Creative destruction or mere niche support? Innovation policy mixes for sustainability transitions

Kivimaa, Paula; Kern, Florian

doi:10.1016/j.respol.2015.09.008

Cited by 818 publications

(516 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Also Bromley (this issue) describes transitions as 'phase out/phase in' processes. As a consequence we contend that from a public policy perspective, instead of only focussing on the development of new low carbon technologies or practices, rapid transitions also require the withdrawal of support for existing technologies or infrastructures or even to disadvantage them compared to low carbon alternatives (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016). For example, in the Netherlands there is an ongoing political discussion about whether the sale of all internal combustion engine cars should be banned by 2025, and Norway just declared to phase out the sale of all non-electric cars by 2025.…”

Section: Crown With Political Will: From Kyoto To Paris and The Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a survey of German manufacturers of renewable power generation technologies showed that the nuclear phase out decision in Germany by now is seen as an even more important driver for renewables than the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Rogge et al, 2015). These examples show the increased political appetite for and relevance of speeding up the low carbon transition by using instruments in the policy makers' toolkit aimed at 'creative destruction' (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016).…”

Section: Crown With Political Will: From Kyoto To Paris and The Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Kern

Rogge

2016

Energy Research & Social Science

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197

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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 (2016) 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 are 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 from incumbents with sunk infrastructure investments.

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Section: Crown With Political Will: From Kyoto To Paris and The Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Crown With Political Will: From Kyoto To Paris and The Roadmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Kern

Rogge

2016

Energy Research & Social Science

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197

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“…Energy transitions, defined as structural change in the way energy services are delivered and used, are inherently complex, uncertain and difficult to govern, and there is wide ranging agreement that a variety of different policy instruments are needed to foster such transitions [2,3]. In this context, it is increasingly acknowledged that policy mixes are required to address the various market and system failures associated with sustainability transitions [4,5] (Jacobsson et al this issue).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These range from policy studies [7][8][9] to environmental economics [10] [55] and innovation and transition studies [2,4,11]. One focal area of such studies has been the interactions of different policy instruments, both between policy instruments in specific policy sub-domains, such as energy efficiency policy (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The need for comprehensive and well targeted instrument mixes to stimulate energy transitions: The case of energy efficiency policy

Rosenow

Kern

Rogge

2017

Energy Research & Social Science

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145

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A B S T R A C TTo meet global climate goals an energy transition is needed. However, energy transitions are complex and longterm processes and require a variety of public policy interventions to steer their direction and speed to achieve global climate change mitigation targets. One area where policy support is required is energy efficiency, which offers a high potential for carbon savings. It is widely acknowledged that energy efficiency improvements will need to be faster and deeper than is currently the case and this requires policy instrument mixes to support both those energy efficiency measures that are simple and cost-effective as well as more complex and costly technologies. In other words, policy mixes need to be well-targeted and comprehensive. In this paper, we address the issue of comprehensiveness in terms of technology-specificity and the level of complexity and costliness of energy efficiency measures. We use an existing dataset produced as part of a pan-European effort to understand instrument mixes in 14 EU Member States in the area of energy efficiency. Based on the empirical analysis and our segmentation of instrument types and their role in the overall mix, we illustrate the need for using a comprehensive instrument mix rather than single instruments.

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“…More research is needed to uncover how barriers to new path development and wider transformations play out in different contexts. Given the urgency and scale of grand societal challenges and pronounced path dependencies of established systems and resistance to change, one may also critically ask if new path development (or niche creation) policies are sufficient or if they need to be complemented by 'old path breaking policies' (or what Kivimaa and Kern (2016) have called regime destabilization policies). However, the question of which policy mixes for new path development and old path disruption policies should be applied in which types of regions is still poorly understood and should thus rank high on future research agendas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional innovation policies for new path development – beyond neo-liberal and traditional systemic views

Tödtling

Trippl

2018

European Planning Studies

117

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How new regional growth paths emerge and what policy concepts are most adequate for nurturing their evolution constitute recurring themes in regional innovation and development studies. New industrial paths are often portrayed as the result of market-driven processes and Schumpeterian entrepreneurial efforts. This view goes along with a neoliberal policy approach that restricts the role of public interventions to setting up a suitable regulatory frame and supporting an entrepreneurial climate. The theoretical underpinnings and policy perspectives of this approach have been challenged by the innovation system literature, which offers a systemic view on the rise of new growth paths and advocates a more proactive role of public policy. This paper investigates the role of policy models beyond these traditional ones. We contrast different variants of systemic and multi-scalar policy concepts for new regional industrial path development. Our literature-based study shows that more recent models go beyond new path development and growth per se, paying more attention to the direction of innovation and change, and to policy approaches for achieving more sustainable forms of development. We scrutinize the theoretical and empirical bases of these new policy models and discuss why they are superior to neoliberal and older systemic ones. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Creative destruction or mere niche support? Innovation policy mixes for sustainability transitions

Cited by 818 publications

References 58 publications

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

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

The need for comprehensive and well targeted instrument mixes to stimulate energy transitions: The case of energy efficiency policy

Regional innovation policies for new path development – beyond neo-liberal and traditional systemic views

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