People-Powered Energy Transitions in Resource-Rich Countries

The climate crisis has negatively impacted developing countries and marginalized groups disproportionately in comparison with their developed counterparts. Since 1991, developing countries have accounted for 79 percent of recorded deaths due to extreme weather, and 97 percent of the total recorded number of people affected by the impacts of such weather. Women and girls are more likely than men and boys to die in extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and intense.

Worryingly, solutions to fight the climate crisis, including the energy transition, might add new burdens to low- and middle-income countries and marginalized groups. This situation is particularly challenging for resource-rich countries, given possible shocks to resource revenues and labor markets, socio-environmental and governance challenges, the intensification of social conflicts, and the lack of universal, affordable and reliable energy access.

The energy transition could also represent a financial opportunity for many countries. According to the Global Commission on Economy and Climate Change in 2018, the green economy could yield gains of USD 26 trillion by 2030, compared with business as usual. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that if the necessary policies are implemented, 14 million jobs could be created by 2030. Yet this will require significant efforts by governments, companies and other actors in the education and technology sectors to ensure these new jobs and opportunities reach women, youth and other marginalized populations. This document seeks to advance a framework to ensure equity in resource-rich countries in the context of the global energy transition.

NRGI's report provides insights into the equity and development challenges that oil, gas and mineral-rich countries face as the world attempts to fight climate change, and offers inputs to define policies, practices and tools that can help address such challenges and promote a just, people-powered energy transition. By suggesting the notion of a people-powered transition, the framework emphasizes the need for all people—with special focus on the most marginalized groups—to benefit from transition processes, avoiding the inequities of traditional development models and explicitly addressing the question of who benefits from a “just” outcome. A transition powered by people explicitly includes these groups and civil society as agents, and not simply as passive recipients of policies—although it recognizes that both people and nature need to be at its core.

The text is the product of a research process undertaken by NRGI, based on: 

1. A review of relevant academic literature
2. Analysis of key global and regional organizations’ positions on a just transition, and
3. The incorporation of initial lessons learned from NRGI and partners’ projects on the just transition, especially at country level.

The report has three sections. The first analyses the equity challenges that resource-rich countries face. The second describes equity concerns linked to asymmetrical power relations at international level. The third section explains the evolution of the notion of a just transition and different approaches related to it, and proposes a framework for people-powered energy transitions in resource-rich contexts.