The CEES Energy Justice Program is designed to address the critical needs of the Energy Oppressed Poor (EOP) through a long-term, interdisciplinary action program centered around information sharing, deployment of appropriate sustainable energy technologies, and the creation of the World Energy Justice Partnership. More information on this program is available below.

Key Energy Justice Documents

View the CEES White Paper on Energy Justice

Program Rationale and Description View as PDF

Energy Justice, and the World Energy Justice Partnership (WEJP) is about the "other" third of the world afflicted by energy problems. Two thirds of the world, in developed and advanced developing countries, are high energy users who rely primarily on hitherto abundant sources of fossil fuels for their prosperous life styles. They are responsible for problems of global warming and peaking oil. By contrast, the primary energy relied on by the “other” third of the world, numbering around two billion peoples, is biomass-based fire. The other third are the energy oppressed poor typically living on less than a dollar or two a day.

Unfortunately, biomass-based fire presents two sets of problems. The first is pollution. Black soot emitted by imperfect combustion of biomass creates indoor pollution that results in the annual death of a million and half persons, primarily women and children. In addition, black soot in the atmosphere has recently been identified as a significant cause of global warming. The second is that fire is a hopelessly inadequate source of energy. It does not provide the kind of exogenous energy required for human development. Fire can be used for cooking, and heating but fails to supply the majority of other basic energy needs. Fire does not power water pumps, grinding mills, vehicles, or agricultural equipment. Neither does it provide clean lighting, water filtration, or more generally help create the goods and services required for food, clothing and shelter.

Energy justice demands that the high energy world should act to address the condition of the EOP. Such action must begin with tackling indoor and atmospheric pollution but extend far beyond that single measure to provide the EOP with sustainable energy that will enable them to develop, and break the bonds of poverty and energy deprivation. The World Energy Justice Partnership (WEJP) will coordinate the identification, development, and broad-scale dissemination of appropriate sustainable energy technologies (ASETs) to meet the needs of the EOP and launch them on a new environment-and-climate-friendly energy and developmental trajectory in four stages.

1	The first stage will create a collaborative online information system and repository to facilitate information sharing and world-wide development and dissemination of best-practice ASETs.
2	Stage two will work in parallel with stage one and consist of a series of international and national policy papers to address the legal aspects of energy justice within existing climate change, sustainable development, and technology transfer frameworks.
3	Stage three. In close collaboration with in-country partners, will establish pilot demonstration projects for pragmatic best-practice-AETs.
4	In partnership with aid and other development programs such as those run by the U.S. Department of Energy, USAID, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Global Village Energy Partnership, expand pilot projects into full-scale integrated energy enterprises in villages and towns in selected countries.

CEES Energy Justice Conference

23-24 Oct 2009
Wolf Law Building
University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado 80309

Conference Agenda