Motivating Green Growth
Motivating Green Growth
The Political Economy of Energy Systems Transformation
Climate change mitigation requires a transformation of modern energy systems. That transformation carries with it serious and intertwined technical, political, and economic consequences. The technical shift from today’s fossil fuel-based energy system to some low-emissions alternative faces an array of technical uncertainties, will require a very long time, and provides few obvious economic advantages. Along the way, however, it will impose acute economic costs. This implies that political the opposition to change will be—and has been—well-organized and powerful compared to relatively weak, if ardent, proponents. Therefore, successful climate change mitigation will require policymakers to design policy that can discover potential economic advantages from systems transformation, and capitalize on those advantages to build supportive coalitions. Many mainstream policies—including carbon pricing—do not do so. Absent coalitions sustained by acute economic interests in long-term climate change mitigation, serious emissions reduction will prove difficult.
Keywords: green growth, climate change, energy system industrial policy, fossil fuels, technological change
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