Scientific publications

Who bears the burden of greening electricity?

Faced with the threat of climate change many countries are promoting renewable energies to decarbonize their energy system. A common policy to foster electricity from renewable energy sources are feed-in tariffs which are financed by surcharges on electricity prices. Higher electricity prices in turn raise concerns on regressive distributional impacts. In this paper, we investigate the distributional impacts of three alternative policies to subsidize renewable energy production in Spain: (i) exemptions from the electricity surcharge for residential consumers, (ii) an increase in mineral oil taxes, and (iii) an increase in value-added taxes.

Introduction to the Special Issue “EMF 36: Carbon pricing after Paris (CarPri)”

Phases of fossil fuel decline: Diagnostic framework for policy sequencing and feasible transition pathways in resource dependent regions

Phasing out fossil fuels requires destabilizing incumbent regimes while protecting vulnerable groups negatively affected by fossil fuel decline. We argue that sequencing destabilization and just transition policies addresses three policy problems: phasing out fossil fuels, transforming affected industries, and ensuring socio-economic recovery in fossil resource-dependent regions.

Potential impacts and challenges of border carbon adjustments

Harmonized carbon pricing across borders is hard to achieve in the real world as carbon leakage can reduce the cost-effectiveness of unilateral approaches to reduce global emissions. To address this problem, border carbon adjustments (BCAs) would apply the domestic carbon price to emissions embodied in traded goods, which levels the playing field for emissions-intensive and trade-exposed industries.

Integrating sociotechnical and spatial imaginaries in researching energy futures

In this Perspective we argue that how we imagine energy futures is inevitably entwined with how we envision our collective social and geographical futures. Spatiality is both constituted by and constitutive of sociotechnical imaginaries (STIs), as they encode specific imaginations of socio-spatial order. Going beyond recognising spatial differences, we formalise an assertively spatial perspective on STIs by drawing on the concept of spatial imaginaries. We show how holding that STIs and spatial imaginaries are co-produced is a productive way of conceptualising the spatial dimensions of STIs.

Incentivizing BECCS—A Swedish Case Study

Negative carbon dioxide (CO2)-emissions are prevalent in most global emissions pathways that meet the Paris temperature targets and are a critical component for reaching net-zero emissions in Year 2050. However, economic incentives supporting commercialization and deployment of BioEnergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) are missing. This Policy and Practice Review discusses five different models for creating incentives and financing for BECCS, using Sweden as an example: (1) governmental guarantees for purchasing BECCS outcomes; (2) quota obligation on selected sectors to acquire BECCS outcomes; (3) allowing BECCS credits to compensate for hard-to-abate emissions within the EU ETS; (4) private entities for voluntary compensation; and (5) other states acting as buyers of BECCS outcomes to meet their mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement.