Low-carbon leadership: Harnessing policy studies to analyse local mayors and renewable energy transitions in three Japanese cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 101708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuo Takao
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Energy Transitions

Neoliberal energy transitions: The renewable energy boom in the Chilean mining economy

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 951-975 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Furnaro
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
Low Carbon Energy

Political-economic approaches are increasingly used in the study of low-carbon energy transitions. This article brings attention to two dimensions that have been less explored by this scholarship. First, research on the political economy of energy transitions, which has centered on the fossil fuel industry and to a lesser degree on the residential sector, has not sufficiently considered the role that industrial energy users play in resisting and in shaping energy transitions. Second, empirical analyses have focused on the limitations to a transition toward low-carbon energy systems that neoliberal forms of energy governance generate, thereby leaving unexplored cases in which neoliberal restructurings enacted by the state accelerate energy transitions. By analyzing the relationship between the recent boom in renewables energy investments in Chile and the energy consumption practices of the copper mining industry, I show the importance that changes in energy systems can have in the reproduction of specific regimes of accumulation. Drawing on insights from the political economy of energy and the scholarship on the role of socio-natural reconfigurations in addressing capitalist crisis tendencies, I argue that the recent changes in the energy sector in Chile can be understood as a “socioecological fix” to alleviate the threatened accumulation process of its mining economy. I describe the new energy policy implemented in Chile to show how the neoliberal model for promoting renewable energies and the increased financialization of the renewable energy sector, while successful in quickly stimulating a utility-scale renewable energy sector, has also created socioecological impacts and uncertainties in energy forecasts.

Advancing Innovations in Renewable Energy Technologies as Alternatives to Fossil Fuel Use in the Middle East

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damilola S Olawuyi
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Electricity Grid ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Gulf Countries ◽  
Environmentally Responsible ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
Legal Barriers

Despite increasing political emphasis across the Middle East on the need to transition to lower carbon, efficient, and environmentally responsible energy systems and economies, legal innovations required to drive such transitions have not been given detailed analysis and consideration. This chapter develops a profile of law and governance innovations required to integrate and balance electricity generated from renewable energy sources (RES-E) with extant electricity grid structures in the Middle East, especially Gulf countries. It discusses the absence of renewable energy laws, the lack of legal frameworks on public–private partnerships, lack of robust pricing and financing, and lack of dedicated RES-E institutional framework. These are the main legal barriers that must be addressed if current national visions of a low-carbon transition across the Middle East are to move from mere political aspirations to realization.

Low Carbon Energy Transitions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Araújo
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Power ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Good News ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Technological Complexity ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
Government Workers ◽  
Low Carbon Energy

The world is at a pivotal crossroad in energy choices. There is a strong sense that our use of energy must be more sustainable. Moreover, many also broadly agree that a way must be found to rely increasingly on lower carbon energy sources. However, no single or clear solution exists on the means to carry out such a shift at either a national or international level. Traditional energy planning (when done) has revolved around limited cost projections that often fail to take longer term evidence and interactions of a wider set of factors into account. The good news is that evidence does exist on such change in case studies of different nations shifting toward low-carbon energy approaches. In fact, such shifts can occur quite quickly at times, alongside industrial and societal advance, innovation, and policy learning. These types of insights will be important for informing energy debates and decision-making going forward. Low Carbon Energy Transitions: Turning Points in National Policy and Innovation takes an in-depth look at four energy transitions that have occurred since the global oil crisis of 1973: Brazilian biofuels, Danish wind power, French nuclear power, and Icelandic geothermal energy. With these cases, Dr. Araújo argues that significant nationwide shifts to low-carbon energy can occur in under fifteen years, and that technological complexity is not necessarily a major impediment to such shifts. Dr. Araújo draws on more than five years of research, and interviews with over 120 different scientists, government workers, academics, and members of civil society in completing this study. Low Carbon Energy Transitions is written for for professionals in energy, the environment and policy as well as for students and citizens who are interested in critical decisions about energy sustainability. Technology briefings are provided for each of the major technologies in this book, so that scientific and non-scientific readers can engage in more even discussions about the choices that are involved.

scholarly journals Legitimating power: Solar energy rollout, sustainability metrics and transition politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110249
Author(s):  
Siddharth Sareen
Keyword(s):  
Solar Energy ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Solar Irradiation ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Sustainability Metrics ◽  
Energy Transitions

Increasing recognition of the irrefutable urgency to address the global climate challenge is driving mitigation efforts to decarbonise. Countries are setting targets, technological innovation is making renewable energy sources competitive and fossil fuel actors are leveraging their incumbent privilege and political reach to modulate energy transitions. As techno-economic competitiveness is rapidly reconfigured in favour of sources such as solar energy, governance puzzles dominate the research frontier. Who makes key decisions about decarbonisation based on what metrics, and how are consequent benefits and burdens allocated? This article takes its point of departure in ambitious sustainability metrics for solar rollout that Portugal embraced in the late 2010s. This southwestern European country leads on hydro and wind power, and recently emerged from austerity politics after the 2008–2015 recession. Despite Europe’s best solar irradiation, its big solar push only kicked off in late 2018. In explaining how this arose and unfolded until mid-2020 and why, the article investigates what key issues ambitious rapid decarbonisation plans must address to enhance social equity. It combines attention to accountability and legitimacy to offer an analytical framework geared at generating actionable knowledge to advance an accountable energy transition. Drawing on empirical study of the contingencies that determine the implementation of sustainability metrics, the article traces how discrete acts legitimate specific trajectories of territorialisation by solar photovoltaics through discursive, bureaucratic, technocratic and financial practices. Combining empirics and perspectives from political ecology and energy geographies, it probes the politics of just energy transitions to more low-carbon and equitable societal futures.

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