Interests, institutions, and climate policy: Explaining the choice of policy instruments for the energy sector

Hughes, Llewelyn; Urpelainen, Johannes

doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2015.06.014

Cited by 120 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…The concept of capacity signals that a state is not able to pursue any energy policy it desires. For example, L. Hughes and Urpelainen [120] approximate institutional capacity by the presence of a bureaucratic agency that has a mandate for implementing climate policies. Jewell [121] shows that state's capacity to launch a nuclear power program historically depended on the size of the economy, GDP per capita, and political stability.…”

Section: Capacities Institutions and Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating techno-economic, socio-technical and political perspectives on national energy transitions: A meta-theoretical framework

Cherp

Vinichenko²,

Jewell

et al. 2018

Energy Research & Social Science

427

216

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A B S T R A C TEconomic development, technological innovation, and policy change are especially prominent factors shaping energy transitions. Therefore explaining energy transitions requires combining insights from disciplines investigating these factors. The existing literature is not consistent in identifying these disciplines nor proposing how they can be combined. We conceptualize national energy transitions as a co-evolution of three types of systems: energy flows and markets, energy technologies, and energy-related policies. The focus on the three types of systems gives rise to three perspectives on national energy transitions: techno-economic with its roots in energy systems analysis and various domains of economics; socio-technical with its roots in sociology of technology, STS, and evolutionary economics; and political with its roots in political science. We use the three perspectives as an organizing principle to propose a meta-theoretical framework for analyzing national energy transitions. Following Elinor Ostrom's approach, the proposed framework explains national energy transitions through a nested conceptual map of variables and theories. In comparison with the existing meta-theoretical literature, the three perspectives framework elevates the role of political science since policies are likely to be increasingly prominent in shaping 21st century energy transitions.

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Section: Capacities Institutions and Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating techno-economic, socio-technical and political perspectives on national energy transitions: A meta-theoretical framework

Cherp

Vinichenko²,

Jewell

et al. 2018

Energy Research & Social Science

427

216

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“…Public climate and energy opinions are highly variable, both across countries22 and within countries.23 At the same time, public concern about climate change remains consistently lower than concern among climate scientists and policy experts.24 Efforts to explain this disconnect between the serious nature of climate risks and uneven public level of concern about climate 16e.g.Tingley and Tomz 2013 17e.g. Bechtel and Scheve 201318IPCC 201419Hansen, Sato, and Ruedy 2012Herring et al 201420Druckman 2013Hughes andUrpelainen 2015 21Erikson, Wright, andMcIver 1993;Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995;Lax and Phillips 2012;Tausanovitch andWarshaw 2014 22Kvaløy, Finseraas, andListhaug 2012;Kim andWolinsky-Nahmias 2014 23Howe et al 2015;Mildenberger et al 201624Leiserowitz et al 2013Dunlap and McCright 2008;Gallup 2009 change have tended to emphasize cognitive and emotional biases at the individual level. Scholars have elaborated a diverse set of reasons why the human mind is poorly adapted to thinking about climate risks.25 For instance, even trained experts struggle to identify the rational response to climate threats that involve feedbacks and time delays.26 Scholars have also explored how public beliefs about climate change respond to a range of social and psychological cues, rather than to changes in knowledge about climate science.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beliefs about Climate Beliefs: The Importance of Second-Order Opinions for Climate Politics

Mildenberger¹,

Tingley²

2017

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

176

123

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When political action entails individual costs but group-contingent benefits, political participation may depend on an individual’s perceptions of others’ beliefs; yet detailed empirical attention to these second-order beliefs – beliefs about the beliefs of others – remains rare. We offer the first comprehensive examination of the distribution and content of second-order climate beliefs in the United States and China, drawing from six new opinion surveys of mass publics, political elites and intellectual elites. We demonstrate that all classes of political actors have second-order beliefs characterized by egocentric bias and global underestimation of pro-climate positions. We then demonstrate experimentally that individual support for pro-climate policies increases after respondents update their second-order beliefs. We conclude that scholars should focus more closely on second-order beliefs as a key factor shaping climate policy inaction and that scholars can use the climate case to extend their understanding of second-order beliefs more broadly.

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“…But accelerated transitions also depend upon social acceptance and business support. 11 Public support is crucial for effective transition policies because "whatever can be done through the State will depend upon generating widespread political support from citizens". 12 Low-carbon transitions in mobility, agro-food, heat and buildings will also involve millions of citizens who need to modify their purchase decisions, user practices, beliefs, cultural conventions and skills.…”

Section: Societal and Business Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…13 Innovation policies (R&D subsidies, feed-in-tariffs, demonstration projects, adoption subsidies) are also more politically feasible than economy-wide carbon taxes, because the former provide concentrated benefits, whereas the latter imposes costs on many voters and industries. 11 Second, low-carbon innovation policy should not only focus on R&D and financial incentives, but also on experimentation, learning, stakeholder involvement, social acceptance, positive discourses and opportunities for new entrants. Without sufficient societal and business support, it is difficult to accelerate or sustain low-carbon transitions for long periods.…”

Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociotechnical transitions for deep decarbonization

Geels

Sovacool

Schwanen

et al. 2017

Science

671

303

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Summary:The acceleration of low-carbon transitions across the sociotechnical systems of electricity, heat, buildings, manufacturing, and transport requires new conceptual approaches, analytical foci, and policy recommendations.Rapid and deep reductions in greenhouse gas emission are needed to avoid dangerous climate change. To provide a reasonable (66%) chance of limiting global temperature increases to below 2 o C, global energy-related carbon emissions must peak by 2020 and fall by more than 70% in the next 35 years.1 This implies a tripling of the annual rate of energy efficiency improvement, retrofitting the entire building stock, generating 95% of electricity from low-carbon sources by 2050 and shifting almost entirely towards electric cars.Deep decarbonization will necessitate low-carbon transitions across electricity, transport, heat, industrial, forestry and agricultural systems. But despite recent rapid growth in renewable electricity generation, the rate of progress towards this wider goal remains slow. Moreover, many energy and climate researchers remain wedded to disciplinary approaches that focus on a single piece of the lowcarbon transition puzzle. 2 A case in point is a recent Policy Forum 3 proposing a 'carbon law' that will guarantee that zero-emissions are reached. This model-based prescription focuses on policy, but not politics, culture, business, and social factors, thus avoiding many crucial real-world drivers of accelerated transitions.This Policy Forum presents a 'sociotechnical' framework that addresses the multidimensionality of the deep decarbonization challenge and shows how co-evolutionary interactions between technologies and multiple societal groups can accelerate low-carbon transitions. We organize this approach around four lessons, emphasizing factors that receive less attention in techno-economic and modeling approaches.

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Interests, institutions, and climate policy: Explaining the choice of policy instruments for the energy sector

Cited by 120 publications

References 52 publications

Integrating techno-economic, socio-technical and political perspectives on national energy transitions: A meta-theoretical framework

Integrating techno-economic, socio-technical and political perspectives on national energy transitions: A meta-theoretical framework

Beliefs about Climate Beliefs: The Importance of Second-Order Opinions for Climate Politics

Sociotechnical transitions for deep decarbonization

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