Overview

Across Asia-Pacific, the rapid rollout of large-scale renewable and transition mineral projects is being fast-tracked in the name of energy transition, creating more risks than benefits for communities as these are often implemented by sidelining communities' rights to free, prior and informed consent, their participation and adequate human rights, and environmental due diligence. Through this session, we would like to examine ways forward towards rights based and community led approaches to just transition in Asia. We will present data and evidence-based impacts from community-led campaigns against large-scale renewable energy and transition mineral projects in South Asia and South East Asia to understand the risks faced by communities and defenders in advocating for their land and resource rights. We will also share good practices on decentralised alternatives by sharing examples of community led renewable energy initiatives, and discuss how these can be planned in a way that is inclusive, participatory and shaped with and by communities.

Why it matters

Energy transition requires a fundamental shift in how power, resources, and decisions are distributed across various actors. While energy transition and renewable energy initiatives increasingly impact Indigenous and other communities, the communities are also undertaking their own initiatives for their own energy solutions. However, critical aspects such as financing, technology selection, governance, and sustainability planning are often determined by external actors.  If we are to advance a transition which upholds social, economic, gender and resource justice, then renewable energy initiatives will need to incorporate robust mechanisms to ensure inclusive community leadership and decision-making, local ownership, respect for human rights, ecologies and planetary boundaries, transparency and accountability from the outset.   

Key questions

• How are communities responding when faced with the imposition of large-scale infrastructure and extractive projects promoted in the name of the energy transition, while advancing locally grounded renewable energy solutions centred on collective rights and justice?

• How can community-based renewable energy initiatives move beyond participation narratives and ensure that communities have meaningful power, ownership, and decision-making roles in a just energy transition?

Who should attend?

• Civil society organisations and community-based organisations working on climate justice, energy access, and social inclusion

• Renewable energy practitioners, project developers, and private sector actors

• Government representatives and policymakers involved in energy transition

• Human rights and business practitioners

• Investors and development banks investing in energy projects

• Donors, development partners, and researchers working on just energy transition, GEDSI, and sustainable development

  
  

What participants will gain

• Data and evidence that highlight the on-ground impacts and risks of large-scale renewable energy projects planned without community consent, participation and due diligence.

• How to assess whether a renewable energy initiative is genuinely community-led or only community-targeted and learn what rights-based, community-led  just transition looks like in practice.

• Practical approaches to strengthen meaningful participation, ownership, and decision-making power of communities in energy projects with lessons from Indonesia and Nepal on integrating gender equality, social inclusion, and human rights principles into community renewable energy initiatives.

• Key questions for designing accountable and inclusive energy transition programmes that ensure communities become agents of change.