Our Common Future, Chairman's Foreword 

"A global agenda for change" - this was what the World Commission on Environment and Development was asked to formulate. It was an urgent call by the General Assembly of the United Nations: 

The Department of Energy (hereinafter DOE or the Department) is responsible for ensuring the Nation’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. DOE maintains the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, reduces the threat of nuclear proliferation, oversees the Nation’s energy supply, leads the Nation in areas of federally sponsored basic research critical to U.S.

Inspired by the energy democracy movement, this conceptual review critically explores relationships between concentrated or distributed renewable energy and political power. Advocates assert that because the renewable energy transition is fundamentally a political struggle, efforts to shift from fossil fuels and decarbonize societies will not prove effective without confronting and destabilizing dominant systems of energy power.

Introduction

A. The Biden-Harris Administration’s Commitment to Environmental Justice 

Mainstream approaches to energy democracy and public engagement with energy transitions tend to adopt specific, pre-given meanings of both “democracy” and “publics.” Different approaches impose prescriptive assumptions about the model of participation, the identity of public participants, and what it means to participate well.

The goal of this literature review is to bring together the different concepts, respective definitions and perspectives that have been used to study the participation of non-professionals in scientific activities. We start by presenting a short definition of citizen science and the perceived benefits of such approaches to the production of scientific knowledge. We then clarify the difference between today’s citizen science projects and their ancestors in the field sciences by highlighting technological and social changes.

The purpose of this report is to equip the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) with evidence-based recommendations to further equity and environmental justice (EJ) efforts within their capacity as the state’s environmental regulatory agency, in service of advancing EJ for those who live, work, and play in Washington. This report is intended to share promising trends and tools, acknowledge common barriers and ideas for overcoming those barriers, elevate successes, and amplify equitable practices for defining, measuring, mobilizing, and sustaining meaningful EJ work.

The U.S. nuclear waste management program has labored for decades at a cost of billions of dollars each year, and yet there is still no active disposal program either for spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors or for the high-level radioactive legacy waste and spent nuclear fuel from defense programs.

On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order (E.O.) 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, which established the historic Justice40 Initiative (the Justice40 Initiative, or Justice40). The Justice40 Initiative establishes a goal that 40% of the benefits of climate and clean energy investments flow to disadvantaged communities, which for too long, have faced disinvestment and underinvestment.

About the WHEJAC:

This Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) Manual is designed as a tool for project practitioners (herein referred as project managers) for a broad range of projects and programmes (hereinafter to be referred to as projects) of any development organization, by providing information about the right to FPIC and how it can be implemented in six steps.

Some Members of Congress and the Biden Administration are exploring how to use the environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to ensure that environmental laws and policies fairly treat and reflect input from all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income. This principle is commonly referred to as “environmental justice.” Congress enacted NEPA in 1969 to require federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of proposed federal actions prior to making decisions.