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Professor Tarp has four decades of experience in academic and applied development economics research and teaching. His field experience covers more than two decades of in-country work in 35 countries across Africa and the developing world more...
Sustainable energy transitions involve the shift of resources between competing industrial sectors and political constituencies. Stakeholders in this process have varying degrees of political and economic power, and understanding how political economic factors influence clean energy transitions is crucial to effective policy formulation and facilitating transitions to sustainable energy systems.
This project seeks to contribute to enhanced understanding of these factors.
Video introduction to the project
Channing Arndt, Senior Research Fellow of UNU-WIDER, presents the thinking behind this project and the study of implementation of clean energy policies.
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The Political Economy of Clean Energy TransitionsThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The 21st Conference of the...
Working Paper
The history and politics of energy transitionsAccording to some definitions, an energy transition refers to the time that elapses between the introduction of a new primary energy source, or prime mover, and its rise to claiming a substantial share of the overall market. According to one academic...
Working Paper
The political economy of energy transitions and thermal energy povertyIndonesia and South Africa are both trying address energy poverty through subsidized energy provision. South Africa has implemented one of the largest electrification programmes in the world, and 80 per cent of the population now have access to the...
Working Paper
The linkages of energy, water, and land use in Southeast AsiaThis paper aims to contribute to understanding the existing knowledge gaps in the linkages of energy, water, and land use in Southeast Asia and explores the political economy of energy transition in the Mekong region (MR). Investigating the struggle...
Working Paper
Is feed-in-tariff policy effective for increasing deployment of renewable energy in Indonesia?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...
Working Paper
The legal configuration of hydrocarbon infrastructureThe United States’ greenhouse gas mitigation strategy decentralizes mitigation responsibility to the states and states have primary regulatory jurisdiction over electrical power utilities. Using the biophysical approach, this paper introduces the...
Working Paper
The political economy of clean energy transitions at sub-national levelThis 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...
Working Paper
Understanding indicator choice for the assessment of research, development, and demonstration financing of low-carbon energy technologiesRapid decarbonization of whole countries requires additional research, development, and demonstration of low-carbon energy technologies. Governments support research, development, and demonstration in this area with various financing instruments...
Working Paper
Carbon pricing under binding political constraintsThe economic prescription for climate change is clear: price carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions to internalize climate damages. In practice, a variety of political economy constraints prevent the introduction of a carbon price...
Working Paper
Climate change policy and power sector reform in Mexico under the ‘golden age of gas’Mexico’s low-carbon technology perspectives show lack of coherence with the rising ambition in climate change commitments, for which Mexico is internationally praised. The comparison of two recent energy reforms, corresponding to two administrations...
Working Paper
Towards a political economy framework for wind powerWe 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...
Working Paper
An inquiry into the political economy of the global clean energy transition policies and Nigeria’s federal and state governments’ fiscal policiesIn 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...
Working Paper
Implementing EU renewable energy policy at the subnational levelThe 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...
Working Paper
Governing clean energy transitions in China and IndiaChina 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...
Working Paper
Do political economy factors matter in explaining the increase in the production of bioenergy?In this paper, we analyse the impact of political economy factors on the production of bioenergy. We theoretically and empirically show that the quality of governance and environmental policy stringency instruments promote the development of...
Working Paper
Integrating clean energy use in national poverty reduction strategiesThe disappearance of Rwanda’ forests and attendant change in climatic conditions prompted the government to explore clean energy alternatives such as biogas. Unlike at any other time in Rwanda’s history, more and more Rwandans in rural areas are...
Working Paper
Global trends in the political economy of smart gridsThe global transition towards sustainable, secure, and affordable electricity supply is driving changes in the consumption, production, and transportation of electricity. This paper shows the different policy aims that are promoted with smart grids...
Working Paper
European energy securityThis research reviews relevant literature on the current state and effectiveness of developing renewable energy on energy security in general, and on energy security in the European Union in particular. The paper elaborates on primary energy import...
Working Paper
Border adjustment mechanismsThis paper examines, from a multidisciplinary perspective, plausible hypotheses for implementation of border carbon adjustment mechanisms, seen as a complement to strong environmental regulation. It highlights economic, legal, and political...
Working Paper
The social shaping of nuclear energy technology in South AfricaThis 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...
Working Paper
Varieties of clean energy transitions in EuropeThe 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...
Working Paper
The political economy of energy innovationThis 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...
Working Paper
Post-apartheid electricity policy and the emergence of South Africa’s renewable energy sectorThis 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...
Working Paper
Sell the oil deposits!The Yasuni National Park is a protected area located in the Amazon region of Ecuador and is recognized as one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. In recent years the park has received much attention due to the media exposure of the Yasuni...
Working Paper
Falling oil prices and sustainable energy transitionFossil-fuel subsidies are economically inefficient and harmful for the environment yet efforts to phase them out at the national and international levels have not been effective. The existing international legal framework is too weak and fragmented...
Working Paper
Renewable energy in the Brazilian AmazonUnderstanding 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...
Working Paper
Political economy of Nigerian power sector reformThe 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...
Working Paper
Support policies for renewablesThis 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...
Blog
Climate Change – The last 30 years and the next 30
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...
Blog
From CoP15 to CoP21 – Three crucial changes in the climate mitigation landscape
The 21st Conference of the Parties (CoP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is rapidly approaching. Compared with the last...
Displaying 45 of 45 results
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Theme: Past, 2014-15