Blog

by Alan R. Roe October 2021

The transition to net zero over the next few decades will involve a large increase in the global demand for many metals essential to the renewables...

• COP26
• Climate change
• Extractive industries

Blog

by James Stewart December 2015

With COP21 currently taking place in Paris, the thoughts of UNU-WIDER Research Fellow Channing Arndt on the past and future of the climate change...

• Renewable energy
• Climate change

Working Paper

We propose a general taxonomy of the political economy challenges to wind power development and integration, highlighting the implications in terms of actors, interests, and risks. Applying this framework to three functions in China’s electricity...

• Renewable energy

Working Paper

This paper examines the political economy aspects, particularly the influence of the Clean Development Mechanism, in clean energy and climate change policies in the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The different mechanisms for...

• Renewable energy
• Sustainable development
• Climate change

Working Paper

This paper situates South Africa’s new renewable energy sector within the context of the country’s electricity system and in turn its unique political economy. I chart major developments in the country’s energy policy and governance since the end of...

• Renewable energy

Working Paper

This paper empirically investigates the effects of environmental policy, institutions, political orientation, and lobbying on energy innovation and finds that they significantly affect the incentives to innovate and create cleaner energy efficient...

• Environmental policy
• Political science
• Renewable energy

Working Paper

The paper introduces a novel framework for classifying different types of national political economies. It applies the outlined framework to analyse in an historical perspective the development of one mature renewable energy sector (onshore wind) and...

• Capitalism
• Industrial productivity
• Renewable energy

Working Paper

This paper analyses the question why the South African government intends to procure nuclear energy technology, despite affordable and accessible fossil and renewable energy alternatives. We analyse the social shaping of nuclear energy technology...

• Environmental policy
• Renewable energy
• Technology

Working Paper

China and India will have to radically transform their electric power systems in order to decouple economic growth from unsustainable resource consumption. While the majority of transition literature has focused on the diverse socio-technical factors...

• Economic growth
• Environmental policy
• Political science

Working Paper

The European Union (EU) has set targets for gradually reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 2050. One of the instruments involved is the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, which specifies a 20 per cent renewable energy target for the EU by 2020...

• Forests and forestry
• Renewable energy
• State governments

Working Paper

Large hydropower dams are at the centre of a debate weighing the value and costs of renewable energy against the risks of climate change. The debate is especially relevant on the African continent, which offers vast hydropower potential, but which is...

• Environment
• Renewable energy

Working Paper

In order to implement clean energy transition programmes, the national and sub-national governments in Nigeria will incur some cost. In the same way, failure to implement the policies will come with some costs. This paper therefore considers the...

• Fiscal policy
• Nonrenewable natural resources
• Renewable energy

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Bioenergy in Southern Africa

• Biofuel
• Bioenergy
• Technology maturity

Journal Article

This paper jointly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and...

• Agriculture
• Environment and economic development
• Economic equilibrium

Working Paper

The Mekong River is the major water source in Southeast Asia and shared by six countries. There is a rush to acquire sources of alternative energy and other benefits to meet the growing demand for water and energy, while China and Myanmar have...

• Environment
• Game theory
• International relations

Working Paper

The present study develops a reliability assessment method of wind resource using optimum reservoir target power operations that maximizes the firm generation of integrated wind and hydro power. A combined water resources model for a system of...

• Mathematical models
• Environment
• Infrastructure (Economics)

Working Paper

South Africa hopes to expand wind and solar power. Success depends on how and where to deploy the technologies. This study develops a 10-year database of expected power generation for these technologies across South Africa. A power system model...

• Electric utilities
• Renewable energy
• Technology

Working Paper

This paper evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and household...

• Agriculture
• Environment and economic development
• Economic equilibrium

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries

• Households
• Renewable energy
• Technological innovations

Working Paper

We link a bottom-up energy sector model to a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of South Africa in order to examine two of the country’s main energy policy considerations: (i) the introduction of a carbon tax and (ii)...

• Carbon tax
• Economic policy
• Economic equilibrium

Working Paper

The present study aims to explore economic and socio-demographic factors that influence the household’s probability to switch from firewood to clean fuels in northern Cameroon. The paper employs an ordered probit model to construct cooking patterns...

• Households
• Renewable energy
• Technological innovations

Working Paper

This paper frames the transition towards clean energies as a sequential process of instrument choice and instrument change. First, regulators decide how to initiate the transition away from fossil energies. Here, support policies for renewable...

• Environmental policy
• Management
• Renewable energy

Working Paper

The Nigerian power sector reform is necessitated by the chronic poor performance of the sector and has as its compass the 2005 Electric Power Sector Reform Act and the Roadmap for Power Sector Reform 2010. Implementing reform has resulted in...

