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A CRUCIAL NEXUS:
LITERACY, ENDOWMENT AND PUBLIC CONSULTATION
IN ENERGY DECISION MAKING

SUMMARY

Private and public organizations around the world are grappling with several challenging energy issues. In Canada, a recent poll showed that, despite the country’s status as an energy exporter, citizens have mixed views on their energy literacy and influence over energy-related decision making. The energy endowment of Canada’s varied regions partially explains these findings, but the overall picture is more complex. This research speaks to broader themes in the global energy dialogue such as the contributions of literacy to energy development, the role of public consultation in energy decision making and the value of money in motivating energy-efficiency behaviour.

BACKGROUND

Private and public organizations around the world are grappling with a myriad of difficult issues pertaining to energy, most of which have direct impacts on members of the public. These organizations take on such issues at a time when members of the public are showing an increased interest in being involved in a wide array of energy issues. This involvement ranges in scale and scope. For example, members of the public are becoming increasingly active in energy-oriented social media networking (e.g. Twitter exchanges on energy topics and activity within Facebook groups1), they are participating in public information sessions about local power plants2, they are contributing to state-level discussions on energy security3, and they are organizing mass demonstrations at global-oriented conferences such as the recent COP15 summit4. In short, members of the public are both including themselves in consultations and inserting themselves into conflicts on the topic of energy.

In this context, the Canadian Centre for Energy Information (“Centre for Energy”) conducted a research poll in fall 2009 that probed attitudes towards and awareness of energy among Canadians. This poll was conducted, and results released, as a contribution to the broad public dialogue on energy matters in the lead-up to the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December of 2009. This was a unique poll in Canada, but was in the same vein as other research on energy literacy and public participation in other countries.5

A review of this research and its findings illuminates many underlying factors in terms of public involvement in energy decision making in Canada and abroad. This paper draws on that energy literacy poll and specifically looks at linkages between: public perceptions of energy awareness (which is taken as a proxy for energy literacy), citizens’ perceptions of their own influence over energy policies, likelihood of participating in energy efficiency programs (which is taken as a proxy for involvement in energy issues), and the respective energy endowments of Canada’s six major regions.

In so doing, this paper finds that: energy endowment is strongly linked to energy literacy, neither perceptions of awareness nor energy endowments are strong indicators of energy literacy, and money is a stronger indicator of participation in energy matters than either energy literacy or perceptions of awareness. In this light, the recent research by the Centre for Energy speaks to broader themes in the global energy dialogue such as the contributions of literacy to energy development, the role of public consultation in energy decision making and the value of money in motivating energy-efficiency behaviour.

  1. For example, the Facebook group “Americans for Alternative Energy” had 122,648 members as of February 6, 2010.
  2. Residents of Oakville, Ontario, Canada meet regularly to discuss plans for a 900-megawatt “peaker” plant in their community. See http://www.insidehalton.com/news/article/546519--transcanada-hosts-open-house-feb-10.
  3. The UK’s Office of Gas and Electricity Markets started a comprehensive public consultation on national energy security in the fall of 2009. See http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Pages/MoreInformation/WhlMkts/Discovery.
  4. A citizen-based website called “Climate Voice” promoted a “broad-based, family friendly” demonstration in Copenhagen on December 12, 2009. See http://live.tcktcktck.org/cop15-calendar/planet-first-people-first-mass-demonstration-in-copenhagen.
  5. Rogers, J.C., Simmons, E.A., Convery, I, Weatherall, A (2008). “Public perceptions of ppportunities for community-based renewable energy projects”, Energy Policy (36), pp.4217-4226; “Building a Sustainable Energy Future: U.S. Action for an Effective Energy Economy Transformation”, National Science Board, August 2009, http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2009/nsb0955; and “Americans’ Low “Energy IQ”: A Risk to our Energy Future – Why America Needs a Refresher Course on Energy”, The National Environmental Education and Training Foundation, August 2002, http://www.neefusa.org/pdf/roper/Roper2002.pdf.
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