Including Citizens to Ecological Transition
Climate change has become a political issue and an object of public policy at local, national as well as global levels. In this context, the paper analyses the ecological transition via different modes of energy transition in Alsace (France) and, more precisely, the possibilities of the re-appropriation of energy issues by a large number of actors and ordinary people. Our contribution focuses on three cases: a community wind energy project in a rural area, the installation of a heating system in a Strasbourg council estate, and of solar energy systems by private owners in Plobsheim, in the urban periphery of Strasbourg. Particular attention is paid to the participatory aspects of the projects: can inhabitants be brought into the process (or not), and is it possible to develop modes of governance that contribute to a social appropriation of energy and of ecological transformation?