This chapter focuses on the specific role of social movements and NGOs in energy policy-making in the CEE region. This is structured through a series of case studies that highlight contemporary energy policy issues, specifically with relation to energy pricing, issues of equity and energy poverty, nuclear energy, shale gas and renewable energy. The chapter examines how these issues are framed, justified and legitimised, and the extent of broader societal participation and support. To provide context this chapter considers the developing role of civil society in the region, including legacies of socialism, the historical and contemporary role for societal input into general policy-making, changes in state-civil society relations and the development of NGOs and interest groups and their influence on climate and energy policy. It studies these issues in four sub-sections: energy poverty, the shale gas debate and the role of opposition on environmental grounds, nuclear energy and public participation, and local and community energy initiatives.

Renewable energy, including wind and solar, has won the support of state governments by offering cost-competitive electricity, revenue to rural landowners and job opportunities. Utility companies and private companies are shifting to renewable energy that is already cheaper than coal and natural gas generation in many locations, while retaining their systems’ reliability and resilience. The Trump administration’s attempts to counter market forces that favored cheaper wind and solar largely failed to impede the progress of renewable energy. The United States, as documented in several studies, can achieve 80 percent renewable energy in its electric grid by 2035, up from 20 percent in 2020, using existing technologies, but that transition calls for a variety of supportive policies. Strategies that share the benefits from renewable energy adoption with communities that host renewable energy projects and transmission lines can help accelerate that transition, while securing broad political support. These strategies include assistance to rural electricity cooperatives to shift out of coal, developers’ benefit-sharing agreements with local communities and strategies to enhance project ownership by local communities. Likewise, targeting renewable energy projects at communities hosting fossil fuel power plants and fossil fuel generation can help achieve a more equitable energy transition.

Sets the scene for the book’s regulatory analysis of energy market reform in Central Asia by describing the structure of Central Asia’s energy sector, its investment requirements, the social problems of meeting these requirements and the geopolitical connotations of Central Asian energy infrastructure investments. This background is essential to grasp the main objective that market reform is supposed to achieve (i.e., to ensure the secure and reliable supply of energy at affordable conditions to Central Asia’s population and industry) and to appreciate the context in which reform takes place (i.e., energy poverty and geopolitics). The analysis focuses on the national energy policies (strategies) of the Central Asian states and the reports by multilateral development banks in order to identify the main energy security challenges the region is facing and understand the political priorities which underpin the long-term development of the region’s energy infrastructure. The analysis highlights the contribution that external actors can make to overcome the financing conundrum of energy security in a context of energy poverty and discusses the geopolitical implications of this foreign involvement in Central Asian energy security (e.g., Chinese and Russian infrastructure investments along the New Silk Road).