Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL) is happy to invite to an Erasmus public lecture “Public Participation in Energy Transition” by Dr Lorenzo Squintani, Senior Lecturer in European and Economic Law at the University of Groningen on 11 April 2019, at 15:00 at RGSL premises on Strēlnieku 4 k-2.
Policy action to mitigate climate change is indispensable, but it faces public resistance and populist clashes. The “Yellow vests” movement, anti-wind protests, and populist claims that climate action threatens our lifestyles and liberal values are prominent contemporary examples. Social sciences plea for more public participation in decision-making to achieve more democratic, legitimate, substantively better, and socially acceptable decisions. “In this lecture I will argue, however, that the effectiveness of public participation depends on the decision-making chain and can be limited by laws and regulations, such as the United Nations-based Aarhus Convention on environmental governance,” says Dr Squintani.
Three topics about the regulatory framework will be discussed in particular during this lecture: a) the possible mismatch between what law prescribes and what people want as regards public participation in the context of energy transition; b) the importance of equal opportunities in public participation procedures and c) the importance of a human-values based approach for the good functioning of public participation procedures.
Lorenzo Squintani is Senior Lecturer in European and Economic Law at the University of Groningen. He is founder and member of the managing board of the U4 Environmental Law Network and a member of the managing boards of the European Environmental Law Forum, and of the Journal for European Environmental and Planning Law. His research and teaching interests include EU substantive law and EU environmental and climate law and he has authored several publications in the area of European environmental and climate law. Dr Squintani regularly advises Dutch, European Union and international institutions on environmental law issues.