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The prominent growth in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment is evident, with the number of global assets managed sustainably more than doubled over the last decade. This trend is expected to continue until 2030. This type of financial data is positive but given the United Nations stated 'climate emergency' and 'climate survival' in society today, there needs to be an even greater acceleration of growth in ESG investment. Unfortunately, significant negativity has emerged on ESG in recent years. This 'Cutting Edge' study explores the reasons why and how ESG investment has veered off the journey towards enabling society to achieve both its targets under the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Energy Agenda and the 2015 Paris Agreement. It examines the factors prompting leading multinational companies, particularly in the energy and food sectors, to shift their corporate strategies. The key message advanced is that ESG frameworks and guidelines are not problematic; rather, the issue lies in the practice of ethics in decision-making within corporations. Addressing this ethical challenge, which is at the heart of ESG practices, across different professions and disciplines can rebuild trust among stakeholders in ESG investing. This form of interdisciplinary 'just transition ethics' can re-orient us back on the journey towards a just and sustainable world. • Reviews the importance and positive impact of ESG investments. • Negativity concerning ESG is noted but is misguided. • Key challenge is to diffuse ethics into ESG decision-making and frameworks. • Advances the need for 'just transition ethics' to align ESG with the just transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The Energy Justice Metric (EJM) quantifies energy justice. • The EJM balances competing aims of the energy trilemma. • Presents energy justice performance of US, UK, Germany, Denmark and Ireland. • The EJM addresses inequality in the energy sector and society. Abstract Energy justice is a fast emerging research and policy tool which captures the injustices across the energy life-cycle, i.e., from 'cradle-to-grave'. The Energy Justice Metric (EJM) quantifies energy justice through analyzing the energy justice performance of different countries utilising data from international institutions and national governments. This paper identifies why there is a need for a modeling tool such as the EJM which focuses on the full energy life-cycle and also has a distributive (inequality-correcting) oriented approach. The EJM demonstrates how a country can achieve an improved balance between the three competing aims of the energy trilemma, i.e. economics, politics and the environment. A key feature of the EJM is modeling energy justice using a ternary plot where the energy justice performance of a country can be transferred directly onto the energy trilemma. In this paper, five countries are analysed, the US, UK, Germany, Denmark and Ireland. The EJM presents a research and policy decision-making tool that can contribute to the growing literature that tackles the issue of inequality in society, and informs on society's decision on which energy source would be more just for a society to build. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘just transition’ is a concept receiving more attention in the literature to-date. This critical review discusses this and how there are overlaps with literature on energy, environmental and climate justice. Within the separate energy, environment and climate change scholar communities, there is too much distortion of what the ‘transition’ means and what ‘justice’ means, and they all should be understood within the just transition concept. To increase public understanding and public acceptance of a just transition, these research communities need to unite rather than continue alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear liability regimes are important as they ensure that potential victims will be compensated promptly and efficiently after a nuclear accident. The accident at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan in 2011 prompted a review of the global nuclear liability regime that remains on-going. Progress has been slow, but over the next few years the European Union is set to announce its new proposals. Meanwhile, in 2015, another global nuclear liability regime, the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, has entered into force. This paper aims to move the debate in the literature on nuclear liability and focuses on the four following major issues: (1) reviews third-party nuclear liability regimes currently in operation around the world; (2) analyses the international nuclear liability regime following the accident at Fukushima Daiichi; (3) comparatively assesses the liability regimes for nuclear energy and the non-nuclear energy sector; and (4) presents the future outlook for possible developments in the global nuclear liability regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy justice has become a leading interdisciplinary energy research topic over the last decade. There has been a realisation that the energy sector was missing an overall raison d'être , and that is to have justice permeating throughout the sector. This expert insight opens the door to a more practical element that is needed within this energy justice research. It focuses on how energy justice can be applied and implemented into the energy transition. All energy researchers can connect with the topic of justice, and as such, it should be the same when thinking of the energy sector. Normatively all researchers and practitioners should have a common goal and vision of how the energy sector should develop over the coming decades. This common goal and vision is not just brought on due to technological change that has created the energy transition but also the provision of a more fair, equal, equitable and inclusive transition (i.e., justice). National legal systems define what this justice will be and these institutions will create what in essence are the 'rules of the game' for the energy sector. This expert insight explores how these institutions act, enforce and create those rules of the game when they resolve disputes that arise. In solving these disputes between different parties, law creates the rules of the game as they interpret how law is applied in practice to different stakeholders. The legal system allocates different stakeholders rights and obligations, and ultimately decides on a hierarchy of these