([15], p. 1193). To interrogate “the social and institutional relations and inequalities which produce climate change and profoundly shape responses to it” ([10], p. 1) requires consideration of the full energy ‘assemblages’ of incumbent and emerging energy systems [23]. An energy assemblage encompasses “three interrelated dimensions: (1) the tangible elements of the energy system, which include technology, infrastructure, market, production equipment, consumption patterns and distribution chains; (2) actors and their conduct, which comprise new strategies and investment patterns, as well as changing coalitions and capabilities of actors; and (3) socio-technical regimes that contain formal regulations and policies, institutions as well as mindset and belief systems, discourse and views about normality and social practices” ([25], p. 46). Energy assemblages are neither static or deterministic, as they are “endowed with the capacity to act in different ways, depending on their configuration – agencies and arrangements are not separate” ([23], p. 167). Assemblage thinking thus draws attention to the plurality of energy system possibilities and multi-scalar operations of power that underlie them.

Combining transformative climate justice with an embodied energy injustice analysis allows for an interrogation of injustice and power rooted within energy assemblages and proposed energy transition pathways. “Transformative climate justice focuses on the need to disrupt dominant power relations and shift decision-making processes that lock in and reproduce injustice” [26]. To this end, transformative climate justice directs attention to 1) the need for “a stronger integration of social justice with the causes of and responses to climate change”; ([10], p. 2), and 2) linking climate change adaptation and mitigation by examining justice needs and causes related to climate change as they are being enacted across various scales and domains [10]. Those who advocate for transformative climate justice support a reduction in atmospheric carbon levels, but they also understand climate change as a symptom of a much larger crisis associated with modernity, colonialism and capitalism. An embodied energy injustice analysis helps reveal the hidden and distant injustices across the full energy assemblage and outline the chains of energy injustice. Consideration of embodied energy injustices provides a framework to situate and understand place-based injustices and link them to the broader dynamics of global capitalism [20].

3. Canada’s emissions reduction plan

Canada is a nation richly endowed with diverse and vast energy resources compared to most other countries in the world. In 2021, Canada produced 4% of the global energy supply and ranked sixth in primary energy production [27]. Based on 2022 data, Canada was also sixth in global per capita electricity production, with Iceland, Norway and Bahrain being the top three producers. The sources for energy consumed in Canada include gas (31.0%), oil (30.2%), hydropower, (26.4%), nuclear (5.5%), coal (2.7%) and renewables (3.6%). Globally, the sources of energy consumed include oil (31.6%), coal, (26.7%), gas (23.5%), hydropower (6.7%), nuclear (4.0%), and renewables (6.8%) [28]. Fossil fuels are the source for 63.9% of the energy consumed in Canada but constitute only 17.4% of the sources for electricity, which compares globally to 81.8% for all energy consumed and 61.3% for electricity sources. As a comparison, in Sweden 26.3% of all energy consumed and 1.8% of the electricity consumed has a fossil fuel source [28].

Canada was a signatory to the Paris Agreement in 2015, an international commitment to reduce global greenhouse gases to keep the global average temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius and preferably below 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial temperatures. In alignment with this international commitment, in 2021 the Government of Canada committed to reduce national GHG emissions to 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2030. That same year they also passed the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act to enshrine in legislation Canada’s commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Act also focuses on ensuring that the federal government’s efforts are transparent and accountable by requiring the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to set emission targets and publish emission reduction plans and progress reports. The Act also requires the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to report on the federal government’s success in implementing actions to meet their GHG emission reduction targets [29]. To fulfill these commitments, in March 2022 the Minister of Environment and Climate Change released Canada’s 2030 ERP, which serves as the cornerstone of the federal government’s strategy to reduce national GHG emissions and which they declare to be “an ambitious and achievable roadmap” [30]. According to the Canada Energy Regulator [31], “Canada’s energy transition is occurring in many different areas of the economy and is influenced by various technologies, policies, and market trends.”

