New Governing Decarbonisation in Scotland Exploring the … documents/Gov... · 2010. 6. 8. · Governing Decarbonisation in Scotland Exploring the Transitions Options Summary Report

Governing Decarbonisation in ScotlandExploring the Transitions Options

Summary Report | May 2010

Nils Markusson, University of Edinburgh

Brighid Moran, University of Edinburgh

Mark Winskel, University of Edinburgh

Richard Bellingham, University of Strathclyde

Preface

This document reports on the proceedings and key ideas emerging from the programme ‘Delivering System Change: Governing Decarbonisation in Scotland’. The main activity of this programme has been a short series of workshops bringing together academics and practitioners (policymakers, NGOs, commercial organisations and voluntary organisations) from Scotland, UK and abroad, to explore different approaches for decarbonising the energy system, and especially the transitions approach.

We would like to thank all the workshop participants and presenters who generously contributed with their time and knowledge to make the events interesting and informative. We would also like to thank the Institute for Advanced Studies and the Scottish Government for their fi nancial support. In particular, we thank Rebekah Widdowfi eld at the Scottish Government for helpful feedback. Finally, we thank the members of the steering group for their guidance.

This report is authored by Nils Markusson, Brighid Moran and Mark Winskel at the University of Edinburgh, and Richard Bellingham at the University of Strathclyde. Thanks also to Jane Morgan at the Institute for Advanced Studies for contributing to the drafting.

2

Table of contents

Preface 2

Table of Contents 3

Executive summary 5

1 Introduction and background 7

1.1 Methodology 10

2 Transitions in theory and practice 12

2.1 Transitions theory 13

2.2 The transitions approach in the Netherlands 14

2.3 A critical analysis of transitions policy 17

2.4 Denmark 22

2.5 The United States 26

2.6 Challenges for transitions research 30

3 Understanding the context and scope for action in Scotland 32

3.1 Multi-level government 32

3.2 Community level action 42

3.3 Devolution 50

3.4 Publics and policy 51

3.5 Some unresolved tensions 52

4 Discussion 57

4.1 New policy approaches and ideas 58

4.2 Transitions policy for Scotland 61

4.3 Research needs 62

References 63

Appendix A: Workshop Programme Agendas 67

Appendix B: Workshop Participants 71

3

• “Addressing the politics of transition management”, Adrian Smith, SPRU, University of Sussex

• “Governing Decarbonisation: Refl ections on the Danish Experience”, Andrew Jamison, Aalborg University

• “De-Carbonization in the U.S.: Federal, State & Local Change”, Kristen Hughes, Center for Energy & Environmental Policy, University of Delaware, USA

• “Political Autonomy in a Multi-level Arena: Climate Change Policy in Scotland”, Nicola McEwen, University of Edinburgh and Jane Morgan, University of Strathclyde

• “The Role for Local Government in Decarbonising Scotland – A First Glance”, Amie Fulton, Sustainable Scotland Network

• “The ‘Sustainable Glasgow’ project”, Richard Bellingham, University of Strathclyde

• “The ‘Switched on to Switching off’ project”, Michèle Hipwell, Jamie Auld Smith & Michelle Clark, Transition Edinburgh South

• “Energy and emissions reduction fi nancing mechanisms”, Douglas JP Prentice, Eurocapital Group

4

The report also includes invited contributions from workshop presenters:

5

Executive summary

The Scottish Government, and UK Government, have established climate mitigation targets, and both are committed to an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (compared to 1990 levels), with an ambitious (42%) target for 2020. Both Scotland and the UK have also set out plans for delivery on these targets, identifying policy options for different parts of the energy system, over different time horizons.

These policy developments are taking place against a backdrop of weakening faith in the ability of liberalised market mechanisms alone to deliver the societal transformation needed to meet these climate targets (e.g. the Climate Change Committee, CCC, 2009: p3). While there appears to be an increasing willingness by governments to engage in a more active, hands-on policy, it is unclear what new approach to policy making will emerge, how targets will be translated into delivery mechanisms in detail, and how policy options will be implemented on the ground. Some of the questions that need to be explored here include: what new balance will be struck between market forces and state direction, how to bring together top-down direction with bottom-up initiatives, how to manage confl icting interests and objectives, and how to manage the balance between long and short term time horizons? The Governing Decarbonisation programme sought to engage with these issues.

In a series of workshops held in late 2009 to early 2010, academics, policy makers and other stakeholders identifi ed and explored different policy and practical approaches for decarbonisation of energy, by drawing on academic insights and practical experiences from the UK and other countries, including the Dutch ‘transitions approach’, Danish energy policy, and American sub-national environmental policy and action.

This report presents some of the key ideas that emerged from the programme – ideas that could contribute to an effective governance of decarbonisation in Scotland. For example, the case study of American sub-national decarbonisation efforts shows the potential for sub-national efforts to play an important role in policy making and community action. The Danish case demonstrates the effectiveness of energy planning, alongside an active public debate and stimulated by local and community activities. The Dutch experience of transitions management is impressive in terms of setting up shared visions, policy coordination and industry involvement.

The objectives of the programme were:1) Explore alternative policy frameworks for governing and delivering

decarbonisation.2) Investigate the feasibility of applying the identifi ed policy approaches for

decarbonisation in Scotland. 3) Raise interesting new research questions about how to manage and deliver

system change that can be tackled through further interdisciplinary research collaboration.

6

The key messages from this programme are:

• It is early days for the application of transitions management as an approach, and therefore proof of its effectiveness is limited. There is relatively little practical experience, or examples of managed (or steered) transitions being delivered in the real world. Nevertheless given the problems in achieving the speed and scope of change sought by policymakers solely through market based mechanisms its application should be considered.

• In that light, Scotland should consider pursuing an integrated transitions policy, based on a combination of top-down steering and bottom-up initiatives and experiments, with less dominance of market-based measures than is currently the case.

• Transitions policy is politically challenging, and requires leadership to ensure equitable outcomes and apply suffi cient pressure on the energy system whilst mobilising private capital.

• It is important to ensure that a transitions policy does not become a separate policy track, but is integrated with wider energy policy, and economic and social policy more generally.

• A processual and refl exive style of policy making is needed, with monitoring and evaluation providing evidence about the effects of experiments and laying the foundations further initiatives.

• Collaboration across local, Scottish, UK and EU levels of government needs to be part of a transitions policy.

• Community level action has important roles to play in decarbonisation transitions.

• The analysis behind future delivery policy would benefi t from a strengthened input from social sciences, addressing issues of change processes.

• We propose a network of academics, policy makers and others to further explore the issues raised in this programme and to develop practicable policy proposals for transitions policy for Scotland.

The key messages from this programme are:

• It is early days for the application of transitions management as an approach, and therefore proof of its effectiveness is limited. There is relatively little practical experience, or examples of managed (or steered) transitions being delivered in the real world. Nevertheless given the problems in achieving the speed and scope of change sought by policymakers solely through market based mechanisms its application should be considered.

• In that light, Scotland should consider pursuing an integrated transitions policy, based on a combination of top-down steering and bottom-up initiatives and experiments, with less dominance of market-based measures than is currently experiments, with less dominance of market-based measures than is currently

• Collaboration across local, Scottish, UK and EU levels of government needs to be part of a transitions policy.

• Community level action has important roles to play in decarbonisation transitions.

• The analysis behind future delivery policy would benefi t from a strengthened input from social sciences, addressing issues of change processes.

