Abstract

The global discourse on climate change, emphasises the need for a rapid clean energy transition. National net-zero commitments are highly contingent on fossil fuel phaseout. India showed active leadership in the Glasgow Summit, 2021 by setting its Renewable Energy targets to 500 GW by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2070. However, these entail major energy justice concerns as 80 % of India’s electricity consumption is driven through fossil fuel sources. The phase-out of thermal power would hence pose risks to revenues, infrastructure, and employment. With costs and benefits of transition being unequally distributed, the social and economic burden is most likely to be shifted to rural populations, women, children, elderly, and vulnerable communities with weak agency to negotiate transition patterns. Thus, the question of ‘who benefits and how’ is central to India’s energy transition story. Majority of the literature on energy justice emerges from the West and addresses questions of opportunities, challenges, economic implications, and policy, at the cost of exploring how justice concerns are embedded in transition dynamics. This study adopts a systematic approach to analyse energy transitions literature in the Indian context to identify how justice discourse interjects within this scholarship in terms of problematization and conceptualisation. In addition to exploring focus areas, methodological, geographical, and temporal trends, the study synthesises the literature to draw out major themes of enquiry. These themes are then analysed using the triumvirate lens of energy justice (distributive, recognition and procedural).