Public Participation and Climate Change Infrastructure (original) (raw)
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Public participation in national energy and climate plans across the EU - Masters' Thesis
University of Leiden CML Master's Thesis, 2021
The calls for greater national contributions to decarbonise and for greater citizen participation in forming these plans are growing ever louder. Little, however, is understood on the relationships between different approaches for involving citizens in national strategy development and the policy plans and commitments that result. Taking the ongoing case of the EU National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs), this thesis seeks to fill this gap by firstly, investigating how EU member states have interpreted legal requirements for public participation in their 2030 national climate strategies. Thereafter it explores the relationships between the different types of participatory process and the likely effectiveness and coverage of plans to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This research is innovative, firstly, because it constructs scaled, qualitative indicators to enable data-driven analysis to identify the variety and intensity of approaches to participatory governance across climate plans. It then explores patterns between different governance processes and the countries’ plans for energy transition. Secondly, by reviewing literature and consulting with practitioners and academics from different backgrounds, and by drawing on a mix of qualitative and quantitative techniques, a transdisciplinary approach is adopted.
This article examines the tension between the democratic right of public participation on specific environmental issues, guaranteed by European Law, and the degree to which it is being challenged in the UK as a consequence of recent approaches to energy infrastructure planning. Recent trends in UK government policy frameworks seem both to threaten effective public participation and challenge EU planning strategy, in particular those outlined in the Aarhus convention. The research outlined in this study involves an assessment of the changing context of planning and energy policy, in addition to recent changes in legislation formulation in the UK. The research findings, derived from an extensive interview process of elite stakeholders engaged in policy and legislation formulation in the UK and the EU provide a new categorisation system of stakeholders in energy policy that can be utilised in future research. The article concludes with a second order analysis of the interviewee data and provides solutions to increase public participation in the planning of energy infrastructure that emerge from the different perspectives.
A B S T R A C T There is now a large body of research into public understanding of climate change and energy challenges. There is however little empirical examination of how actors from politics, government, civil society and non-governmental organisations regard the role of public engagement in climate and energy policy. Research is lacking as to their views on the desirability of active citizen participation or indeed whether they draw on the findings from social science research in forming strategies and policy. This paper presents an analysis of interviews with policy experts and deliberative seminars held with non-governmental stakeholders acting in an intermediary capacity between climate policy and the public. A comparison of four policy scenarios was used to explore intermediaries' beliefs about the role of the public in delivering the UK's Climate Change Act targets. The results reveal a general antipathy to policies that seek to 'engage' the public and a lack of knowledge amongst seminar participants about how insights from the social sciences can be used to build and sustain public engagement. This research exposes the need to assess the means by which public engagement can better be understood, integrated and most effectively utilised for sustainable progression towards climate targets.
Public Engagement in Planning for Renewable Energy
2009
This chapter is about public consultation, participation and engagement in spatial planning decisions. While the discussion focuses on renewable energy, these issues have resonance far beyond this topic. Consideration of the possibilities and procedures for involving people in the spatial planning agenda are important for many aspects of a response to climate change, from debates over governance to topics such as flood management.This chapter addresses the rationale, practicalities and difficulties of engaging people in planning, highlighting the directly transferable implications for other sector objectives, through an examination of renewable energy. Indeed, it is impossible to think about the implementation of renewable energy without addressing the involvement and impact of the public in these processes.While fiscal regulations and subsidies, technical efficiency and political deliberations all affect the deployment of renewables, the stark fact remains that all of this matters ...
Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2013
Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of studies on public perceptions of carbon capture and storage (CCS), accompanied by efforts to translate such knowledge into toolkits for public engagement and communication. At the same time, both literature and toolkits have paid little attention to the organisational dynamics and views of project implementers with regard to public engagement. Here we investigate the views of project development consortia employees in five European CCS projects, focusing on their experience of organisational norms and structures relating to engagement. Finding that planning for this engagement has in several cases been hampered by a lack of shared internal vision on engagement and communication within the project consortia, at least initially, we draw upon the socio-technical approach to technology embedment and new institutional theory, to observe that internal organisational alignment is crucial in multi-organisational projects when seeking effective public engagement and communication. We observe that this aspect of internal organisation is not yet reflected in the toolkits and guidelines designed to aid engagement in CCS projects. Engagement guides need to direct the attention of project implementers not only in specific outward directions, but also towards reflexively considering their own internal structures, perspectives, motivations, expectations and aims in relation to engagement and communication practice. i Corresponding author. Present affiliation and address: DuneWorks B.V. Tel: 0031 6 520 171 39; email address: sylvia.breukers@duneworks.nl Postal address: Eschweilerhof 57, 5625 NN Eindhoven, The Netherlands ii Present affiliation:
Journal of Environmental Law, 2016
The notion of public participation in environmental decision-making remains ambiguous and unsettled. This article critically reflects on the conceptual nature of participation, focusing on wind energy developments. It points to an overlooked, but conceptually significant, distinction between models of engagement directed to "participation" and those aimed at "public acceptance". By simply offering a shadow of participation, models of public acceptance are problematic and make the normative and substantive justification of the decision inevitably more fragile. Analysing two major wind projects in England and Wales and their underlying legal and policy framework, the article explores the role of mitigation measures and the under-researched potential for developer-led community benefits to provide participatory space. In the light of logic of acceptance, it suggests that the participatory orientation of mitigation measures within planning law should be acknowledged and strengthened, while the potential for community benefits to constitute alternative fora for community participation should be explored.
Public participation and adaptation to climate change
Public participation is commonly advocated in policy responses to climate change. Here we discuss prospects for inclusive approaches to adaptation, drawing particularly on studies of long-term coastal management in the UK and elsewhere. We affirm that public participation is an important normative goal in formulating response to climate change risks, but argue that its practice must be sensitive to existing critiques of participatory processes from other contexts. Involving a wide range of stakeholders in decisionmaking presents fundamental challenges for climate policy, many of which are embedded in relations of power. In the case of anticipatory response to climate change, these challenges become magnified because of the long-term and uncertain nature of the problem. Without due consideration of these issues, a tension between principles of public participation and anticipatory adaptation is likely to emerge and may result in an overly-managed form of inclusion that is unlikely to satisfy either participatory or instrumental goals. Alternative, more narrowly instrumental approaches to participation are more likely to succeed in this context, as long as the scope and limitations of public involvement are made explicit from the outset.
Energy Policy
This paper presents the results of research into local people's involvement in energy infrastructure planning, in the context of the regulatory processes for 'Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects' (NSIPs) and focusing specifically on major renewable energy infrastructure (REI) in England and Wales. It builds on recent work around public views of REI, by looking at the new opportunities for public involvement established through the participation mechanisms of the NSIPs regime. A survey explored opportunities for influence, perceptions of influence and confidence in the results of decisions; local people's responses signaled areas of concern. Reflections on these perspectives in light of interview data from community facilitators and the survey responses of other actors suggest that the new duties within the processes shape the participatory experiences. Conclusions consider the implications for practice.