• We propose a network of academics, policy makers and others to further explore the issues raised in this programme and to develop practicable policy proposals the issues raised in this programme and to develop practicable policy proposals

Executive summary

1 Introduction and background

Climate change has become an established and increasingly urgent issue for policy makers. Both Scotland and the UK have set decarbonisation targets for 2020 and 2050 and have published plans for delivering on those targets (Scottish Government, 2009a; HM Government, 2009). These targets require a very substantive change to how society produces and uses energy. However, there is concern that the current policy framework, and the existing policy tools applied, will not prove suffi cient to achieve the targets (cf. Climate Change Committee, CCC, 2009: p3) – whilst simultaneously achieving other policy objectives for the security and affordability of energy.

Target setting and assessment of potential carbon abatement policy options is complex, but there is a reasonably solid knowledge-base upon which to build. More problematic is the translation of policy targets to delivery mechanisms, and the implementation of policy options ‘on the ground’. How can we deliver decarbonisation that ‘works’ – technically, economically, socially and politically? This report therefore addresses the question: what promising policy frameworks and measures for delivery of Scottish and UK decarbonisation targets are available? The report will focus particularly on the energy sector.

Climate change can be seen as a key driver for societal change, and the changes needed are large and over a relatively short time scale. As a starting point for discussions, we suggested a set of tentative propositions about the kinds of actions that will be needed:

• Achieving policy targets for decarbonisation requires some radical and urgent changes to current forms of production and consumption, such as the energy system; modest and incremental change will not deliver alone.

• There is a need for greater pressure on existing forms of production and consumption, to create opportunity for more sustainable alternatives.

• There is a need for more social, institutional and technological experimentation around sustainable alternatives.

• Public engagement and participation is a fundamental part of genuine socio-political transformation. Planned change processes therefore need to integrate this aspect into carbon reduction strategies – which can be overly focussed on development and implementation of technological ‘magic bullets’.

In terms of carbon abatement solutions, technology and money are not necessarily the key constraints (O’Riordan, 2009). There is a general consensus about which groups of technologies, economic measures and social practices could be useful – although picking particular technologies and measures is politically controversial. Society also does not fundamentally lack the resources to take action, and inaction is likely to be more expensive in the longer term (Stern, 2007). The problem, rather, is how to implement change effectively, and how to design policy to support the transformation of society.

7


The predominant framework for developing climate change policy today is through market-based approaches, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). These market-based levers interact in a complex multi-layered fashion at local, national, and EU level. Many stakeholders have enthusiastically embraced market-based policy approaches as the appropriate model, though there are unresolved conceptual and practical problems. A key issue is whether such levers are producing suffi ciently strong, early and consistent signals in order to deliver an adequate response from the agents in the market. For example, the EU ETS has tended to provide fl uctuating and weak market signals, causing it to be a weak incentive for investments. Also, in an effort to maximise profi ts, energy businesses can respond in unpredictable and unintended ways to market stimuli. There are signifi cant doubts regarding the effectiveness of the current markets in delivering the large-scale, long-term investments necessary for meeting policy targets (Harvey, 2009). Alternative policy frameworks may include a different balance between the public and private sector, e.g. with a greater role for state intervention in parts of the decision-making process, and shifting emphasis towards collaboration between companies rather than competition. Market tools alone may also fail to create the type of positive social movement/change that will be required in a radical remaking of our carbon intensive society.

The current uncertainty in the debate about strongly market-oriented policy and about what the overall policy approach should be means that there is a window of opportunity for refl ecting on alternative policy frameworks. And given the critical importance of actually ‘achieving’ change, it is therefore worth exploring if there are valid alternative or complementary policy frameworks to established market-based ones. For example, transitions theory has been developed from academic studies of large-

scale transitions in the past, integrating insights from economics, innovation studies, sociology and policy sciences. It addresses the interaction between the multiple levels and scales of change involved: from local projects, to large socio-technical systems, to the overall societal change processes. It also addresses the need to address multiple time horizons, and consider how current action may shape future options. Transitions theory also seeks to understand the inter-relations between social, technical, political and institutional change.

The Netherlands has integrated ideas from transitions theory into environmental and energy policy in an interesting effort to create a shift to a sustainable energy system. In convening the Governing Decarbonisation workshop series, our fi rst objective has been to explore alternative policy frameworks for governing and delivering decarbonisation, and especially to draw on ideas from transitions theory and experience of transitions policy.

An appropriate policy framework has to work in the specifi c Scottish context, with its particular circumstances. For example, Scotland has large offshore oil and gas operations, major land-use based greenhouse gas emissions, signifi cant scope for development of renewables, and a distinctive policy agenda within the wider UK and European context. In addition, the devolved Scottish Government has limited powers and has to work within local, UK and EU levels of government. The second objective is to investigate the feasibility of applying the identifi ed policy approaches for decarbonisation in Scotland.

8


Finally, the Governing Decarbonisation programme has consisted mainly of a series of workshops, and is not a research project as such. It was our hope that the discussions at the workshops, alongside some desk-based work, would lead to the identifi cation of worthwhile research topics. The third objective is therefore to raise interesting new research questions about how to manage and deliver system change that can be tackled through further interdisciplinary research collaboration.

This report will fi rst briefl y set out the methodology of the work reported here. The report will present a summary of the workshops, in three parts. First, the report will present an exploration of transitions in theory and practice through the experiences from other countries. Next, the report will present the changing context for policy making and scope for action in Scotland. The fi nal part of the report draws on the presentations and discussions at the workshops to highlight key messages and address the programme objectives set out above. Throughout the report, contributions from workshop presenters are also presented.

9

1.1 Methodology

This programme is explorative in nature, considering (and in some cases challenging) established and implicit ways of thinking about climate change policy. This report aims to explore policy alternatives and their applicability in Scotland by drawing on existing academic knowledge and practical experiences from other countries as well as from within the UK.

These policy issues were analysed and discussed in a short series of workshops which included people with a wide range of experience and expertise. Decarbonisation must be tackled on multiple scales from the local to the international; accordingly, participants represented local communities, Scotland, the UK and abroad. Experience and initiative is needed from all societal sectors, so participants included representatives of academia, government, industry and NGOs. It was also seen as essential to involve experts and researchers of Scottish policy and political processes when discussing adoption of new ideas and policy approaches in Scotland.

The workshops were designed to draw on people’s experiences of how things are working now, and their ideas for how things could be different, and so provide stimulus for change. The project sought to get different sectors together to discuss the issues and create common ground though discussions and networking. We also expected workshop participants to raise interesting new research questions about how to manage and deliver system change that could then be tackled through further interdisciplinary research collaboration. The Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow provided the meeting place needed to bring these different people together, and to foster these new ideas and networks.

The workshops were not designed as focus groups, with the primary aim to provide researchers with information. The method used is more akin to participatory methods, aiming as much to involve and affect others as being helpful to the researchers. The workshop presentations and discussions have been the main activity and source of insight. A limited amount of desk research has complemented the workshops. Furthermore, the programme covered a broad topic and there must be realistic expectations about outcomes such as new ideas, contacts, networks and collaborations, some of which may take time to materialise and may be hard to monitor. In this report, we hope to demonstrate the following types of concrete outcomes: new understandings of the problem, drawing on different bodies of knowledge, suggestions for possible new policy approaches, including insights into their applicability in Scotland and suggestions for opportunities for action, including new research.

The key activities of the programme were three workshops held in late 2009 and early 2010. A structured and facilitated schedule of speakers and interactive sessions with plenary and small group discussion were used to manage the interdisciplinary group and to ensure a productive engagement.

