[10.03.21] Research meets policy: Confronting Energy Poverty in Europe: A Research and Policy Agenda

This paper analyses existing policy efforts to address energy poverty at the governance scale of the European Union its Member States.

The recent expansion of energy poverty policies at the EU level, fuelled by the regulatory provisions of the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package, as well as the establishment of an EU Energy Poverty Observatory is presented. It surveys the extensive scientific body of work that has recently been published on the topic, as well as the multiple strategies and measures to address energy poverty that have been formulated across the EU. This includes the principal mitigation approaches adopted by key European and national institutions.

The authors develop a framework to judge the distributional and procedural justice provisions within the recently adopted National Energy and Climate Plans, as an indicator of the power, ability and resolve of relevant institutions to combat the causes and consequences of energy injustice. They also provide a research and policy agenda for future action, highlighting a series of scientific and decision-making challenges in the European and global context.