/ Upholding the right to energy requires comprehensive and coherent policy, across many dimensions.

A policy framework for the right to energy ● Podcast

While carrying out field work related to energy access in rural China and Tibet, Dr. Chian-Woei Shyu recognised how lack of effective policy played key role in trapping people in energy poverty — in turn limiting their ability to fully participate in society, advance economically and achieve a higher level of health and well-being.

Returning to his role as researcher at the National Chung-Cheng University in Taiwan, Dr. Shyu took up the challenge of adopting a policy maker’s perspective to ask what it would take to implement legislation that truly upheld access to energy as a basic human right. In a literature review, he quickly realised few others had broached this topic so directly.

“In the past 20 years, most papers are talking about four main terms: access to energy, energy poverty, energy democracy and energy justice,” says Dr. Shyu. “In more than 100 papers, we found very mixed, complicated and different approaches.”

In this second of our podcast series on the right to energy, Dr. Shyu walks us through what he defines as five ‘fundamental’ and three ‘supplemental’ rights that should be embedded in this broad concept.

This podcast is the second in a series of four arising from a conference entitled ‘Co-creating the Right to Energy in Theory and Practice’, organised by the ENGAGER network, at which more than 50 participants shared ideas about meaning and purposes, as well as rights, duties and responsibilities linked to this end goal.

ENGAGER stands for European Energy Poverty: Agenda Co-Creation and Knowledge Innovation, reflecting the network’s aim to bring about transformational change in the investigation and amelioration of household-level energy poverty in Europe. It is supported by COST – European Cooperation in Science & Technology – a funding agency for research and innovation networks that aims to enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with peers.

This podcast series was financed by ENGAGER, through its COST funding.

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The ENERGY ACTION Project

EnAct is a project of ACT 4, a non-profit association registered in France (No. de Siret: 805 036 936 00013) that supports cultural initiatives that raise awareness of and engagement in social issues.

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