The fi rst workshop focussed on transitions, both in theoretical terms and as practiced in the Netherlands. This workshop also drew on contrasting experience from Denmark, with its highly successful long term energy policies that have delivered major carbon emission reductions based on a complex mix of central government direction, large scale research programmes, commercial activity, community involvement and local green activism. The second workshop explored a few related themes building on ideas

10

1.1 Methodology

discussed in the fi rst workshop. One of the themes was the context of multiple levels of government involved in decarbonisation policy in Scotland: local authorities, devolved Scottish government, UK government and the EU. As a case study of multi-level governance, sub-national efforts at decarbonisation in the US were explored. Another theme was community strategies at local and regional levels. Finally, the workshop explored issues around uncertainty and risk taking. A third and fi nal workshop presented key ideas arising from the program and explored opportunities for future collaboration in this area.

This report provides a summary of the main points from the discussions at the workshops. This is a synthesis, rather than a comprehensive account of the presentations and discussions. It will therefore inevitably be somewhat selective and subjective. Many aspects of decarbonisation are contested and subject to diverse interpretations. To ensure that we recognise this variety of opinion, a number of tensions in the discussions will be presented, with no attempt to impose a resolution.

Several of the workshop presenters have been kind enough to contribute short summaries of their workshop contributions. These are included in this report as stand-alone texts, with their own attribution. These contributions represent the expertise and opinions of their authors and not of the authors of the overall report.

11

2 Transitions in theory and practice

Scotland and the UK are clearly only one of the many parts of the world grappling with the issue of decarbonisation in the context of climate change and a variety of environmental and security concerns. Countries are pursuing different ways to envisage and manage the process of decarbonisation. While each country has its own set of circumstances that make it unique, there are opportunities to share and learn from other countries’ experiences (both successes and failures). Lessons learned from other countries can be used to inspire innovative new policy approaches, warn against potential unforeseen barriers, and help connect and align national policies with international action and policies. This research programme explored the efforts towards decarbonisation in the contrasting cases of Denmark, the US and the Netherlands. Each case study offers relevant insights into promising solutions as well as potential warnings for Scotland and the UK.

The experience of energy transitions in the Netherlands is grounded in academic literature on system transitions which has been interpreted into policy in the form of a national ‘transitions approach’. The Dutch transitions approach was presented at the workshop by Hugo Brouwer, the director of the Dutch Energy Transitions Directorate. After offering a brief account of the academic transitions literature, this section will describe the Dutch transitions approach as presented at the workshop (combined with some relevant background on transitions management thinking) and some refl ections on lessons from the Dutch experience. This will be followed by a critical refl ection on the transitions approach by Dr Adrian Smith of the University of Sussex.

12

2.1 Transitions theory

A ‘transition’ can be defi ned as a major structural shift or transformation in a societal function such as transportation, housing or the energy system. Some examples of historical transitions – as studied using transitions theory – include the shifts from sailing ships to steam ships, from horse drawn carriages to automobiles, from traditional factories to mass production, and in the context of energy, from coal to gas systems (Geels, 2002, 2005, 2006; Correlje and Verbong, 2004).

It should be noted that although these examples emphasise technological shifts, transitions are not only based around technological change. Transitions typically involve major changes in infrastructure, social norms and practices, regulations and other elements (Geels, 2002). A transition typically requires that these different elements change alongside each other, to form a new socio-technical system.

Transitions can also be thought about in the context of a multi-level perspective and the development of a new regime when landscape changes (global factors and long-term trends) destabilise the existing regime (e.g. the energy system) and open it up for adoption of new ideas, practices and technologies, that have been protected and developed in niches (see Figure 1). Transitions can either be deliberately steered, or occur in an emergent way, without a predefi ned goal.

13

Figure 1. Multi-level perspective on transitions

Landscape

Regime

Niche

3. Landscape changes putpressure on the existingregime, opening it up

5. The new regimeinfluences thelandscape

4. The new design breaksthrough, causingchanges to the regime

Newregime

2. A dominantdesign emerges

1. Ideas developwithin niches

Markets Science

TechnologyPolicy

Industry Culture

Time

Existingregime

Source: E4Tech, based on Geels (2004)

2.2 The transitions approach in the Netherlands

14

In recognition of the large scale transition needed from a fossil fuel based energy system to a sustainable energy system, The Netherlands developed and adopted a collaborative model called transitions management (which is now being called the ‘transition approach’). Transition Management was adopted in 2001 (in the Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan) as the offi cial governance framework for the transition to a sustainable energy system and currently operates through the Energy Transitions Directorate and through its integration throughout the government ministries.

Based on transition theory, transition management sets a long term goal and vision but does not prescribe how to get to that goal in precise detail. Rather, it sets out key areas in which change is needed, and then supports ‘transition experiments’ which explore multiple possible ways to get to the long term vision. These routes to the long term goal are called transition pathways.

The basic steps of transitions management (Kern and Smith, 2008)1) Setting out and agreeing visions of change,2) Setting up new networks for policy making with stakeholders focussing on frontrunners of change,3) Supporting radical, high risk experiments with new ideas, social practices or technologies, and4) Implementing control policies to add pressure on the existing system for it to change and adopt new practices.

In practice, the Dutch soon realised that ‘Transitions Management’ was not the right term for what they were doing because the transition couldn’t necessarily be managed in a conventional sense. Rather, they were attempting to steer the transition, facilitate collaborations and accelerate innovations for the transition through strong collaboration of public and private agencies. In their Energy Innovation Agenda they suggest that “the government fulfi ls here (more than in the past) a role as a director of social priority process, such as making the energy supply more sustainable. The government does not replace corporations and knowledge institutes, but actively facilitates conditions for a better collaboration between these parties” (Energy Transition, 2008, p68). So, the transitions approach suggests that there must be a strong vision of where the transition is going, but also allowing and encouraging collaborative experimentation around the different possible pathways to achieve that transition.

After its fi rst eight years of operating, the experiences of the energy transitions approach in The Netherlands offer a series of interesting ideas and insights. This idea of the government supporting experimentation and building-in space for experimentation into policy is one important lesson. While Scotland and the UK already support a degree of experimentation (through various funding mechanisms such as the Technology Strategy Board, the Carbon Trust and other research programs), it is arguably not as systematic and inter-connected as the system in The Netherlands.


15

In the Netherlands, the transition program is a public-private partnership with largely private fi nancing and a strong element of public direction. In the public sector, the transition vision and agenda is shared across multiple departments and there is a good deal of cross-ministry collaboration and interconnectivity between projects. The private sector also has a strong voice in setting the innovation agenda through its seats on transition platform groups. There is some disagreement regarding whether this powerful private sector involvement in the transition platforms is a positive or negative. Some suggest that having strong private sector involvement results in a more conservative agenda that would not achieve the long term vision (Kern & Smith, 2008, Smith & Kern, 2009). On the other hand, having the private sector involved could be crucial in terms of funding, knowledge and ‘buy-in’ to the transition vision.

An important element of the Dutch transitions approach is that they target their support toward the ‘frontrunners’ in each sector instead of the ‘pelotons’ (the average or middle members of the group) or the ‘laggards’. Thus, it is the people who are ‘leading the way’ – in the direction defi ned by the agreed visions – in their respective fi eld that get the recognition and support, so as to inspire and pull the rest of the sector along.

Importantly, the direction from the government does not specify details of how to achieve particular visions (cf. the outcomes based approach of the Scottish Government); it leaves this for experimentation within a planned set of transition platforms (which were chosen as areas that provide opportunities for improvements and potential benefi ts). For instance, one of the transition platforms in The Netherlands is on horticulture and the greenhouse farming industry. This platform set a target for

a reduction in GHG emissions from the greenhouse farming industry which has been used to stimulate research into innovative technologies and practices. Hugo suggested that this platform is already delivering strong results. The greenhouse farming industry is currently 60% more effi cient than in 1990, with a goal to have climate neutral and economically profi table greenhouses by 2020, far surpassing the initial target (Hugo Brouwer, Personal Communication). (It should be noted here that the baseline given precedes transition policy intervention, and that other factors may have contributed to this outcome.)