The ERP [32] states that the Government of Canada is taking bold action in its energy transition. In the Plan’s overview, the federal government outlines its approach to achieving their climate goals by:

• helping to reduce energy costs for homes and buildings;

• empowering communities to tackle action by expanding the Low Carbon Economy Fund to incentive actions by the provinces and territories, municipalities, universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, businesses, not-for-profit organizations, communities and organizations;

• making it easier for Canadians to switch to electric vehicles;

• driving down carbon pollution from the oil and gas sector;

• powering the economy with renewable electricity to electrify more activities from heating and cooling buildings to various industrial processes;

• helping industries develop and adopt clean technology in their journey to net-zero emissions;

• investing in nature and natural climate solutions;

• supporting farmers as partners in building a clean, prosperous future; and

• maintaining Canada’s approach for pricing pollution.

The Canadian government’s strategy for achieving net-zero by 2050 is advanced through a host of federal laws, regulations and programs including: pricing carbon pollution on fossil fuel end use and industrial facilities; an oil and gas emissions cap and methane reduction regulations; a tax credit for investment in carbon capture and storage technology; a low carbon technologies investment fund to support the development and adoption of such technologies; clean electricity regulations aimed at decarbonizing electricity by phasing out carbon-emitting electricity generation and increasing non-emitting sources such as renewables, biofuels, and nuclear; sales mandates and incentives for electrification, increasingly stringent emission standards and fuel-switching in the transportation sector; higher efficiency regulations that apply to building design and energy technologies; reduction regulations to phase out of hydrofluorocarbon use; fertilizer emission reduction targets; and methane emission regulations for large industrial emitters and municipal landfills [33]. The federal government made some efforts to identify and accommodate groups that might be disproportionately burdened by measures in the plan. Consequently, they provide targeted funding to support both clean energy projects in the North and Indigenous communities, and public transportation in rural communities, and allow some exemptions from carbon pricing and targeted support for groups such as farmers, fishers and rural residents [29]. Decarbonization and supply-side energy management are the primary focus of the plan, but there are incentives targeted to energy efficiency, mostly related to retrofitting existing buildings. Given its emphasis on mitigation, the ERP largely reinforces the conventional mitigation-adaptation dichotomy, as demonstrated by the absence of any mention of adaptation in the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act [32]. The ERP is a complex policy that aligns with a projection model in which policies and measures incentivize fuel switching, primarily to electricity, greater use of biofuels and hydrogen and adoption of zero emissions vehicles to create 50.6% of total GHG emission reductions while allowing for national economic growth [32].

In outlining the major components of the ERP, my intention is not to provide a detailed evaluation of it, but rather to use it to illustrate how supply-side technological solutions and market mechanisms are emphasized as the appropriate tools to usher in an energy transition, with little consideration of the chains of global-local injustices that underlie particular energy and climate policy choices.

4. Adopting clean energy technologies to address climate change impacts

It will be challenging to achieve the goals of Canada’s 2030 ERP for a variety of reasons. Canada is the second largest country in the world with a population of just over 40 million [34]. Overall, Canada has a relatively low-emitting electricity grid with 82.6% coming from low GHG emission sources such as renewables and nuclear, but Alberta, where much of Canada’s oil, natural gas and bitumen deposits are located, as well as its neighbor Saskatchewan, still rely extensively on fossil fuels for electricity generation [31]. This is not a consequence of inadequate renewable resource endowments as both these provinces have some of the greatest potential to expand wind and solar energy production. The intransigence to a shift away from traditional energy sources is political. The transportation sector also presents significant challenges as most Canadians are driving more and larger vehicles, Canada’s light duty vehicles produce the highest CO₂ emissions per kilometer in the world, and the EV market is novel and small [35].

Despite a rapid build out of renewable energy capacity and increased electric vehicle sales globally, Canada continues to lag behind many other nations in adopting clean energy technologies. In 2022, globally electric vehicle sales exceeded 10 million, constituting 14% of all new vehicle sales worldwide [36], whereas electric vehicle registrations in Canada were 3% [37]. Global renewable energy capacity rose by 13% in 2022 to 340 gigawatts [36] with record high investments of $1.3 trillion, a 70% increase from 2019 [38]. In Canada in 2022 there was a 10.5% increase in renewable energy investments and an installed capacity of renewables of 19 GW [39]. Canada’s contribution to world renewable electricity production is 2% compared to China at 17% and Nigeria at 6% [27].

