Raphaël Jean – Framing and addressing summer energy poverty in local public policy

This doctoral research is set against a backdrop of climate change characterised by an increase in heatwaves and the emergence of new forms of social and territorial vulnerability. Whilst energy poverty has long been considered primarily in the context of winter, focusing on domestic heating and the difficulty in paying bills, summer energy poverty (SEP) has only very recently emerged as a subject of scientific debate and public policy. It refers to the inability of certain households to protect themselves from excessive heat, due to a lack of suitable housing, financial resources or access to cooling facilities. This situation is exacerbated in urban areas by heat islands, and can have direct effects on health, quality of life and energy expenditure. Whilst the European Commission has already broadened its definitions of energy poverty to include the summer issue, in France the national framework remains largely focused on the cold. At local level, a variety of stakeholders – local authorities, social housing providers, charities and energy suppliers – are trialling initiatives, often driven by the aim of improving summer comfort, such as greening urban spaces or renovating buildings. However, these initiatives do not yet fit within an established definition of the PEE, and how they relate to existing policies to tackle energy poverty remains unclear. The proliferation of approaches reveals both a dynamic spirit of innovation and a fragmentation that raises issues regarding coordination between stakeholders and the effectiveness of the measures. The aim of this thesis is to understand the conditions under which summer energy poverty has emerged as a public issue and the processes by which it is framed in different contexts. The study is structured around three main strands: (1) To identify and analyse national frameworks for summer energy poverty, comparing them with European frameworks and those of other countries, in order to understand how this issue is constructed and which aspects are emphasised or overlooked. (2) To study how local authorities adopt and translate these frameworks, by examining the definitions, instruments and networks of stakeholders involved. This analysis will focus on two contrasting local contexts, enabling an examination of how socio-spatial and institutional contexts influence the structuring of responses. (3) To analyse the modes of coordination between the actors involved – whether through cooperation, overlap or competition – and the effects this has on the households concerned. To this end, the research will draw on contributions from political science and the sociology of public action. The concepts of framing will enable us to explore the processes through which a phenomenon becomes a recognised collective problem. The sociology of translation will help us understand how definitions circulate and are transformed through interaction with local instruments, mechanisms and actors. Finally, approaches to energy vulnerability, energy justice and capabilities will provide a framework for analysing the inequalities generated by the PEE, by integrating material constraints (housing, climate, resources), social constraints (status, networks, access to support schemes) and symbolic constraints (representations of warmth and comfort). This project therefore aims to document and compare the ways in which the PEE has emerged, been adopted and implemented, in a field that has as yet been little explored by research. It will help to shed light on our understanding of climate-related environmental inequalities, whilst examining contemporary changes in public policy in response to the challenges of the energy transition and adaptation to heatwaves.