More generally, there is a lack of information on practical outcomes (Kern and Smith, 2008). Partly, this is likely a result of the experiments supported being oriented towards relatively long-term outcomes. Nevertheless, there is a need for more systematic evidence gathering on practical results. There is more evidence on effects on energy policy. Voss et al. (2009) stress that transitions management has opened up new avenues to long term policy design. Moreover, IEA (2004) and Kern and Smith (2008) assess that transitions policy has mainly had an effect on energy R&D priorities. More recently, the IEA (2008) fl ag up transitions policy as a key energy policy in the Netherlands suggesting that it has evolved and gained in impact.


16

In the UK, much of the experimentation for dealing with decarbonisation is around researching new and/or improved technologies. The major exceptions to this are the Climate Challenge Fund (in Scotland) and the Low Carbon Communities Challenge (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) which deals more with socially-led, community based experimentation. Social experimentation such as this is important because innovation is not only about new technologies but also about new and better organisation, new ways of working, new forms of public engagement etc. At the workshops, participants generally agreed that a great deal of social innovation is likely to be needed in any transition to decarbonisation. To some degree, the Dutch transitions approach recognises this; however, in practice, there is less evidence of strong action in social experimentation, and increased support for social experimentation may be appropriate in the Scottish context.

Another important lesson that can be learned from the Dutch transitions approach is the imperative for charismatic political and industry leaders who will be champions for the transition. The transition platforms have had a high level of infl uence, even without high levels of power in some cases, because they have had infl uential leaders, some of whom have gone on to more powerful government positions and carried the transition message (Hugo Brouwer, personal communication). This suggests strong leadership can make a signifi cant difference.

The Dutch transitions approach also recognises that marketing and communication are important and powerful tools for spreading the word about the transitions vision and making the transitions approach more visible to the public. The transitions directorate

communicate a prominent and consistent message (for example, with politicians wearing transitions badges) and share a consistent message which they believe will help society make the necessary transition. They dedicate 15% of their transition budget to marketing and communication (Hugo Brouwer, Personal Communication).

2.3 A critical analysis of transitions policy

17

At the second workshop, Adrian Smith from the University of Sussex presented an analysis of the Dutch transitions approach and what it could mean for others countries interested in implementing transitions thinking.

The account of the Dutch transitions approach to governing decarbonisation as presented by Adrian Smith offers some useful insights that can inform policy making for decarbonisation, as well as some areas where the transitions literature and the Dutch transitions approach appears to be having a more limited impact.

Smith draws our attention to the ‘leadership challenge’ of managing radical change working with incumbent actors. There is clearly a tension between, on the one hand, drawing on the resources of established actors, and the need for radical change often embodied by actors that are less well established and resourced. The emphasis on frontrunner actors is one way of addressing this, but more of the radical, new leaders could be identifi ed in civil society. This is not to say that leadership of radical change cannot come from incumbents; as landscape pressures change and niches develop, established actors may redefi ne their interests and take up new agendas. However, incumbents may have an interest in maintaining status quo.

This leadership challenge is about organising initiatives and selecting leaders, but also about the more fundamental issue of who gets to decide or infl uence what the content of the agreed visions should be. With a participative approach to policy making as discussed here, there will also be issues around accountability and tensions with representative democracy – whether participation is from civil society or industry.


18

Historic transitions in socially-pervasive ‘socio-technical systems’, such as energy systems, typically include a long period of experimentation, demonstration and constituency building, before achieving the institutional and infrastructure reforms that enable a take-off of the novel practice. Arguably, we have already had 30 years or more of experimentation with some low carbon innovations (for other environmental and social goals) – so perhaps there are reasons to be hopeful, if institutional reforms remove uncertainties and commit to these alternatives rapidly. Transition management provides a heuristic for organising and understanding that challenge. New transition institutions will develop in a context of existing institutions, whose development has been more concerned with the liberalisation of existing systems rather than their transformation into low carbon forms.

Considerable technical, economic, sociological and political work has to be done to align discourses, actors, artefacts and institutions into a working low carbon ensemble. Price signals from carbon markets and public R&D alone are unlikely to generate all these alignments.

Researchers note that developing highly novel, path-breaking socio-technical confi gurations takes place in a context of deeply embedded, substantially institutionalized and widely reproduced ‘socio-technical regimes’. The accumulation of capabilities and skills, business models and markets, capital and other interests,

infrastructures and technologies, institutions and user routines, political commitments and social values, constitute powerful path dependencies driving incremental innovations in socio-technical regimes. However, infl exible path-dependent alignments can, under certain circumstances, become a source of fragility as circumstances change. Moreover, internal misalignments, brought about by technical changes or shifts in ownership for instance, can combine with external processes, such as rising environmental awareness, demographic change, and resource shifts. Such processes unsettle regimes and open windows of opportunity for alternatives to develop and seed transitions.

The innovative confi guration of novel socio-technical practices (e.g. low carbon housing) is considered to take place in ‘niches’. These spaces of socio-technical agency afford some protections for the alternative practice, which cannot compete directly with the incumbent, more structured and structuring socio-technical regime. Niches and regimes are situated in similar ‘landscape’ contexts, though they experience them differently. Processes articulating social pressure for carbon emissions reduction (e.g. social movements, policy measures, green business strategies), means different things for actors in the micro-renewables niche (an opportunity) compared to the incumbent electricity regime (an inconvenience).

Addressing the politics of transition managementAdrian Smith, SPRU, University of Sussex

18

institutions will develop in a context of existing institutions, whose development has been more concerned with the liberalisation of existing systems rather than their been more concerned with the liberalisation of existing systems rather than their transformation into low carbon forms.

Considerable technical, economic, sociological and political work has to be done to align discourses, actors, artefacts and institutions into a working low carbon ensemble. Price signals from carbon markets and public R&D alone are unlikely to generate all these alignments.

Researchers note that developing highly novel, path-breaking socio-technical confi gurations takes place in a context of deeply embedded, substantially institutionalized and widely reproduced ‘socio-technical regimes’. The accumulation of capabilities and skills, business models and markets, capital and other interests,

seed transitions.

The innovative confi guration of novel socio-technical practices (e.g. low carbon housing) is considered to take place in ‘niches’. These spaces of socio-technical agency afford some protections for the alternative practice, which cannot compete directly with the incumbent, more structured and structuring socio-technical regime. Niches and regimes are situated in similar ‘landscape’ contexts, though they experience them differently. Processes articulating social pressure for carbon emissions reduction (e.g. social movements, policy measures, green business strategies), means different things for actors in the micro-renewables niche (an opportunity) compared to the incumbent electricity regime (an inconvenience).