More significantly than its slow adoption of green technology, what impedes Canada’s energy transformation is it carbon intensive economy, and its continued support for and economic reliance on mining activities, including the extraction of oil, gas and bitumen. Despite its promises to reduce national GHG emissions 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Canada’s fossil fuel production continues to grow; in 2022, primary energy production increased in Canada by 3.9% [40]. Fossil fuels accounted for over 64% of per capita primary energy consumption in Canada in 2022, compared to solar, wind and other renewables at 3.6%, and nuclear and hydropower at 32% [41]. Similarly in a global context, though increases in energy demand are shifting to renewables and nuclear, in aggregate, “government plans and projections would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050” [42]. Under the current measures in the ERP, Canada’s oil production (crude oil plus natural gas liquids) will increase by 25% over 2022 levels by 2035 and remain roughly constant until 2050 [33]. Consequently, even if all the emission reduction measures in Canada’s ERP are fully realized, the reductions will only reach 35% below the 2005 level, missing the federal government’s 40–45% goal [29]. Despite claims made by federal government officials, such as the Canada Energy Regulator who declared that Canada’s energy transition is occurring in many different parts of the economy, there is no transition yet. Renewables are expanding the choice of energy sources and accommodating some of increase in increased energy demand, but they are still not replacing fossil fuels [43].

Additionally, while energy consumption is falling in many high-income countries, not so in Canada. In 2002, energy consumption rose in Canada by 4.2% [40]. Alongside Norway, Iceland, the United States and countries in the Middle East like Oman, Saudia Arabia and Qatar, Canada has one of the highest levels of energy consumption per capita in the world; the average Canadian consumes more than 100 times as much the average person living in some lower-income countries [44]. This in part explains why Canada, as well as the United States, are the only G7 countries that have increased their GHG emissions since signing the Paris Agreement [45]. Canada being a dominant emitter of GHGs is a not only a current reality but a historical trend; a study of cumulative emissions from 1850 to 2021 reveals that Canada ranks tenth for the cumulative amount of CO₂ emitted by countries, and second for cumulative per capita emissions of CO₂ [46]. Hence, even using the most superficial definition of the term, the Canadian government is neither participating in nor concertedly enabling an energy transition. Further, they are not assuming adequate responsibility for their share of the climate change crisis thereby exacerbating distributive and intergeneration injustices. Instead, the continued growth in Canada’s emissions continues to contribute disproportionately to global changes such as sea level rise, extreme weather events and temperature increases that are not only impacting people distant from its shores, but contributing to record wildfires and extreme temperatures that are affecting many in Canada, most acutely those who are Indigenous, marginalized, have existing health problems and live in remote communities.

Even if Canadian government could more quickly deploy renewables this does not side-step the multitude of injustices associated with relying almost exclusively on technologies and existing markets as solutions to climate change and its impacts. The reliance on green technologies and markets alone inadequately addresses distributional justice issues such as energy poverty and energy insecurity and how the deployment of renewable energy can exacerbate these conditions. According to Carley and Konisky [17], there is ample evidence that that energy costs are a significant financial burden for households across many high-income nations, particularly for those who are rural low-income, elderly, non-white and renting populations. Low-income and non-white households are more likely to live in energy inefficient dwellings, have inefficient appliances and poor structural building conditions, all of which results in more pronounced impacts from climate change than that experienced by other households. They note that these same populations also tend to have limited access to low-carbon and energy efficiency technology programs featuring rebates and incentives for low-emission and electric vehicles, residential solar panels, community solar, smart meters, efficient appliances and LED lightbulbs; it’s mostly high-income households who are the beneficiaries of such green incentives.

