Renewable Energy Is Growing. But Who Owns the Transition?

Renewable Energy Is Growing. But Who Owns the Transition?

The transition to renewable energy is an unquestionable step toward a more sustainable future. Solar, wind, hydro, and other renewable technologies can reduce dependence on fossil fuels and help mitigate climate change. Yet the article by Christina Hoicka, Katarina Savic, and Alicia Campney, “Reconciliation through renewable energy? A survey of Indigenous communities, involvement, and peoples in Canada,” urges us to look beyond the technology itself.

Their question is more demanding:

Can an energy transition truly be considered just if the communities whose lands, lives, and futures are affected remain at the margins of ownership and decision-making?

The authors examine 194 renewable-energy projects associated with Indigenous communities across Canada. Rather than assuming that Indigenous involvement automatically means meaningful participation or reconciliation, they distinguish among project location, ownership, control, legal form, and benefit distribution. Their framework treats community energy as involving both meaningful engagement in the development process and local, collective benefits.

That distinction is important because

A renewable-energy project may be environmentally desirable and still reproduce unequal relationships.

·       A community may be associated with a project without controlling it.

·       Benefits may be provided without meaningful authority.

·       Consultation may occur without genuine influence over the decisions that follow.

·       And participation may exist without ownership.

Hoicka and colleagues make this point particularly clearly when they caution that the presence of an Indigenous community in a renewable-energy project is not sufficient to assume widespread community support. Whether a project is genuinely participatory depends on how decisions are made, how relationships are structured, how benefits are distributed, and what authority communities actually hold.

Their empirical findings make this concern difficult to ignore.

Of the 194 projects examined, only 41 were controlled by Indigenous communities, defined in the study as having at least 51% ownership. Most projects located on traditional territories were instead controlled through private ownership or partnerships. The study also identified only six projects associated with Inuit communities and none associated with Métis communities in its dataset.

These numbers raise an important question of how we define a successful energy transition.

If success is measured only by how many megawatts of renewable energy are installed or how much carbon is avoided, we may miss another dimension entirely:

Who has the power to shape the transition itself?

This is where the article’s discussion of reconciliation becomes important. The authors do not treat reconciliation as simply increasing Indigenous participation in existing energy projects. They highlight deeper questions of relationships, self-determination, ownership, jurisdiction, and institutional change. They identify equity ownership, stronger policy support, and informed consent as important elements in moving toward a more meaningful relationship.

This changes how I think about the phrase “community participation.”

Participation can sound inherently positive. But participation also can take many forms.

A community may be informed.

It may be consulted.

It may receive employment or financial benefits.

It may hold a minority share.

Or it may have meaningful authority over the project itself.

These are not equivalent relationships.

The distinction between participation and control is therefore one of the important lessons I take from this paper.

It also connects with a broader question that arises repeatedly in my reading of Indigenous scholarship: inclusion does not necessarily change the distribution of power.

A community can be present without being authoritative.

Its knowledge can be acknowledged without shaping decisions.

Its land can host a sustainable project without the community determining the terms under which that development occurs.

Seen this way, a just energy transition cannot be evaluated only by the source of the electricity being generated. The governance of the transition matters too.

Who owns the infrastructure?

Who decides where it is built?

Who determines acceptable impacts?

Who receives the long-term benefits?

Whose laws, priorities, and knowledge inform the project?

And who has the authority to say no?

These questions do not weaken the case for renewable energy. They make sustainability more demanding.

Perhaps the deeper lesson is that changing the technology without changing the relationships around that technology may leave important structures of inequality untouched.

A transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy can change how electricity is produced.

A just transition asks something further:

Can we also change who has the power to shape the energy future?

Reflection on Christina E. Hoicka, Katarina Savic, and Alicia Campney’s “Reconciliation through renewable energy? A survey of Indigenous communities, involvement, and peoples in Canada.”

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