rights. This expert insight provides a brief overview of analysis from 100 legal cases from across the world and demonstrates which forms of justice and human rights are being implemented in the energy transition today. This represents a starting point, and the aim is that society needs to go far beyond this in order to ensure we meet in an accelerated way our future climate goals and ambitions for a sustainable world. • Implementation of energy justice will ensure the move from theory to practice. • Energy justice can be implemented through national courts. • National courts implement energy justice differently across the energy life-cycle. • National courts can implement energy justice via protecting human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This research examines nuclear energy policy across three states in the United States (US) – Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas – from 1990 to 2010. Therefore, the nuclear energy crisis at Fukushima in Japan March 2011 is beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, the fundamental conclusions of this research remain valid, as the impact of Fukushima is not yet known and in addition the US has experienced its own crisis in Three Mile Island, which has shaped its own nuclear industry to an extent already. Interviews are at the core of the research methodology employed, which is similar to other in-depth studies on nuclear new build. The aim of this paper is to identify and clarify those aspects of the legal, economic, and political requirements of the US that affect prospects for nuclear new build but which, so far, have not been well understood by experts. The research provides these new insights through a unique comparison of US states which have deregulated, regulated and ‘hybrid’ electricity markets. It is evident that law can play a central role in the nuclear energy sector, and the role of state-driven policy in the nuclear energy sector is also demonstrated. Further, the methodology identifies key assumptions within the nuclear sector in the US that are contested, and delivers lessons on how these contested issues may be resolved. The paper adds to the literature in public administration, legal development and nuclear energy policy, and in particular nuclear new build. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Describes the nexus of energy justice, supply and security. [•] Three tenets of energy justice: distributional, procedural and recognition justice. [•] Application of energy justice promotes growth of an supply chain and energy security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy sector provides fuel for much of everyday life, particularly economically and socially. Fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, a well-functioning and resilient energy sector is vital for maintaining the operation of critical infrastructures, including, most importantly, the health sector, and timely economic recovery. Notwithstanding its importance in everyday life and crises, the energy sector itself is currently in a complex and far-reaching transformation to combat climate change whilst supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy and society, mainly through the development of variable renewable energy sources (RES) such as wind and solar photovoltaics. This paper highlights the need for energy resilience as countries face the triple challenge of the COVID-19 health crisis, the consequent economic crisis, and the climate crisis. Focusing on Europe, it is advanced here that with the ability to balance fluctuating electricity generation and demand, flexibility allows the energy sector to utilise low-carbon RES reliably, ensuring a more resilient and sustainable energy future. This paper derives five urgent policy recommendations for Europe that address possible impacts of COVID-19 on the economic and societal prerequisites for flexibility in energy systems. • Considers the COVID-19 pandemic as an instigator for change. • Highlights the importance of flexibility for resilient energy systems. • Derives five policy recommendations concerning flexibility in energy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract With the dual challenges of reducing emissions from fossil fuels and providing access to clean and affordable energy, there is an imperative for a transition to a low carbon energy system. The transition must take into consideration questions of energy justice to ensure that policies, plans and programmes guarantee fair and equitable access to resources and technologies. An energy justice framework is outlined to account for distributional, procedural and recognition inequalities, as well as emerging themes such as cosmopolitan and non-Western understandings of justice, in decision-making relating to energy systems. The spectrum of research offers critical perspectives on the energy transition as well as tools for decision-making and policy processes. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods all contribute to our understanding of the problems and the success of responses. The studies presented in this special issue illustrate that the field of energy justice is a rapidly growing arena. There is constant innovation taking place in enabling the transition with new structures, processes and metrics being introduced to guide decision-making and a more holistic view of the community emerging where acceptance, mobilisation and empowerment are opening possibilities for a just transition to a low carbon energy system. The importance of introducing the interdisciplinary approach between social sciences and natural sciences as well engineering implementation supported by scientific data and experiments shall be emphasized in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of a structured discussion held in London in July 2014 involving a panel of experts drawn from three communities: specialists on aspects of risk and insurance; lawyers concerned with issues of nuclear law; and safety and environmental regulators. The discussions were held on the basis of participant anonymity. The process emphasised three considerations: conceptions of loss arising from a severe nuclear accident; the specifics of the Fukushima-Daiichi accident and what it means for policy and strategy going forward; and the future of liability regimes. We observe some stoicism from those closest to imple- mentation of policies and procedures associated with nuclear risks, but a lower level of certainty and confidence among those concerned with nuclear energy regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]