19

Transition management establishes a set of interacting processes for trying to accelerate these niche-regime dynamics. Problem structuring and goal envisioning involves multi-stakeholder ‘transition arenas’, usually facilitated by a government department, developing a shared vision for attaining sustainability goals. Scenario-building techniques turn sustainability goals into practical visions for future sustainable socio-technical systems. Visions provide a promising orientation for subsequent governance activities. Transition pathways and experiments see participants identify pathways towards transition visions using back-casting methods. Pathways provide a framework for the subsequent development of niche experiments. A portfolio of niches is created. Successful niche ‘pre-development’ is followed by a period of ‘take-off’ and ‘acceleration’, before culminating in ‘stabilisation’ within a more sustainable regime. Learning and adaptation provides the essential links between long-term goals, socio-technical pathways and short-term actions in niche experiments. Lessons are drawn not just for instrumental improvement of the niche, but also institutional reforms. Understanding better the institutional constraints and opportunities for the sustainable practices is at the heart of niche experiments. Institutionalisation is acknowledged to be the most important element, but is considered least in the transition management literature. This is the point at which serious commitments are needed, to such an extent that the incumbent regime suffers and is undermined as a result. Politically and economically it is very diffi cult. It involves the mobilisation of serious selection pressures against the incumbent regime, and redirecting vast institutional, economic and political commitments into promising niches along desired pathways.

In practice, different socio-political constituencies within and beyond regimes adopt strongly divergent positions over different socio-technical possibilities or visions – even where these are thought of equally as ‘sustainable’ or ‘low carbon’. These crucial political dynamics challenge straightforward ‘managerial’ understandings of transition management. An obvious initial question concerns the institutional locus of transition-governing activities and who governs. A state actor may be the facilitating agent, but transition initiatives must primarily be implemented within business communities and civil society arenas. In terms of participation, advocates argue transition management should initially comprise ‘visionary forerunners’. Such individuals are seen as empathetic to sustainability goals, open-minded, able to convey the ‘transition vision’ back to their constituency and infl uence its behaviour; they are willing to put time, energy and resources into the challenges of collectively envisioning viable sustainability goals; nurturing promising niches; building supportive constituencies of actors, institutions and markets; and continually anticipating, learning and adapting. Deliberations over structural transformations of socio-technical regimes affecting the lives of millions of people are seen as led by an elite group of visionary forerunners.

Whatever one’s views on whether frontrunners constitute a new sustainability technocracy or not, the approach espoused by transition management includes a serious leadership challenge for the frontrunners and transition visionaries. Existing material interdependencies shape this challenge. Possessing key resources helps one wield infl uence in governance, but only to the extent that other (differently) resourced actors are persuaded or compelled to continue their engagement accordingly, and


20

to the extent to which one is dependent upon the resources of others. The basis upon which resources are exchanged (be they fi nancial, economic, technological, authoritative, legal, knowledge, organisational, legitimising resources, etc.) requires building trust and the negotiation of informal and formal rules of the game amongst participants. Transition frontrunners and visionary leadership will have to operate through these complex networks of interdependence. This begs the question: how is transition leadership made? Under this kind of political leadership, perhaps it is society that makes the leaders? Someone with a bit of talent and self-belief fi lls a space that social processes have opened. Historic changes, such as the abolition of slavery, popular emancipation, workplace safety, public sanitation, etc, were driven as much by social movements as inspired leaders. Perhaps there are so few effective transition leaders for sustainability to date because mass society has not created the conditions for them: the space does not yet exist. Meanwhile, it is in the mass of society where one glimpses a very different, quieter, but no less important kind of sustainable energy leadership. These ‘leaders’ are all the individuals, groups and businesses that are actually trying to ‘do’ sustainable energy today, who are demonstrating a practical viability that can inspire others, including political leaders, and which can, hopefully, contribute to a groundswell for change. High-level political leadership has to use its authority to enable more of this practical leadership amongst communities and business: it must empower them for greater infl uence.

Any increased authority on the part of sustainable transition leaders must be accompanied by greater accountability and legitimacy. How to hold transition governance actors and processes publicly accountable? Whatever form it takes, accountability mechanisms need to recognise that some form of governance failure

is inevitable. Socio-technical systems are so complex, sustainability issues so disputed, and riddled with such uncertainties, that any policy intervention is bound to generate unintended consequences as well as (hopefully) achieving some of the original goals. Transition governance for sustainable energy is very much in its infancy with regard to creating a political culture and climate that is comfortable with such uncertainty and capable of approaching it using the principles of experimentation. Any mature approach to governance failure must also emphasise the converse: just as solutions can seldom be ‘optimal’, governance failures are rarely total. Incompleteness, insuffi ciency or divergence from initial aims is usually qualifi ed by mitigating factors. Nevertheless, any ‘satisfi cing’ strategy must not be interpreted conservatively and follow only incremental approaches. The sustainability imperative demands realisation of more ambitious and radical aims. It is unclear how transition management processes sit in relation to prevailing policy institutions and political activities. Transition management is not unique here, since other participatory approaches share this dilemma. However, given ambitions to transform the structures of our everyday lives, this unclear relationship is especially problematic, because the basis for authority, legitimacy and accountability in transition governance will ultimately rest on the way it engages with other political processes. Relations with democratic politics become signifi cant here.

Different participants in the transition arena will carry their own mental model of the socio-technical system, its key components, major processes of development, their own positioning and favoured strategies for sustainable transformations (whether proactive or resistant). Actors are situated in diverse contexts, bring contrasting knowledge or experience and hold contending interests and purposes. Different groups will bring disparate framings of the ‘system’ both in terms of its structure


21

and its function. Whose system counts most? Part of the purpose of transition governance is to negotiate these divergent framings, and attain a shared formulation of the system and commitment to common transition pathways. The political nature of ‘systems’ boundary work is underscored when we consider the inherent ambiguity (and thus contestability) of sustainable development itself. Whose sustainability gets prioritised? Headline goals for sustainability, such as carbon reduction, can command broad rhetorical consensus. Yet more specifi c environmental, economic and social criteria are hotly contested – with profound implications for favoured pathways. The question of ‘who governs’ gets re-emphasised, not simply for democratic reasons, but also because it has a material impact on the construction of the ‘socio-technical system’ in question and its goals.

With notions of sustainability displaying malleability to strategic interpretation, how credible is it that a transition management process that begins within a vanguard of elite visionary forerunners can really overturn structurally embedded regimes? How realistic is it to expect the pervasive infrastructures to be responsive to the more challenging lessons generated in transition niches? A reconsidered transition management needs to empower those normally passive or excluded from processes of structural change. This would be directed at making it as easy as possible for individuals, families and communities to invest, organise, link into low carbon networks of one kind and another, and so on. It is diffi cult to square this with policy generated in technocratic arenas through appraisal and foresight exercises. Moreover, it implies high levels of political commitment to pressure energy regimes accordingly. This kind of political project, underpinned by choices between contending green pathways, lies beyond transition management as currently formulated.

2.4 Denmark

22

This section and the next are is based upon the presentation by Andrew Jamison (Aalborg University, Denmark), the discussions these presentations provoked, plus some additional refl ections on the insights these cases present for Scotland.

The Danish case study shows the potential for more active government direction and planning to bring about desired changes in the energy system. Motivated by a mix of issues that changed over time – security concerns, economic development and environmental concerns – the Danish government took an active role and was able to shift the energy system in a particular direction over time. This was done through the adoption and successful implementation of a succession of agreed long term strategies. Active public participation in debates, originating in protest against planned nuclear power, also played a role in shaping policies.

Denmark’s experience of drawing on local knowledge and expertise to develop a new technology subsequently leading to a new industry that provides a low carbon alternative offers promising lessons. In the early stages of wind technology development in Denmark local wind associations owning wind turbines, were important in articulating functional demands to the small and medium sized equipment developers, and lobbying for inclusion of the technology into national energy policy (Garud and Karnøe, 2003; van der Vleuten and Raven, 2006; Lipp, 2007). Clearly, government, large companies and export markets also had key roles to play, especially later on in the 1980s, but support for locally owned and managed energy solutions may have the potential to contribute to generating the seeds of new economic development.

