The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions

The 21st Conference of the Parties (CoP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shifted the nature of the political economy challenge associated with achieving a global emissions trajectory that is consistent with a stable climate. The shifts generated by CoP21 place country decision-making and country policies at centre stage. Under moderately optimistic assumptions concerning the vigour with which CoP21 objectives are pursued, nearly every country will attempt to design and implement the most promising and locally relevant policies for achieving their agreed contribution to global mitigation. These policies will vary dramatically across countries as they embark on an unprecedented era of policy experimentation in driving a clean energy transition.

This book steps into this new world of broad-scale and locally relevant policy experimentation. The chapters focus on the political economy of clean energy transition with an emphasis on specific issues encountered in both developed and developing countries. The authors contribute a broad diversity of experience drawn from all major regions of the world, representing a compendium of what has been learned from recent initiatives, mostly (but not exclusively) at country level, to reduce GHG emissions. As this new era of experimentation dawns, their contributions are both relevant and timely.

Douglas Arent is Executive Director of JISEA. He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and serves on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Steering Committee on Social Science and the Alternative Energy Future. He is a member of the National Research Council Committee to advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). He is also a member of the International Advisory Board for Energy Policy, an associate editor for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, on the Editorial Board of Sustainability, and the Editor in Chief of Renewable Energy Focus.

Channing Arndt is a senior research fellow at United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research. He has substantial research management experience including leadership of interdisciplinary teams. His programme of research has focused on poverty alleviation and growth, agricultural development, market integration, gender and discrimination, the implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, technological change, trade policy, aid effectiveness, infrastructure investment, energy and biofuels, climate variability, and the economic implications of climate change.

Mackay Miller is a Professional Scholar at JISEA/NREL. In addition to his JISEA research, Professor Miller is Lead Analyst for Technology & Strategy at National Grid. He previously worked at NREL, including an assignment at the U.S. Department of Energy. He has written widely in areas of renewable energy, smart grids, and regulatory dimensions of power system transformation. He is a member of the IEEE Power & Energy Society and serves on the Editorial Board for the IEEE Power & Energy Magazine. He holds an MBA from the University of Colorado, and a BA in International Relations from Brown University.

Finn Tarp is Director of UNU-WIDER and Professor of Development Economics at the University of Copenhagen. He has some 38 years of experience in academic and applied development economics research, teaching and policy analysis. His field experience covers more than 20 years of in-country assignments in 35 countries across the developing world, including longer-term assignments in Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Vietnam. Finn Tarp has published widely in leading international academic journals alongside a series of books, and he is a member of the World Bank Chief Economist's Council of Eminent Persons.

Owen Zinaman is the Deputy Lead for the 21st Century Power Partnership (21CPP), a multilateral initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial; he also manages the 21CPP South Africa in-country programme, and serves as a Power Sector Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He has published widely on power system transformation issues, including the grid integration of bulk and distributed renewable energy resources, power system flexibility, and policy and regulatory issues across the clean energy spectrum. He received his Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, with a focus on science and technology public policy.