The pace of governed energy transitions: Agency, international dynamics and the global Paris agreement accelerating decarbonisation processes?

By F. Kern, Karoline S. Rogge. 2016

232 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The recent debate on the temporal dynamics of energy transitions is crucial since one of the main reasons for embarking on transitions away from fossil fuels is tackling climate change. Long-drawn out transitions, taking decades or even centuries as we have seen historically, are unlikely to help achieve climate change mitigation targets. Therefore, the pace of energy transitions and whether they can be sped up is a key academic and policy question. Our argument is that while history is important in order to understand the dynamics of transitions, the pace of historic transitions is only partly a good guide to the future. We agree with Sovacool’s [1] argument that quicker transitions have happened in the past and may therefore also be possible in the future globally. The key reason for our optimism is that historic energy transitions have not been consciously governed, whereas today a wide variety of actors is engaged in active attempts to govern the transition towards low carbon energy systems. In addition, international innovation dynamics can work in favour of speeding up the global low-carbon transition. Finally, the 2015 Paris agreement demonstrates a global commitment to move towards a low carbon economy for the first time, thereby signalling the required political will to foster quick transitions and to overcome resistance, such as from incumbents with sunk infrastructure investments.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8d036035a665ebbe9023fa890f7004ac971fff5f

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Citations in the corpus

Policy mixes for incumbency: Exploring the destructive recreation of renewable energy, shale gas ‘fracking,’ and nuclear power in the United Kingdom (2017, unknown): “Furthermore, academic studies of ‘sustainability transitions’ (Markard et al. 2012) have increased attention to the means by which transitions might be speeded up in order address growing policy urgency (Kern & Rogge 2016; Sovacool 2016; Bromley 2016; Fouquet 2016).”
Energy transitions or additions? (2019, background): “In contrast, in recent years a large share of the world has clearly acknowledged that global climate change is a serious threat to societies and that a sharp reduction in the use of fossil fuels is necessary to minimize the severity of climate change [15].”
Transformative policy mixes in socio-technical scenarios: The case of the low-carbon transition of the German electricity system (2010–2050) (2020, background): “…market reform), reduced support for dominant regime technologies (e.g. reduction of subsidies for fossil fuels) and changes in social networks, for example by the replacement of key actors in stakeholder consultations or empowerment of new entrants in political debates (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016).”
The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions (2019, background): “Policy is widely considered as an integral constituent of transitions towards sustainability (Jacobsson and Lauber 2006) and is argued to help accelerate the pace of transitions (Kern and Rogge 2016).”
Historical energy transitions: Speed, prices and system transformation ☆ (2016, background): “Whether a full transition can be accelerated, as Sovacool (2016), Kern and Rogge (2016) and Bromley (2016) argue, depends on creating all the correct conditions for this to occur.”
Harnessing theories of the policy process for analysing the politics of sustainability transitions: A critical survey (2017, background): “, 2012), such as the recent Paris Agreement (Kern and Rogge, 2016).”
Contestation, contingency, and justice in the Nordic low-carbon energy transition (2017, background): “, 2016; Smil, 2016; Fouquet, 2016a, 2016b), politics and governance (Kern and Rogge, 2016), and even cost and sectoral dimensions (Sovacool and Geels, 2016).”