Energy Transition and Health: Questioning the Underlying Assumptions

Author(s): Chris Butters, Ove Jakobsen

The global energy transition is motivated largely by the need to combat climate change. Other reasons include limits to available fossil fuels, energy-related environmental impacts, and societal goals such as health, equity and poverty alleviation. This transition will significantly change the world both technically, economically and socially. It is taking shape with characteristics which prioritise certain types of policy, interventions and solutions, as well as certain actors and institutional forces. This implies underlying assumptions about what constitutes a desirable type of future society; these assumptions need to be questioned. This requires us to look well beyond the field of health sciences itself. It is imperative that health professionals and researchers address this wider picture. If not, the preconditions for health and wellbeing risk being neglected and in some cases directly hampered by the energy transition. Briefly stated, the transition is being geared to a conventional type of development; including the not unchallenged concept of green growth. Not everyone, however, would agree on those priorities. We discuss limitations and weaknesses in the current approach. Whilst much of the change initiated is positive, we argue that different views, which lie closer to discourses such as strong sustainability, deep ecology and ecological economics would prioritise differently and offer both necessary and desirable outcomes. We argue that achieving global sustainable energy, not least the societal goals, remains unlikely within socio-political frameworks permeated by the imperatives of market-driven growth and the commodification of resources. Building on examples and recent experience we outline some of the objections to the current paradigm and highlight other options in the transition process. Keywords include degrowth, sustainable consumption, lifestyle shifts and community solutions. The relevance of a broad policy paper of this kind is to reflect on the energy transition in the particular light of health and wellbeing.