Policy (in)coherence and inequality in Germany’s Energiewende: a capabilities perspective

Germany’s energy transition – dubbed the Energiewende – is one of the world’s most ambitious efforts to phase out fossil fuels, particularly coal, and transition towards clean energy sources. At the same time, an Energiewende that is oblivious to the trade-offs in other areas of sustainable development, such as in the domains of land, water, food and biodiversity, may quickly turn into an unjust energy transition. This may lead to difficulties for joint implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda, particularly as the latter is premised on ‘leaving no one behind’. Furthermore, the implications of such trade-offs on different social groups such as farmers, youth and biodiversity conservationists has not fully been explored in an Energiewende discourse that has tended to focus on unemployment outcomes for coalminers.
In this paper, I consider the main incoherencies that are panning out in Germany, and in particular in the North-Rhine Westphalia region, between energy transition policies on the one hand, and Water-Energy-Land-Food nexus, as well as biodiversity policies on the other. Not only may such incoherencies have an effect on the attainment of SDGs 2 (Zero Hunger), 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), 15 (Life on Land) and 13 (Climate Action), but they may also be infringing on individuals’ opportunity freedoms, i.e. their opportunity to do and be what they have reason to value. Such opportunity freedoms are capabilities, as per basic tenets of Amartya Sen’s Capabilities Approach.
I further explore whether such incoherences might be the result of inequalities in the decision-making process, or of inequalities in certain groups’ capability to participate in political activities (as per Martha Nussbaum’s capability number 10 on control over one’s environment). For example, certain groups, like climate youth activists, may have less clout to pursue their interests and ideas as they are generally marginalised from the decision-making process, and hence less able to voice policy trade-offs that can affect them. Hence, this paper explores whether inequalities in agency, voice and capacity to aspire– all of which can infringe on a person’s opportunity to do and be what they have reason to value - play a role in generating policy incoherence in the Energiewende. Through thirty interviews with policy-makers and other stakeholders, as well as several focus group discussions with affected groups, I explore different perceptions of why policy incoherence arises in the Energiewende and the role of inequality therein.