However, if the Danish experience provides a promising story, it also provides a warning against potential backlash. Jamison suggests that the political shift of 2001 and the rise of Bjørn Lomborg can be seen as a backlash to the efforts made by the Danish social-democratic led government of the 1990s in regards to sustainable development (Jamison, 2004). However, the fading of the Danish green agenda can also been seen as a refl ection of wider social and political dynamics. To the extent that the change in policy was specifi c to the energy area, a contributing factor may also have been rising electricity prices in the early 2000s, although policy reforms were underway before prices started to rise (see IEA, 2006). Thus, the Danish case as discussed here could suggest a need for Scotland and the UK to take political opposition into account (the need for cross-party collaboration) and to beware of the potential for some interventions and policy impacts (such as increasing energy prices) to cause an anti-green backlash. The Danish case warrants further study.

2.4 Denmark

23

Denmark has many lessons to offer the rest of the world in relation to governing decarbonisation, or making a transition to a low-carbon economy.

For one thing, since the 1970s, Danish governments of different political colorations have pursued policies of active energy planning, with a fairly strong involvement from the citizenry. And for another, Denmark has succeeded in developing wind energy as both an important branch of industry, with growing shares of export income, as well as a signifi cant contributor (some 20 percent) to the provision of electricity. Perhaps even more signifi cantly, Denmark has managed to combine a stable supply of energy, based on increasing use of renewable energy, with respectable levels of economic growth and employment.

The roots of both active energy planning and a booming wind energy industry can be traced back to the creation of OPEC and the so-called oil crisis of 1973-74. At the time, Denmark was totally dependent on foreign oil for its energy needs, although plans were well underway to begin to build nuclear power plants. In large part because of the emergence of a rather strong popular movement to oppose these plans (or, more precisely, the establishment of OOA, Organisationen til Oplysning om Atomkraft, an organization that was created to provide “information” about nuclear energy) the Danish government undertook an ambitious program in public education. A wide

range of experts were asked to produce popularly-written books and pamphlets about the various dimensions of energy supply and use, initiating what was to become an active and long-lasting process of public involvement in energy planning.

At the same time, another organization emerged to foster the development of renewable energy (OVE, or Organisationen for Vedvarende Energi), an organization that is still in existence, and which has carried out a great number of information, research and educational projects, both in Denmark, as well as in other parts of the world over the past 35 years. Both OOA and OVE were open to all, and combined professional lobbying and political campaigning with courses, workshops, and other activities at the local level.

As opposed to neighbouring Sweden, where anti-nuclear protest took the form of a popular front between political parties and other interest groups in a short-lived “people’s campaign”, OOA and OVE, like the environmental organization, NOAH that was also established in the 1970s, and is now the Danish affi liate of Friends of the Earth, can best be characterized as “grass-roots” organizations. They are governed by their members and organized in a decentralized fashion, and provide meeting places for students and teachers at universities to interact with the broader public. Like the so-called consensus conferences that were established in the 1980s to provide assessment

Governing Decarbonisation: Refl ections on the Danish ExperienceAndrew Jamison, Aalborg University

2.4 Denmark

24

of technologies, OOA and OVE mobilized a Danish tradition of popular education, that in the 19th century gave rise to the folk high schools and state-sponsored technological consultancy, as well as to a populist political culture.

Economists and scientists who were active in the formation of these organizations also began, in 1975, to produce alternative, that is, non-nuclear, energy plans as an integral part of the national energy planning process. This process, already in the 1970s, included forecasts of energy use and supply, as well as recommendations and proposals for government policies, both for energy use and effi ciency, as well as for energy production, which in Denmark has, for the most part, taken the form of production of wind energy.

By the end of the 1970s, the Danish parliament voted to terminate the planning of nuclear energy, and also began to provide a range of subsidies and technical support to the emerging wind energy industry. The national research center that had been focused on nuclear energy began to broaden its activity to include wind energy, and various kinds of economic incentives were provided to stimulate the wind energy industry. In the course of the 1980s, wind energy, and in particular the company VESTAS, had grown enormously, and had begun to provide signifi cant amounts of electricity to the Danish national grid (the provision of which had obviously required major research and development efforts of their own), but it also helped that Denmark began to exploit natural gas in the North Sea.

In any case, the experience with wind energy served as the basis for more wide-ranging efforts in the 1990s in regard to sustainable development. The Danish government, which was a coalition government of the social democrats and radical liberals, supported many efforts to combine wind energy projects with local planning and development activities. In other ways, it also helped to foster a transition to what is now called a low-carbon economy, with substantial support programs in clean(er) technology in other branches of industry, as well as in organic, or ecological agriculture. A green fund for local initiatives in sustainable development, and a program of “green guides”, sponsored by the state to encourage environmental projects in the public sector were also established, in addition to major programs in strategic environmental research, including environmental social science and law.

With the coming of a new, neo-liberal government in 2001, the situation changed, and the greening of Denmark began to take a decidedly more market-oriented, or commercial turn. In the past decade, there has been a cutting back on the broader process of ‘ecological modernization’, as it was called in the 1990s, and a more focused effort on encouraging exclusively commercial activities, most recently in relation to climate change. There has also been a strong infl uence on government policy from the home-grown environmental sceptic, Bjørn Lomborg, who has been supported by the neo-nationalist Danish People’s Party, which provides parliamentary support for the government. For two years, from 2002 to 2004, Lomborg ran a government-funded environmental assessment institute, and his activities (through the so-called Copenhagen Consensus, his own personal “think tank”) continue to be supported by

2.4 Denmark

25

the Danish government. The rise of Lomborg can be seen as a reaction, or backlash, to the ambitious efforts made by the Danish social democratic-led government of the 1990s in regard to sustainable development.

In conclusion, Denmark provides an interesting example of a country where the transition to a low-carbon economy has made some signifi cant headway, not least because of active government involvement in energy planning, and support to renewable energy. But it also shows how the broader culture has had a major infl uence on these developments, in the 1970s, by providing a congenial setting for collective learning and social experimentation, and in the 2000s by providing constraints or limiting conditions to the further process of ‘ecological transformation’.

Further reading:Jamison, A. (2001) The Making of Green Knowledge, Cambridge University Press.Jamison, A., Eyerman, R. and J. Cramer (1990) The Making of the New Environmental Consciousness, Edinburgh University Press.

2.5 The United States

26

The United States may not, at fi rst glance, appear to be a country offering best practice lessons on how to govern decarbonisation. However, some promising sub-national level efforts were described by Kristen Hughes at the second workshop.

The United States comprises 50 states which share power and authority with the federal government. In some ways, the federal/state levels of government are comparable to the UK/Scotland; US states have some powers over issues of energy and climate change while the federal government retains certain powers.

The US case study as described below is of particular interest for Scotland in that it shows the potential for sub-national decarbonisation efforts to not only be successful at the sub-national level, but to be useful in pushing national policy action as well. Whilst there are clear differences, the US case suggests that experimentation at both the local and Scottish level could have the potential to play a signifi cant role in the wider UK and EU context – even with the limitations of devolved power. This is likely to require strong community participation, local leadership, political courage, space and support for communities to experiment and the willingness to learn from and adapt these experiments for larger policy spheres.


27

Efforts to de-carbonize modern economies may differ among various jurisdictions, based on the particular circumstances faced by stakeholders. Yet the wider pattern of such actions also offers lessons in how meaningful change can occur. This is evident in how efforts for climate protection in energy systems are taking hold in the U.S.

