A Year of Energy Justice: Reflecting on 2025 and the Road Ahead

by Lauren Ballesteros-Watanabe, Chapter Organizer | Reading time: 4.5 minutes

As 2025 comes to a close, we find ourselves reflecting on a year defined by community power, policy breakthroughs, and the continued struggle to protect our islands from harmful energy decisions. Hawaiʻi stands at a crossroads. Even as communities push for stronger protections and more equitable energy systems, our government is edging toward locking us into yet another generation of fossil fuel dependence. That tension has made the work of energy justice not only more urgent—but more inspiring—than ever.

This year, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi advocated for what should be a basic guarantee in Hawaiʻi: the right to keep the lights on, regardless of income or circumstance. Utility disconnections have long impacted working families, kūpuna on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, and communities who already face disproportionate energy burdens. Earlier this year, reports showed that disconnections have exponentially worsened since the pandemic. In response our collective action began to shift the landscape.

A Public Outcry That Couldn’t Be Ignored

In the spring, we launched a campaign urging the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to strengthen disconnection protections within its ongoing Energy Equity and Justice docket. The first step was publishing a Disconnection Reform Memo, made by RMI, which highlights the urgency of tackling energy affordability challenges and ensuring basic energy access for all. The report found that financial struggles, compounded by rising costs of living and climate-driven extreme weather, have left many kūpuna, families, and medically vulnerable individuals at greater risk. We gave presentations on the issue with community groups like Maui’s “Upcountry Resilience Energy Project” and the Energy Equity Hui to share the pressing nature of advocacy in disconnections, among others.

Although the equity docket was focused on investigation, not policymaking, community members stepped forward in powerful ways to demand reform. People from across the islands shared personal stories and demanded an end to punitive, inequitable disconnection practices. 

The PUC noticed. In fact, the Commission recognized that the volume of public comments was unprecedented for an issue of this kind. Community members made themselves impossible to ignore—and their voices reshaped the regulatory landscape on disconnections.

As a direct result, the PUC opened a dedicated docket specifically to investigate and adopt comprehensive utility disconnection reforms. This is a tangible win for energy justice and an important acknowledgment that electricity is not a luxury—it is an essential service tied to health, safety, education, and overall quality of life. While much work remains, this new docket is a critical step toward ensuring that all residents, especially those most vulnerable, have stable and equitable access to energy.

At its core, this achievement reflects what is possible when people speak up, show up, and demand better from the systems that are supposed to serve them. It is a win shared by every person who sent an email, submitted a comment, or shared our action alerts.

Meanwhile, Fossil Fuel Commitments Move Forward

But even as we moved closer to energy equity, new challenges emerged. Earlier this year, Governor Green signed an agreement with JERA, a major Japan-based supplier of LNG. What began as the Governor casually floating LNG as a potential “bridge fuel” quickly evolved into a formal study by the State Energy Office. That study—comparing various alternative fuels—ultimately framed LNG as the most “cost-effective” option, even while acknowledging that it performs poorly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

And now, despite widespread global concern and scientific evidence on the devastating impacts of LNG, Hawaiʻi has signed an agreement pointing us toward LNG—a fuel that is up to 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its short-term climate impact, and linked to costly, leak-prone, and high-maintenance infrastructure.

This year, our director, Wayne Tanaka, has given multiple presentations to local groups and we hosted a public webinar to unpack the serious problems within the State Energy Office’s analysis. Many of the study’s assumptions are, at best, overly optimistic—and at worst, misleading enough to drive Hawaiʻi toward another fossil-fuel trap that threatens community health , energy affordability, and climate goals. 

Environmental Injustice Continues on the West Side

The push for LNG also threatens to deepen an already-familiar pattern: concentrating the island’s dirtiest and most dangerous energy infrastructure in West Oʻahu. For decades, residents have lived next door to power plants, industrial facilities, and contaminated military contamination—bearing disproportionate environmental and health burdens.

The possibility of placing new LNG infrastructure in the same region follows that same harmful logic: extractive, inequitable, and entirely avoidable.

We cannot advance energy justice without acknowledging place, history, and the communities that have too often been sacrificed for someone else’s energy decisions.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As we close out 2025, we celebrate the victories we achieved together—especially the movement toward stronger utility disconnection protections that will shield thousands of households across the islands.

But we also step into 2026 with renewed determination. The fight against a new wave of fossil fuel dependence is far from over. Hawaiʻi deserves an energy future rooted in aloha ʻāina, community self-determination, and climate resilience—not in outdated, dangerous fuels that threaten our air, our waters, and our children’s futures.

In the year ahead, we will continue to push for transparency, accountability, and a transition to truly clean, community-rooted energy systems. We will continue to challenge decisions that put Hawaiʻi at risk. And we will continue to uplift the voices of those most affected by our energy choices.

Because energy justice is not just about power lines or fuel sources—it is about people, justice, and the world we leave for generations to come.