The energy system changes in Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, serves as an example of the possible inequitable burdens associated with renewable energy roll out in Canada. Between 2003 and 2014 Ontario phased out coal, introduced a demand-side management program, and encouraged less carbon-emitting electricity through introduction of suite of renewable energy programs and legislation, and smart grid development. From 2006 to 2016 electricity rates increased on average 19% [47]. The Province of Ontario introduced 40 initiatives to address energy poverty that temporarily lowered electricity bills, offered rebates, electricity bill credits, tax relief and emergency assistance aligned with costs of energy, inefficient housing or low income, but failed to acknowledge and respond to those who suffer from the cumulative costs of energy, inefficient housing and low incomes [47]. In other words, due to initiatives adopted to increase renewable electricity on the provincial grid, the burden for the most disadvantaged people in Ontario was magnified, thereby exacerbating existing injustices. It is important to note that energy is largely a provincial responsibility but as the federal government is trying to decarbonize energy grids across the country, they have a role in collaborating with and assisting assist provincial governments to transition their energy systems. The federal government is collaborating with its provincial counterparts to some extent on energy matters, such as dedicating $458.5 million for low interest loans and grants to housing providers to make affordable (i.e., low-income) housing more energy efficient [48]. However, only 3% of Canada’s population live in low-income housing but 7.4% of the population live below the poverty line [49]. Also, Canada presently faces housing deficit and affordability challenges across most of the country, and most Canadians are experiencing higher-than normal cost of living increases (e.g., in 2022 there was a national 6.8% inflation rate) [50]. Hence, existing federal funding associated with the EPR dedicated to offsetting increased energy prices associated with renewable energy roll outs appears inadequate for those already facing economic disadvantages and will likely magnify the hardships they face.

Yet, for many Indigenous communities, renewable energy holds prospects for not only decarbonization but self-determination. The history of renewable energy developments in Canada, particularly large-scale hydro developments, are characterized by conflict and disregard for Indigenous ways of life, and largely are examples of neocolonialism, extractive economics and dispossession [51]. Nevertheless, over the last couple of decades many Indigenous communities are taking advantage of federal and provincial renewable energy incentives and programs to install solar panels and wind turbines on their traditional lands and buildings to achieve a host of goals: take action on climate change by replacing diesel generators and other fossil-fuel based electricity sources with less carbon polluting sources; provide employment opportunities, particularly for youth; create an economic opportunity that helps financially support the community; address energy poverty in their communities; and build energy self-reliance to advance Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination [52, 53].

An embodied energy injustice perspective directs one to examine injustices across the full energy assemblage, and thereby account for burdens associated not only with consumption but also production in both proximate and distant contexts [20]. An emphasis on the wide-spread production and deployment of renewable energy technologies as key to energy transition means “[m]inerals and metals will play a key role in the transition to a significantly lower carbon future” ([54], p. xvi). In a 2017 study, the World Bank illustrated how technologies assumed to populate the clean energy shift - such as wind, solar, hydrogen and electricity systems - are more material intensive in their composition than current traditional fossil-fuel-based energy supply systems. While recycling and reuse will have a role in meeting future mineral demand, nevertheless as demand for renewable technologies increases so does demand for mining. Transition minerals, also termed critical minerals, are necessary for modern technologies such as renewable electricity, batteries and electric vehicles [55]. According to the International Energy Agency [56], the energy transition to renewables will dramatically increase demand for critical minerals by 4 to 6 times in 2040, compared to 2020. Currently mining of critical minerals is highly concentrated in several specific geographic regions and dominated by a few major companies who control a significant portion of the global production and trade of specific critical minerals. “For example, more than 70% of platinum is mined in South Africa; 70% of cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo; more than 60% of natural graphite in China; almost 50% of nickel in Indonesia; almost 50% of lithium in Australia and almost 50% of dysprosium in China” ([57], p. 37). Mineral processing is even more concentrated, with China being the dominant player (100%) for minerals such as natural graphite and dysprosium (a rare earth mineral) and manganese (over 90%) [57]. While critical mineral reserves are more evenly distributed than production, low-income nations currently account for much of the global production of materials needed to fulfill national renewable projections, and their share in reserves is even greater. For example, Bolivia has 21 million tonnes of lithium reserves, more than any other country [57].