At the national level, certain policies and programs have encouraged the use of renewable energy in recent years. Notable are the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit; the Renewable Fuel Standard to double the use of ethanol and bio-diesel by 2012; consumer tax credits for the installation of PV, solar thermal, etc.; and a loan guarantee program to help support commercialization of advanced nuclear, clean coal, and renewable energy technology. However, the larger trend of the past two decades has been a failure by the federal government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Such trends are evident in Fiscal Year 2006 U.S. Department of Energy research funding, with fossil fuels receiving $592 million; nuclear, $552 million; hydrogen, $156 million; and renewable sources, $236 million. This has left the U.S. with a per capita CO2-e impact of 20 tons each year, versus a sustainable and equitable rate of 3.3 tons (Byrne et al, 1998).

Yet within this milieu, there has existed signifi cant diversity for energy change and specifi cally climate protection among states and cities for more than a decade. Most

notable is California, which since the 1970s (when the state was experiencing the serious negative environmental impacts of an intensive population and economic boom) has robustly supported “green” energy. The state acted early to encourage non-utility production of wind and solar power and devised revenue recovery mechanisms for utilities based on effective conservation programs. Its early effi ciency standards for buildings and appliances ($56 billion saved so far) were followed by national codes and standards. More recently, California’s rule for a 30% vehicular emissions drop by 2016 has been adopted by 11 other U.S. states.

More broadly, some 32 states and the District of Columbia have renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies, applicable to more than 50% of U.S. electricity sales. Some 24 states operate public benefi t funds to support renewable energy and energy effi ciency, complemented by 44 states with net metering and green pricing. Nineteen states have energy effi ciency resource standards, and 25 have authored climate action plans. Also in operation are multi-state, regional cap-and-trade programs covering the release of greenhouse gas emissions. In sum, state-level energy effi ciency and RPS policies should yield a 65% decrease in total U.S. emissions compared to business as usual, from 2002 to 2020 (Byrne et al, 2007).

De-Carbonization in the U.S.: Federal, State & Local ChangeKristen Hughes, Center for Energy & Environmental Policy, University of Delaware, USA


28

In the 1990s, U.S. cities additionally began to act in earnest to address climate change, as usually linked to other energy-related concerns. Today, some 500 local governments are members of the ICLEI climate action campaign, and 600 cities are signatories to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. They represent great diversity in geography, economy, culture, size, and utility service model. As one example, the city of Austin, TX, has embraced energy change, following civil society efforts to resolve a number of challenges to the status quo. These included the municipal utility’s over-reliance on regional natural gas, fast-growing demand, high costs of nuclear power, threats to the local municipal utility from a competitive statewide electricity market, the need for reliable power supply for high-tech fi rms and concerns about disastrous droughts.

Taking advantage of federal and state resources, Austin would enact much more ambitious policies for a 30% community RPS and a carbon-neutral government by 2020. Today, Austin is home to some 80 clean energy fi rms, and offers the #1 utility green power program in the U.S., selling 743 million renewable kWh. With 12% green power in 2009 compared to 0.5% in 1999, the community has avoided the need for a 650 MW power plant. Per capita power sector emissions have dropped from 9.8 tons CO2-e in 2000 to 8 tons in 2005.

In Austin and elsewhere, de-carbonization is occurring through the interaction of leaders and local groups who recognize issues of interest and act upon them. Also contributing to change are institutional assets that facilitate stakeholder interaction, as well as new policy directions that link energy to wider sectors through growing and mandatory standards, accountability mechanisms, and education. De-carbonization

also is occurring as a multi-dimensional endeavor. A focus on fuel sources, consumption, and buildings is complemented by public-private partnerships, economic development plans, and longer-term wider cost/benefi t evaluations. Intended goals include the following: distinguishing cities amid competitive metro areas; reducing vulnerability to pollutants, rising fuel costs, and aging infrastructure; and achieving greater local control over energy service provision.

Finally, de-carbonization also entails a trend for localities to infl uence larger policy spheres. For example, the Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), created in 2007, has been recommended to Vice President Biden’s Middle Class Task Force by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress. The SEU provides customers with one-stop shopping for a mix of cost-effective, customized energy effi ciency and renewable energy services to meet their needs. A Berkeley, CA, initiative to fi nance home energy improvements via local property tax assessments has spread to other parts of California, with the state passing enabling legislation. In Chicago, a local real-time power pricing model was adopted by the state legislature and made applicable to Illinois utilities.

The emerging U.S. de-carbonization strategy, as forged by the Obama Administration, appears to recognize the role of cities and states as laboratories. The Administration has identifi ed clean energy and green building as a foundation for urban economic development and affordable housing. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009) set aside $80 billion for energy and environmental initiatives such as a “self-suffi cient” home energy effi ciency industry, which seeks home energy savings of 40% and cost savings of $21 billion per year. Also included is federal investment in smart


29

grid technology, a move which follows years of experimentation in locales such as Austin. The federal smart grid initiative aims to boost tens of thousands of new jobs and avoid power losses of $150 billion per year.

A comprehensive national-level climate policy – if passed – could yield 1.9 million new jobs, household income increases up to $1,175 annually; and a GDP increase up to $111 billion relative to BAU (Roland-Holst et al, 2009). Practices associated with such proposals, such as a national RPS and heightened national building standards, are themselves versions of strategies implemented years or even decades ago by states and cities. As such, they suggest that the national government is learning from more local levels, and taking advantage of the knowledge afforded by the past 15 years of city and state experimentation. The dynamics of local-to-national energy change suggest how civil society stands to infl uence the direction and pace of de-carbonization, so long as groups persist in their efforts and design programs in ways that capture multiple benefi ts for a range of stakeholders. The success of such action in the U.S. suggests that local stakeholders in Scotland may also be able to marshal political power for new community-based programs. Where these are effective, they may then be able to capture larger regional and national interest for similar programs, in ways that encourage a virtuous cycle of change.

References:Byrne, John, et al. 1998. An Equity- and Sustainability-Based Policy Response to Global Climate Change. Energy Policy, 26(4): 335-343.Byrne, J., Hughes, K., Rickerson, W. and Kurdgelashvili, L. 2007. American Policy Confl ict inthe Greenhouse: Divergent Trends in Federal, Regional, State, and Local Green Energy and Climate Change Policy. Energy Policy, 35(9): 4555-4573.Roland-Holst et al, 2009. Clean Energy and Climate Policy for U.S. Growth and Job Creation. Berkeley, CA: College of Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley.

2.6 Challenges for transitions research

30

There are two distinctive ways of approaching decarbonisation as a ‘transition management’ problem. From an academic research perspective, a rich body of evidence (e.g. Geels, 2003; 2005; 2006; Correlje and Verbong, 2004) has been developed over the past decade on the transitions of socio-technical systems. More recently, however, discussions of ‘transition management’ and ‘transition planning’ (or variations of these terms) have also become popular among policy makers in the UK and elsewhere. This ‘turn to transitions’ in policymaking is readily understandable: the setting of ambitious goals for decarbonisation of UK and Scottish societies and economies has focussed attention on mechanisms to ‘deliver’ the targets, and explicit use of the language of transitions in, for example, the UK Government’s Low Carbon Transition Plan (LCTP) of 2009 (HM Government, 2009). The policy turn to transitions is promising – at least in establishing a legitimate entry point for research-policy exchange, but it is also likely to expose some tensions between these two perspectives. A few of these tensions are now briefl y discussed.

