Land for Clean Energy Projects: For Community Energy

We must increase our share of renewables from today’s 29% to 60% by 2030, if we have any hope of keeping global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7—affordable modern energy access to all by 2030. To do this, we must streamline the approval process of renewable energy projects and eliminate barriers hindering faster approvals. Community opposition, which is one barrier, as per a US study on delayed or cancelled renewable projects between 2008 and 2021 is driven by two main concerns—land and environmental impacts. This conceptual article calls for implementation of the theory of energy justice in its five forms—distributive, procedural, restorative, recognition and cosmopolitanism—as a solution in engaging energy communities and addressing their concerns. Once community engagement is explored through the lens of energy justice, solutions emerge to solve this barrier by including communities in the energy planning process as opposed to further down the pipeline in project implementation; restoring and rehabilitating affected community lands and environments impacted by renewable energy projects, through recognising indigenous community connections to their lands; and funding the UNFCCC loss and damage fund to bring up renewable energy projects.