Given that most critical minerals do not have extraction and refining process supply chains well established yet, and critical mineral deposits are dispersed more evenly across the planet than traditional mineral and metal production, governments and industry organizations speak of the energy transition as offering future opportunities to low-income nations to diversify the mining sector [57]. Yet, the geological presence of resources alone is insufficient to undertake mining projects and effectively integrate them into the global critical mineral supply chain; it requires considerable upfront capital and expertise to locate, extract, process, transport and distribute these minerals. The global mining industry is highly concentrated, dominated by a few large multinational corporations and state owned/controlled enterprises, “yielding small and often oligopolistic markets” ([57], p. 15). Some of the largest mining companies are vertically integrated, operating across numerous stages of the commodity value chain and across multiple countries, controlling a significant portion of global production and trade in minerals and metals [57]. For example, at present most global mineral exploration is undertaken by countries that are members of the OECD, such as Australia, Canada and the United States [57]. Indeed, Canada is a mining superpower. With extensive domestic production and companies present in 96 foreign countries in 2021 [58], Canada produced:

more than 60 minerals and metals…ranking in the top five countries in the global production of 15 minerals and metals, including several critical minerals essential to new technologies, such as cobalt, copper, precious metals, nickel, and uranium. It has the potential to expand in lithium, magnesium and rare earth minerals [59].

Canadian mining assets abroad totalled $188 billion in 2020 [60].

Mining has a complex legacy in Canada, both internationally and domestically. Mineral production has stimulated non-Indigenous exploration and settlement, investment in infrastructure such as roads, railways and power production, and development of secondary industries, businesses and services including health care and education. But mining operations have also left behind social, economic, and environmental ruin, including a toxic legacy of tailings ponds and waste rock dumps, ecological disturbance and loss, food and water contamination that affect nearby communities, and social and economic dislocation, particularly for Indigenous communities [61]. Mining is responsible for 10% of global GHGs [57], is the fourth largest driver of deforestation and negatively impacts biodiversity at multiple scales [62]. For many Indigenous communities throughout Canada, the advent of mining on their traditional lands has been “synonymous with the key moments of their colonial history, when outside forces brought major social and economic changes while compromising local relationships to the land-based economy” ([63], p. 266). “From an industry and government perspective, there is a prevailing sentiment that times have changed” and they have repaired socio-ecological relations; they have become sustainable stewards of natural resources “and the historical exclusion of Indigenous communities from the benefits of the mineral economy can be dismissed as simply a relic of the bad old days” ([63], p. 266). Certainly, Indigenous peoples in Canada have gained influence over regional decision-making that affects their territories [63]. Aboriginal rights are protected by the Constitution and governments must “consult and accommodate Indigenous people wherever a government agency contemplates conduct that may impact Aboriginal rights” [53]. Also, in 2021 the Canadian government agreed to abide by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which “requires Canada to involve Indigenous participation in all matters that concern them” and “mandates obtaining their free, prior and informed consent on these matters” [64]. Yet, such accountability and respect for Indigenous communities is not fully realized across Canada and does not necessarily apply to mining activities outside the boundaries of Canada. For example, a damning case has been made against OceanaGold Corporation, a gold mining and exploration company incorporated in British Columbia and with offices in Vancouver, Canada and Brisbane Australia. According to Mining Watch Canada [65], OceaniaGold have committed widespread human rights and environmental abuses, and several of their mining operations threaten endangered species, conservation lands, watersheds, and Indigenous communities. They are not alone. As International Human Rights lawyer, James Yap, explains:

The activity of ripping minerals and other resources from the Earth has three notable features: first, it is a highly complex and labour-intensive endeavour. Second, it causes massive disruption to the Earth and those living on it. Finally, it is capable of generating enormous wealth for those who stand to profit… When mining takes place in Canada, serious disputes and controversies definitely arise - …mining has also caused a lot of human rights and environmental harm in Canada — and …Indigenous peoples have borne the brunt of this. But in the relative sense, Canada does have strong laws and institutions that are reasonably effective at preventing at least the very worst kinds of abuses. …[But] Canadian mining companies currently operate in all corners of the world. Regrettably, they've acquired a particularly bad reputation globally for causing serious human rights abuses [66].

Given these hegemonic imperialist power relations, without a focus on justice the degree to which transition metals will enable low-income countries to address the inequities and violence related to the mining operations of high-income nations within their borders and fairly compete in the global mining economy seems limited.

