Fair fracking? Ethics and environmental justice in United Kingdom shale gas policy and planning

摘要

The exploitation of shale gas resources is a significant issue of environmental justice. Unevenuddistributions of risks and social impacts to local site communities must be balanced againstudthe economic benefits to gas users and developers; and unequal decision-making powers mustudbe negotiated between local and central government, communities and fracking siteuddevelopers. These distributive and procedural elements are addressed in relation to UKudpolicy, planning, regulatory and industry development. I adopt an explicitly normativeudframework of policy evaluation; addressing a research gap on the ethics of shale gas byudoperationalising Shrader-Frechette’s Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality (PPFPE). Iudconclude that UK fracking policy reveals inherent contradictions of environmental justice inudrelation to the Conservative Government’s localist and planning reform agendas. Earlyudfracking policy protected communities from harm in the wake of seismic risk events, butudthese were quickly replaced with pro-industry economic stimulation and planning legislationudthat curtailed community empowerment in fracking decision-making, increasedudenvironmental risks to communities, transferred powers from local to central government,udand created the conditions of distributive injustices in the management of community benefitudprovisions. I argue that only by ‘re-localising’ the scale of fracking governance can politicaludequality be ensured and the distributive and procedural environmental injustices beudameliorated.