Katherine's presentation was entitled: "Opportunities and obstacles for vulnerable consumers in implementing the
Portuguese Carbon Neutrality Strategy – a participatory approach"

A brief abstract of the work presented at the conference follows, this work was developed by Katherine, João Pedro Gouveia and their colleague Rita Lopes. This work is part of the larger body of work of Katherine's PhD and is currently being developed further.
Abstract:

The Portuguese carbon neutrality strategy offers both opportunities and obstacles for vulnerable consumers. Portuguese
policy advocates the advantages of carbon neutrality for an improved economy and social equity gains. Yet, there is a
limited accounting for the impacts of the transition on established business interests. Additionally, information on the
effects of these strategies on vulnerable consumers is lacking. We employ a stakeholder analysis supported by qualitative
interviews to evaluate opportunities and obstacles for vulnerable consumers in the Portuguese energy transition. Our
findings unveil strong domination of the stakeholder group by large scale businesses and a series of unknowns for
vulnerable consumers, in part due to to the comparatively reduced presence of public interest groups in the stakeholder
profile. Our qualitative interviews will explore Portuguese neutrality policies, power dynamics and “winners and losers”
in the energy transition with a broad group of participants. We aim to contribute to the policy discourse on these issues
and ultimately provide insights into realising an energy transition that equally benefits all members of society.