Domestically, critical mineral deposits are located across Canada, with concentrated reserves in a few regions. One of the largest potential reserves is situated in northwest Ontario with a potential yield of $60 billion [67]. Known as the ‘Ring of Fire’, this crescent-shaped deposit of minerals spans almost 5000 square kilometers and is the traditional territory of more than a dozen Indigenous First Nations. Most of the mining claims fall within the Hudson Bay Lowlands, an area of carbon-rich peatlands that are an important global carbon sink and part of the world’s second largest complex of wetlands. The vast peatlands of the Hudson Bay Lowlands support extensive river systems, provide critical habitat for wildlife, including endangered species like caribou and wolverines, and are an important cultural landscape and food security source for Indigenous peoples [68]. For many of the First Nations in this region, the subsistence economy accounts for a large proportion of their communities’ livelihood as residents still rely heavily on wild meat like caribou, moose, Canada goose and lesser snow goose [67]. This is a remote landscape with no roads or transmission lines, and only accessible by ice roads in the winter, or by air [69]. The Premier of Ontario and other proponents argue that the minerals in the Hudson Bay Lowlands are key in the push to lower GHG emissions, but environmentalist and some First Nations argue that the costs of disturbing these peatlands outweighs any of the benefits [69]. If all the peatlands in the Ring of Fire were disturbed an estimated 130 to 250 megatonnes of carbon could be released [68].

Mining for transition minerals also can contribute to intergenerational and recognition injustices, including the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous communities from their traditional lands. Bolivia, for example, with its wealth of lithium reserves has a weak regulatory regime that results in a spotty human rights track record. Despite children under 14 not being technically allowed to work, the law is rarely enforced, and many children are employed in mining activities [70]. Further, while the 2009 Bolivian constitution includes comprehensive guarantees of Indigenous peoples’ rights to land titling and free, prior, and informed consent on development projects, Indigenous peoples frequently face barriers in exercising those rights [71]. Globally, an estimated 54% of energy transition mineral deposits are located on or near Indigenous peoples’ lands [57]. In the Hudson Bay Lowlands, there are more than 28,000 mining claims held by 14 companies and no consensus amongst the First Nations about these prospective developments [72]. Marten Falls and Webequie First Nations are leading an environmental assessment on proposed roads into the region, viewing them as access for their community members to health, education and employment services [72]. In contrast, three of the affected First Nations have issued a moratorium against projects proposed for the Ring of Fire region [64] and four First Nations - Grassy Narrows, Big Trout Lake, Wapekeka and Neskantaga - have signed a mutual cooperation agreement with the intent of stopping unwanted encroachments on their traditional territories, which cover about 60,000 square kilometers of land [73]. They are opposed to mining and prospecting on their lands because it puts their way of life under threat and assert that the Ontario provincial government has pushed forward on development in the region without free, prior and informed consent [73].

Whether in support of or opposed to energy transition through renewable energy, there is largely consensus amongst most Indigenous and settler communities of the need to be properly consulted about energy transition developments that impact their lives. Procedural justice is a cornerstone of transformative climate justice and highlights the fairness of, and equitable opportunities in energy decision-making processes [17]. Studies demonstrate that public participation in environmental decision making can provide important knowledge, inform policy and other solutions, and lead local residents to perceive the result of decisions more positively [74]. Nevertheless, “public participation and deliberation around questions of energy policy have traditionally been very weak” ([10], p. 5). Not only are there inadequate opportunities for participation in many energy decision- making processes, but there is a lack of complete information and access to scientific and legal expertise. At a deeper level, the fairness of these processes can reflect deeper procedural inequities between rich and poor nations, or rich and poor communities, and raises recognition justice issues about what constitutes an appropriate response to the energy challenges confronting societies.

In accordance with the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change is required to provide opportunities for comment on the ERP. The federal government did this, to a limited extent. A survey portal was launched December 10, 2021 that remained open until January 21, 2022, and submissions by e-mail were also welcomed. The on-line portal received 15,788 responses and 14,380 e-mail submissions were received from the 38.25 million people living in Canada – 0.08% of the population [32]. The submission from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) noted the very tight timelines for input and how this constrained their ability to conduct a full assessment of the proposed plan. Further, they stressed that the federal government needs to engage directly with First Nations in more meaningful conversations for subsequent versions or updates of the ERP.

