Low-carbon Transition Processes and their Reading of Justice: The Case of the Scenarios for a Low-Carbon Belgium

Low-carbon transition processes can not only exacerbate existing social inequalities, but also create unprecedented forms of inequality. These social impacts can potentially combine and reinforce each other to create double or even triple vulnerabilities. With a view to ensuring a just transition, it is essential to consider social justice issues in the design of low-carbon strategies. The objective of the present paper is to explore whether and how low-carbon transition processes take into account these issues. It aims to identify and analyze low-carbon transition processes’ sensitivity to vulnerabilities, inequalities and adjacent social-economic fragilities. With this aim in mind, we have studied the case of the strategy towards a low-carbon Belgium. More specifically, we have carried out an analysis of existing institutional low-carbon scenarios exercises. These artifacts, which are situated at the interface between science and policy, are taken as an entry point for exploring the linkages between social and ecological objectives into low-carbon transition processes. Seven energy foresight studies carried out for Belgium were examined through a capability-based framework allowing to assess the way low-carbon scenarios address distributional, recognition and procedural justice. The analysis reveals that justice issues are hardly addressed in the exploration of low-carbon transition pathways. The potential conflicts and synergies between low-carbon strategies and social justice objectives are actually not taken into consideration – or only in a very limited way – in the scenario analyses reviewed. In the cases where these interactions are considered, we note that the analysis is often limited to distributional justice issues. Recognition and procedural justice are indeed missing in almost all the analysis – which is particularly problematic, since misrecognition and procedural injustice are not only injustices per se, but also foundations for distributional injustice. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of conducting low-carbon scenario exercises based on mixed methods acknowledging and coping with the pluralist needs, values, issues and solutions in order to ensure a just transition. In this sense, it is necessary to develop and experiment innovative participative approaches involving all the actors concerned by problem, including the ones representing the most vulnerable persons.