• Political science
• Economic power
• Privatization

Working Paper

Understanding the political economic drivers of energy planning in the Brazilian Amazon is critical since the forest is increasingly vulnerable to destruction and related, increased poverty. This research investigates how political economy affects...

• Quantitative research
• Renewable energy
• Sustainable development

Working Paper

• Environmental policy
• Natural disasters
• Renewable energy

Book Chapter

Part of Book Aid Effectiveness for Environmental Sustainability

• Foreign aid
• Emissions
• Green cities

Journal Article

Many low-income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels will both reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Conversely, skeptics view biofuels as a threat to...

• Environment and economic development
• Food security
• Poverty

Working Paper

To accelerate the deployment of renewable energy technologies and to secure the electricity supply, the Government of Indonesia has issued several feed-in-tariff regulations for various renewable energy sources, which were previously predominated by...

• Environmental policy
• Environmental taxation
• Power resources

Blog

by Carl-Gustav Lindén July 2013

4 July 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén In recent years the price of green energy technology has come down dramatically. This means that European investments...

• Capital
• Capital market
• Cost effectiveness

Journal Special Issue

This special section contains a series of five articles focused on energy and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. It is well known that energy demand in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing rapidly and that many countries struggle to meet demand...

• Climate change
• Renewable energy

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa

• Carbon tax
• Climate change
• Regional economics

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa

• Economic development
• Renewable energy

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa

• Carbon tax
• Economic policy
• Economic equilibrium

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa

• Climate change
• Renewable energy

Blog

by Roger Williamson September 2015

The white-painted cluster of traditional style buildings might suggest that this was a farm on the South African veldt. Not so however—it was Trade...

• Automotive industry
• Carbon tax
• Economic integration

Working Paper

This paper assesses biofuels technology readiness and provides foresight to biofuels development in Southern Africa. Efficient conversion pathways, coupled with biomass from waste or high-yielding energy crops, reduces both the costs of biofuels...

• Biofuel
• Bioenergy
• Technology maturity

Working Paper

This paper attempts, first, to assess foreign aid effectiveness in fostering green city procedures in developing countries. For this purpose, we rely on the following aid effectiveness criteria: national ownership; harmonization; alignment and mutual...

• Climate change
• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Econometric models (Economic development)

Working Paper

Foreign aid and technology transfer are an essential means, especially for the least developed countries, towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals as well as facilitating adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. The deployment of...

• Climate change
• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Environmental economics

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa

• Environment
• Infrastructure (Economics)
• Mathematical models

Working Paper

This study develops a scenario-based model to assess the current and future trends in energy demand in Africa and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Future energy demand is forecast on the basis of socio-economic variables such as gross domestic...

• Energy forecasting
• Energy efficiency
• Sustainable energy

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa

• Climate change
• Econometrics
• Infrastructure (Economics)

Blog

by Alan R. Roe May 2022

Just over seven months ago the United Nations convened its 26th Climate Change Conference (COP-26) in Glasgow, with the world nervously emerging from...

• Ukraine
• Climate change
• Extractives

Working Paper

Climate change is an issue that requires global attention and co-operation. As climate science develops an understanding of changes to the future climate state, policy makers and engineering project planners beg to know what claims can be made on the...

• Climate change
• Power resources
• Renewable energy

Working Paper

Producing electricity from wind is attractive because it provides a clean, low-maintenance power supply. However, wind resource is intermittent on various time scales, thus introducing variability in power output that is difficult for electric grid...

• Infrastructure (Economics)
• Power resources
• Renewable energy

Working Paper

Ethiopia is powering ahead with an ambitious energy development strategy, highly reliant on abundant hydropower potential. A changing climate, including uncertain water supply, however, may pose a salient challenge to meeting expected targets...

• Climate change
• Simulation methods (Economics)
• Natural resources

Working Paper

The past reliance on historical observed weather patterns for future investment in basic infrastructure planning (e.g., irrigation schemes, hydropower plants, roads, etc.) has been questioned considerably in recent years. For this reason, efforts to...

• Agriculture
• Climate change
• Public investments

Working Paper

Community-based development has been criticized for its inadequate understanding of power relationships at the local level, which thus leaves room for elite capture. This paper compares and contrasts two case studies, both of which take power...

• Economic development
• Sociology of families
• Government policy (Poor)

Working Paper

Many low income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels domestically will not only reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, but also stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Skeptics, on the...

• Environment and economic development
• Food security
• Poverty