Energy justice concept, regarding fair, sustainable and secure energy for all, addresses various issues related to energy provision and consumption, energy policy, energy security, climate change and environmental problems. It has spatial, socio-economic and political dimensions regarding concentrations and prevalence of injustice in particular locations, communities, and administrative framework. The main tenets of energy justice are conceptualized as distributional, recognition and procedural [1–6]; indicating distribution of physical and associated responsibilities of injustice, affected and ignored groups, and the fairness of the process and participation, respectively. The aspects of injustice are co-existent and mutually reinforcing [7]. Calver and Simcock[8] criticize the three-tenets approach indicating its limitation of prescribing normative principles regarding what constitutes (in)justice regarding each dimension. Sovacool et al.[9] suggest an alternative approach which discusses dissemination of benefits and costs of energy services, as well as representative and impartial contribution to decision making.
Energy justice literature revolve around energy poverty and energy vulnerability in general. Energy poverty can be understood as the inability of a household to secure a socially and materially necessitated level of energy services in the home [10] and generally conceived of and measured at the household level [6], whereas vulnerability puts the emphasis on the unbearable dimension of an energy supply [11], and the coping capacity of adverse events [12], such as supply disruptions. Energy justice presents a useful decision-making tool that can assist energy planners and consumers in making more informed energy choices [13], and deals with where the injustices observed, who are the affected ones, and how to remedy and reduce the injustice [14].
Bouzarovski and Simcock [15] put the emphasis on geographic and locational attributes of energy justice and inequality, suggesting an inescapably spatial dimension at different scales. Geographical embeddedness results in energy injustice being more common and inherent in particular areas which have either no access to sustainable and modern energy services or low levels of affordability. Spatial differences in energy poverty and vulnerability are considered resulting from structural geographical inequities that are engrained in various stages of energy systems, and, moreover, in the fundamental infrastructural, economic, and cultural make-up of societies [15].
UN defines ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all as one of the sustainable development goals, while setting the expansion and upgrading technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all as one of the targets of that goal [16]. Energy per se is not a need, but it is absolutely essential to deliver adequate living conditions, food, water, health care, education, shelter and employment [17]. The provision of modern energy services is recognized as a critical foundation for sustainable development, and is central to the everyday lives of people [18]. If a community fails to access to the variety of energy alternatives, not only energy injustice issues arise but also sustainable development process is interrupted. The provision of energy service to a community depends on the type of network providers and their priorities. Publicly provided services, for instance, prioritize public interest over the economic benefits, whereas profit maximization is the primary goal of private firms. Graham and Marvin [19]discuss that the substitution or provision of an alternative to the publicly provided network by a private firm or a public-private partnership can create local bypass, which results in bypassing of the non-valued users or places in cities. Such a preference would create a social and/or spatial injustice in energy provision. Some communities have access to variety of fuel choices for their energy needs, whereas some others are deprived of modern, efficient and clean alternatives.
Household energy consumption accounts for almost one third of global primary energy demand and significantly affects the environment [20]. Natural gas is a modern, efficient and relatively clean fuel alternative in urban energy systems. Although it is an imported fossil fuel in Turkey, it has variety of advantages over other widely used fuels, particularly coal. Natural gas has many qualities that make it an efficient, relatively clean burning, and economical energy source [21]. Due to its positive externalities, natural gas consumption has almost doubled in Turkey from 2000 to 2019 [22]. The environmental concerns regarding the greenhouse gas emissions of natural gas arise at the production stage. Although it produces nearly half as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy compared with coal, methane leaks should be prevented during the production phase to keep its benefits over coal [23]. At the distribution stage, however, it is much cleaner than the other fossil fuels, and contributes to improvement in air quality in high density urban areas. A reduction in the energy-related emissions of air pollutants would not only mitigate climate change but would also improve local air quality and public health [24]. Genc et al[25] states that use of natural gas in residential heating resulted in a significant improvement of air quality in most of the Turkish cities, although SO2 and PM levels are still concern in large metropolitan areas where coal consumption is an important mode of residential heating in low-income districts. Tayanç[26] mentions switching from low-quality lignite coal to natural gas usage for heating in residential and commercial buildings had an impact on the decrease of air pollution levels in İstanbul. İlten and Selici[27] suggest that the use of natural gas should be encouraged in residential heating due to having lowest pollutant emissions, in their study regarding Balıkesir, Turkey. Ozdilek[28] discusses the topic with a different perspective stating that if natural gas use in air polluted urban centers could be realized in the near future, approximately 212 to 350 million US dollars per annum could be saved just by reducing health related problems caused by outdoor air pollution.
While energy justice as a research agenda has primarily concerned justice issues of large-scale energy development, this increasing attention to small-scale, decentralized energy solutions, across the world, warrants an exploration of the concept in ‘unconventional’ energy contexts [29]. In that sense, although there are studies regarding the overall impact of the use of natural gas, the factors underpinning the amount of natural gas investments, and their spatial correspondences leading to energy injustice have been overlooked in the literature. Natural gas is a relatively new urban energy alternative in İzmir, of which investments started in 2005 in the central districts. The gas network has been expanded to all central districts by 2013, yet not all neighborhoods receive the service, which prevent customers from having access to fuel alternatives which are less polluting and more efficient. When sustainability is considered broadly as a matter of distributional equity as mentioned in Jabareen [30], it is important to reveal which factors play role in this issue.
Revealing the factors contributing to energy injustice and spatially identifying them are important for decision makers in emerging economies such as Turkey, where energy is imported and quite expensive, and there are social and economic outcomes of the problem in terms of the demand side. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the socio-economic and spatial characteristics of energy injustice in terms of natural gas provision in the neighborhoods of the City of İzmir Metropolitan Area, and discuss the ways to overcome this distributional injustice. GWR analyses provide coefficient specific maps that demonstrate the spatial distribution of the prominence of the impact of each variable, thus, enable us to suggest policies regarding the location-specific priorities.