Climate justice and energy : applying international principles to UK residential energy policy

There are ethical, legal and strategic/pragmatic reasons why it is important to ensure a just approach to climate change mitigation, both internationally and within nations. Ethically, low income countries or groups can be considered to suffer an injustice if they contribute least to climate change while still suffering from its effects, and yet also have little influence in international decision making around mitigation and adaptation responses (Preston et al, 2014). Legally, equity is embedded in the ‘common and differentiated responsibility’ principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol (e.g. see Soltau, 2008). In the European context, the Aarhus Convention lays out rights to access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters.2 Pragmatically, people are more likely to accept climate change mitigation and adaptation policies if they reflect a fair balance of responsibility, capability, and need (Gross, 2007; Aylett, 2010), and wider participation and fair process can help with management of conflict and help to build consensus (Aylett 2010). Buell and Mayne (2011) also argue that just approaches to climate change actions have strategic and practical advantages because they can help ensure political support, mobilising hidden assets and generating wider socio-economic benefits than approaches based solely on narrow economic or financial criteria at lower financial cost. As recent public debate over fuel bills in the UK shows, there are strong public concerns about the fairness of energy policy, particularly where it affects energy prices, which in turn influence policy desig