Climate Change is one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced and it is occurring during a time of great social, economic and technological turbulence. The resources being put into making our economies and society low carbon offer an opportunity to redesign our system, to be fairer in our policy-making processes and to set goals for the outcomes we want to achieve. 

The Tavistock Institute and the University of Edinburgh recently collaborated on designing a national Just Transition framework for Scotland. The first of its kind in the world, the framework specifies the types of actions and outcomes that need to be achieved, aiming to hold responsible bodies accountable for their actions. 

We know that the Scottish low carbon transition is starting from a baseline of inequality. Previous, poorly managed transitions have left long-lasting scars on Scottish communities. Rapid transitions away from steel production, ship building and coal mine closures, for example, resulted in large-scale job losses. With no alternatives available, communities faced long-term economic decline. 

Even today, life expectancy in Scotland’s former coal mining communities is one year lower than in other areas of Scotland and residents report poorer mental health (Fothergill et al., 2024). If the low carbon transition deepens existing inequalities, the consequences on social cohesion could be extreme. 

Other examples are clear, too: the decline in oil and gas production as part of a low-carbon transition will leave those workforces particularly vulnerable (RGU, 2024); rates of fuel poverty and extreme poverty in Scotland are highly volatile with no clear trajectory of decline (The Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel, 2024), with some individuals and households self-rationing or engaging in self-disconnection behaviours as they decide whether to “heat or eat” (Martiskainen et al., 2023); and given the uneven geographical distribution of Scotland’s natural resources, some communities have faced higher burdens from the siting of renewable energy infrastructure (Energy Saving Trust, 2024).

In this talk, Dr David Drabble and Dr Kirsten Jenkins will present their framework and discuss the transformative choices we face now to redesign our socio-economic systems at speed whilst protecting the most vulnerable populations in our society.

About Kirsten Jenkins

Kirsten Jenkins is a Senior Lecturer in energy, environment and society within the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Kirsten is a sustainable development and human geography scholar with research interests that centre around energy policy, energy justice, just transitions, fuel poverty, and sustainable energy provision and use. 

Alongside her lectureship, Kirsten serves as Managing Editor for the journal Energy Research & Social Science, and Deputy Theme Champion for the Energy, People, Policy, and Society theme of the Energy Technology Partnership, amongst other roles. She is also a member of the Scottish Government's Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel and an advisor to the Scottish Parliament's NetZero, Energy, and Transport Committee.

Fun fact: To unwind, Kirsten spends time with her growing assortment of critters, including 5 Hebridean sheep and 2 Tamworth pigs.

About David Drabble

Dr David Drabble is a Senior Researcher and Consultant for the Tavistock Institute who has worked on over forty research and evaluation projects since working at the Tavistock Institute. An experienced evaluator and past Council member on the UK Evaluation Society, David is a mixed methods researcher with a keen interest in sustainability and leads the implementation of ISO 14001 at the Tavistock Institute. He is an expert in theory-based evaluation, particularly Theory of Change, and has recently co-edited a book, Strategic Thinking, Design and the Theory of Change (May 2023, Edward Elgar).”

Fun fact: To keep his child-like sense of wonder, David reads lots of fantasy books, in the vague and futile hope it will stave off middle-age.