FPRN bulletin – 26th August 2022

This report investigates energy stress in Australia to better understand the scale of the problem, and identifies policy implications for the way forward. The authors find that around one in five Australian households are in energy stress and vulnerable households are over represented in this figure. The report explores what this data means in the context of rapidly rising energy prices and the wider transition to a decarbonised economy.

This paper presents outcomes of a study to identify the effect of household cooking energy poverty on the respiratory health of children under the age of five in Pakistan. Significant negative impacts were found and the authors recommend that adoption of modern stoves and clean fuels will result in improved indoor environment and health of children in Pakistan.

This paper maps the concept of how energy communities have been framed in the wider literature. In particular, the paper categorizes and assesses existing understandings of energy communities, and identifies the aspects which have been considered in discussions and practice. The authors questions if the ‘social’ aspirations of energy communities have been forgotten to date.

In this article, the authors explore the energy-poverty nexus through an alternative approach to ethics and justice in energy transitions. In doing so, the authors argue that this nexus reflects configurations of socio-energy systems that create complex feedbacks between energy insecurity and economic insecurity which reinforces and exacerbates poverty. Disentangling these configurations and re-designing them could create long-term outcomes that are more equitable and just.