Mine Islar
Senior Lecturer, Docent, Deputy Director
Feasibility of energy justice: Exploring national and local efforts for energy development in Nepal
Author
Summary, in English
The energy justice framework serves as an important decision-making tool in order to understand how different principles of justice can inform energy systems and policies. The realization of the urgency of providing modern energy technology and services particularly to rural areas has prompted both the Nepalese government and development institutions to focus on community-run renewable energy facilities. It is argued that off-grid and micro-scale energy development offers an alternative path to fossil-fuel use and top-down resource management as they democratize the grid and increase marginalized communities' access to renewable energy, education and health care. However, Nepal's energy development is also heavily influenced by demands from the fast-growing economies of neighboring countries such as China and India. As a result, this article evaluates the Nepalese national energy policies by applying the key aspects of the energy justice framework and showing the feasibility constraints due to geopolitical and biophysical factors to the implementation of energy just policies in this developing country context. The empirical evidence is derived from interviews during a one-month fieldwork in the Lalitpur and Katmandu districts of Nepal, site-visits, discourse analysis of expert statements, government policies and newspaper articles as well literature review on peer-review articles.
Department/s
- LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)
Publishing year
2017-06
Language
English
Pages
668-676
Publication/Series
Energy Policy
Volume
105
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Status
Published
Project
- Rivers of Commons: A sustainability study on hydropower development in Nepal
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1873-6777