Speaker
Description
As heating is responsible for about half of the world’s total energy consumption, the heat transition is an important part of efforts to mitigate climate change. In the Netherlands 90% of the households depend on natural gas for heating their homes. Phasing out natural gas has therefore become a central policy objective in Dutch climate policy. Part of the Dutch heat transition strategy is a ‘neighborhood approach’, making the neighborhood a focal point for climate governance. At the same time the purpose of this re-scaling has remained largely implicit.
Although policy attention to neighborhoods is nothing new, the heat transition provides a new context in which neighborhood governance is taking shape. In this study we employ a discourse analysis to explore how neighborhoods are represented in national energy policy programs. We identify three discourses that put forward conflicting views on what roles neighborhoods play in the Dutch heat transition. One of these discourses puts emphasis on the importance of public participation and local ownership, promoting community governance. However, most policy documents follow a technocratic rationale which represents neighborhoods as the appropriate scale to ensure climate policy objectives are met in time and cost-efficiently. This second discourse puts emphasis on hard policy instruments to help municipalities disconnect neighborhoods from natural gas. We find a third discourse that stresses the need to prioritize neighborhoods with a concentration of low-income households. Neighborhood governance can make a difference by offering a targeted and integrated approach to citizen well-being. This third discourse has traditionally been associated with urban renewal, but is now entering the field of climate and energy policy. This is especially so since the recent energy crisis in Europe, which showed the vulnerability of households to fluctuating energy prices.
Our findings show that neighborhood governance in the context of climate policies can head different directions. This makes it important to pay attention to the spatial inequalities that can result from particular strategies. For instance in dense neighborhoods where district-heating is most cost-efficient but at the same time puts households that are financially vulnerable at risk. By discussing the rationales underlying the ‘neighborhood approach’ our study raises awareness about the dilemma’s that arise when putting neighborhood governance to practice.
References
Atkinson, R. & L. Carmichael (2007). ‘Neighbourhood as a New Focus for Action in the Urban Policies of West European States’. Pp. 43-64 in Disadvantaged by where you live? Policy Press.
Cowan, S. (2019). ‘Back to the Neighborhood: Ideas and Practices of Local Governance’. Journal of Urban History 45(5): 1070-75.
Hajer, M., & W. Versteeg (2005). A decade of discourse analysis of environmental politics: achievements, challenges, perspectives. Journal of Environmental Politics and Planning, 175- 184.
Lowndes, V., & Sullivan, H. (2008). How low can you go? Rationales and challenges for neighbourhood governance. Public administration, 86(1), 53-74.
Sullivan, H. & M. Taylor (2007). ‘Theories of “neighbourhood” in urban policy’. in Disadvantaged by where you live? Neighbourhood governance in contemporary urban policy, eds. I. Smith, E. Lepine, and M. Taylor. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Talen, E. (2019). Neighborhood. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
| Keywords | Energy Transition; Climate Policies; Neighborhood Governance; Discourse Analysis |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