Powatomi scholar and activist Kyle Whyte [21] responds to the urgency rhetoric that often accompanies discussions and strategies focused on avoiding the dangers related to climate change, and questions whether this should prescribe the approach taken to address this socio-ecological challenge. Whyte explains, that in “contemporary indigenous intellectual traditions and political activism, relationships of mutual responsibilities, infused with appropriate qualities like consent and reciprocity, are often referred to as kin relationships.” He argues that while people in the Indigenous climate movement resolutely agree on the need for swift action on climate change, establishing kin relationships cannot be sacrificed for the sake of urgent actions without committing further injustices. Sweeping urgent actions led by settler societies to lower GHGs in the absence of “first establish[ing] and repair[ing] the qualities of consent, trust, accountability and reciprocity” will only exacerbate climate vulnerability and exploitation, particularly for Indigenous peoples. While qualities like consent and reciprocity are critical to the cross-sectoral collaborations required to lower carbon footprints, “these are precisely the kinds of qualities of relationships that take time to nurture and develop”. Yet, not taking the time to build such justice-oriented kin relationships will perpetuate recognition injustices and undermine an effective collective response to climate change.

5. Conclusion

Global sustainability requires safeguarding and restoring the Earth’s life support systems. Organizations like the UNU [1] and GSI [2], as well as many independent scientists [3] are raising alarms about how we are undermining global sustainability as many of our planetary life support systems are reaching major tipping points. They stress how existing governance systems, institutions and decision-making processes are inadequately responding to these grave threats by using incremental change approaches. Instead, significant transformation at both local and global scales and structural changes within dominant production and consumption patterns is required.

The Canadian government’s ERP is not facilitating transformational change; like most government and corporate energy transition policies it is a at best introducing a few incremental changes that allow business-as-usual to proceed. Largely dependent upon supply-side technocratic solutions such as renewable energy and electric vehicles, it promotes economic growth while reinforcing and exacerbating the “entrenchment of patterns of socially and ecologically uneven exchange rather than resolving these in a globally just manner” ([22], p. 183). As the Assembly of First Nations point out, energy transition and sustainability challenges that place growth as a key objective should “presume a continuation of the structurally inequitable and racist systems that have led us to this compounding environmental crisis in the first place” ([28], p. 144). Further, a focus on building out renewable energy systems and growing the economy does nothing to decrease consumption of resources and the waste this produces, and hence in the absence of other socio-political changes, does nothing to remake the exploitive relationships with other peoples and ecosystems ([75], p. 85). As respected British environmentalist Jonathon Porritt [76] explains, “We’re trapped in an energy-intensive way of life, driven by frenetic consumerism, causing massive damage to both people and the planet, and putting at risk the very future of humankind.”

Transformative sustainability policies at all levels cannot be delivered in isolation from the pursuit of justice. Social scientists and Indigenous scholars remind us that these transformative actions must be informed by recognition of “the structurally inequitable and racist systems that have led us to this compounding environmental crisis in the first place” ([32], p. 144). It requires challenging our assumptions about authority and expertise, “and opening up debates to plural knowledge and experiences’ ([9], p. 7) as a part of considering how to redistribute power and resources.

There is an opportunity to chart a different course away from the collapse of life supporting Earth systems, but if it is to be just and equitable, we need to give concerted attention to the drivers of existing and new socioecological injustices. A transformative climate justice perspective directs attention to the drivers of injustice across spatial scales and how these can be contested and prevented in advancing sustainability transformations [10]. It helps highlight the institutional structures and policy processes that produce and maintain inequalities between countries and regions, but also identify how national-level sustainability priorities and policy processes can exacerbate inequities and vulnerabilities within countries that have been shaped by long histories of encounter with colonialism, imperialism, warfare, and other forms of extractivism and violence [7]. Analysis of embodied energy injustices provides a framework to situate and understand how power operates in creating these place-based socioecological injustices and links these injustices to the broader dynamics of global capitalism.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.