None of the recent and ongoing scares and worries about energy security, climate change, or nuclear power will break the trend for ongoing energy demands; but these anxieties raise difficult questions about how we think about the relationship between energy and accountability.

In this issue, leading practitioners from diverse backgrounds respond to the central question: can we move to more efficient, equitable and cleaner energy systems by changing how we practise accountability in energy use? In this issue of AF, leading practitioners and thinkers from groups including the Frances Seymour and Nancy Kete of the World Resources Institute, Camilla Toulmin of the International Institute of Environment and Development and Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute, address some of the fundamental problems we face as we try to encourage responsible and accountable energy use.