Chapter 14: Social divisions in energy justice in the transport sector: personal car ownership and use

Karen Lucas, Noel Cass, and Muhammed Adeel

Abstract

The chapter addresses issues of fairness and justice of energy resource allocations in the personal travel domain with a specific focus on individual car use. We first discuss different theoretical approaches to moving beyond identifying inequalities and differences to a focus on fairness, justice and inequity. We then identify how personal travel, and in particular car use, is distributed across the different social groups in the UK. We use the National Travel Survey (NTS) to demonstrate which people travel to which destinations, how often and for what activity, to calculate how transport-related energy consumption in car use is socially distributed, and to identify who the high-end users are. We then discuss how these disparities in the distribution of transport-related energy might be understood as inequitable or unfair. Finally, we explore some of the potential consequences of trying to address energy consumption via car use through different types of interventions.

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