Just Transition - Urban Energy Transition and Social Inequality

Climate change is one of the most important and urgent issues of our time. Among the responses to climate challenges, sustainability transitions are considered very promising and labels such as energy or heat transition are used by European policies and cities to achieve climate-friendly changes in the residential sector. Often, the transition in European cities is reduced to a simple decarbonisation, which is often limited to the techno-economic management of carbon flows, while social aspects such as different energy behaviours and social inequalities are mostly not considered.

However, the impact of the crisis in recent years has shown that more attention also needs to be paid to social inequalities in industrialised countries and their impact on sustainable development. This perspective is also in line with the demands for social justice in the context of the sustainability concept. If social inequality is defined with Burzan (2010, p. 525) as a "systematic unequal distribution of life chances or opportunities to participate in society and the availability of socially relevant resources", then the following questions arise, among others, for the possibility of a sustainable urban energy transition: How are social inequalities and urban energy transitions related? Which social groups have the relevant resources to participate in the energy transition and which do not? What conditions are necessary for a just urban energy transition?

Based on a socially differentiated theory of practice approach, which focuses on social and material inequalities in energy use practices, this contribution aims to address these questions. The results of a quantitative study on residential heating in Vienna with 977 participants are used to illustrate the socially unequal conditions of participation in the energy transition for different social groups and to provide recommendations for a more just urban energy transition.