Transitions tend to take place over long historic timescales, as interlinked events and processes over several decades, rather than as a result of more predictable and deliberate interventions over shorter timescales. While policymakers have set long-term targets for system change to 2050, most policy attention (e.g. in the LCTP) is preoccupied with shorter timescales, and especially meeting targets to 2020. The research evidence suggests that it is important to pay attention to the relationship between shorter-term and longer-term changes (Ekins and Skea, 2009). For example, the way in which certain options for meeting 2020 targets could ‘lock’ the system / economy into pathways which make achieving deeper transformations after 2020

more diffi cult. Also, while established socio-technical systems tend to be resistant to change and capable of adapting and absorbing external pressures, critical periods, or ‘windows of opportunity’ can arise when resistance to change is temporarily lowered. Taking advantage of these windows of opportunity to redirect the system matters a great deal, and preparing for these opportunities is important.

The transitions research base draws attention to the importance of wider social and cultural context for changes to, for example, the energy system. Certainly, the responses and attitudes of the ‘general public’ are likely to play a key role in enabling or inhibiting many of the prospective ways of achieving system change. Until now, climate change policy in the UK and Scotland has been driven forwards mostly by a relatively small number of powerful agents: scientists, politicians, academics, NGOs and industrialists. The wider public remains largely unaware of the ambitious visions of social and economic change embedded in policy targets, and there are indications that climate change ranks rather low among the concerns and priorities of most people (Scottish Government, 2009b: p7).

At the same time, policy interest in transitions presents important challenges to the transitions research community. Transitions research has tended to focus on emergent rather than directed change (and unexpected contingencies and serendipity), long timescales, extended processes of experimentation, shared learning (including learning from failure), and gradual up-scaling. These recommendations seem somewhat ill-suited to the increasingly urgent demands from policymakers for evidence from the research community on how best to deliver on targets for change over relatively short

2.6 Challenges for transitions research

31

timescales. Arguably, this challenge directs attention to the need for a re-working of the transitions approach under conditions of urgency, and a greater tendency in policy to planning and top-down directed change than has been prevalent in the UK over the past two decades.

Transitions theory was borne out of strategic niche management (SNM) theory developed in the 1990s (Kemp et al., 1998). Like all theories or concepts, SNM embeds something of the prevailing norms of the time of its inception, such as ‘modulating’ market forces, re-setting framework conditions rather than more direct interventions on exchange. More recently, these norms have been increasingly subject to questioning. A new policy and research agenda has begun to emerge, concerned with ‘accelerating’ transitions, transformative change, deliberately placing increasing external pressure on existing regimes, promoting niche innovations (possibly longstanding niches) to regimes, and a greater role for wider sections of the public.

Overall, this suggests the need for further exchange between research, policy and practitioner communities on transition management, and the fostering of institutions to enable this exchange to happen – with the prospect for continuing and deepening mutual learning.

3 Understanding the context and scope for action in Scotland

The previous section suggested the need to look further at how societies can deliberately accelerate transitions and also suggested the need for more top-down directed change than has been prevalent in the UK over the past two decades. But this raises the question of who can make a difference and how?

As citizens we vote for, and our lives are impacted on by, multiple levels of government. In Scotland, these include the European Union, the UK government, the Scottish government and local authorities. As the emission of carbon has global impacts, individual nations cannot act alone to protect themselves. Collective agreement to reduction is therefore necessary. The EU provides an important arena for collective agreement. It also provides a policy framework within which its member nations meet those agreements. This policy framework is intended both to protect the single market and to avoid undesired spill over effects from one country to another.

The UK government has inspired EU policy in respect of the liberalisation of energy markets and the market-based emission trading scheme. (In terms of protecting the wider environment, UK policy has been more driven by the EU.) The role of the EU does not inhibit other layers of government from setting more ambitious targets but, as indicated by Nicola McEwen and Jane Morgan, the additional reduction then needs to be achieved within those domains in which EU climate change measures do not determine outcomes.

Targets set by the Scottish government are more ambitious again than those set by the UK, posing the question of whether the Scottish Government has scope of action to ensure they are achieved. In examining this issue we need to look not just at the powers

which the Scottish government has under the devolution settlement, but at a wider set of resources. These include fi nancial resources, expertise, natural resources and political legitimacy. This is explored in more depth in McEwen and Morgan’s contribution.

The Scottish government has devolved powers in relation to land use and most aspects of transport but powers in the energy sphere are more limited. Most signifi cantly, regulation of energy markets is reserved to the UK government. While aspects of this regulation contribute to meeting Scotland’s climate change objectives, insofar as these policies may be regarded as inadequate or inappropriate for Scotland’s circumstances, the Scottish government does not have the power to change them. However, it is worth noting that, were the Scottish government’s powers to increase, a future government might choose to deploy them by agreeing shared frameworks with other countries. For example, the wholesale supply of energy crosses national boundaries and can be anticipated to do so to an increased level in future. The direction of change for accompanying regulation, and possibly also incentive mechanisms for renewable energy, would appear to be towards shared rather than separate regimes.

The Scottish government can support business research and development and it can intervene in a number of ways to promote energy effi ciency (if not by placing requirements on energy suppliers). While promoting business research and development can help exploit advantage in natural resources, the scale of available fi nancial resources can pose constraints. The Scottish government does not have the scale of resource to provide grants towards demonstration of carbon capture and storage but it has been able to add to UK incentives for development and early stage deployment of marine energy. In relation to niche activity discussed earlier, there is

32

3.1 Multi-level government

thus some scope for promoting technological developments but perhaps more scope for the deployment of known solutions in energy effi ciency and energy management.

Scottish local authorities can potentially play a large role in decarbonisation through, for example, their roles in planning and transport. This is explored further in Amie Fulton’s contribution. A range of relevant actions are identifi ed in Single Outcome Agreements which set out how local authorities will contribute to national outcomes. However, in so far as local authorities have discretion (as opposed to, for example, applying national building standards) it is unclear what the sanctions will be if local government does not take action. Under the current concordat with the Scottish government, ring-fencing of local government budgets has largely ended while at the same time authorities are operating in a constrained fi nancial environment which requires diffi cult choices to be made.

33

thus some scope for promoting technological developments but perhaps more scope for the deployment of known solutions in energy effi ciency and energy management.

Scottish local authorities can potentially play a large role in decarbonisation through, for example, their roles in planning and transport. This is explored further in Amie Fulton’s contribution. A range of relevant actions are identifi ed in Single Outcome Agreements which set out how local authorities will contribute to national outcomes. However, in so far as local authorities have discretion (as opposed to, for example, applying national building standards) it is unclear what the sanctions will be if local government does not take action. Under the current concordat with the Scottish government, ring-fencing of local government budgets has largely ended while at the same time authorities are of local government budgets has largely ended while at the same time authorities are operating in a constrained fi nancial environment which requires diffi cult choices to be made.



34

The Climate Change (Scotland) Act (2009), passed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament, provides a statutory framework for reducing Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions, setting an interim target of 42% by 2020 and an 80% reduction target by 2050. While the latter matches the target set by UK legislation, the former is more ambitious. Meeting these climate change targets will involve action across a wide range of policy spheres for which power is dispersed among the Scottish government, the UK government, the EU and local government. This text examines the Scottish government’s political autonomy - its scope for action - in achieving its climate change objectives under the current constitutional settlement. It does so, fi rst, by considering the resources the government currently has at its disposal and, second, by exploring the multi-level arena in which Scottish political autonomy is negotiated. We pay particular attention to energy policy because the government has presented the exploitation of Scotland’s energy capacity as a primary mechanism for meeting its climate change objectives.

Political Autonomy and the Politics of Climate ChangeAn examination of political autonomy must consider the resources a government has at its disposal. For Rhodes, the availability, distribution and substitutability of resources underpins the relative power of governments at different levels, as well as the interactions between them (Rhodes, 1999). Constitutional-legal resources provide a

starting point for analysis. The Scotland Act (1998) gave legislative responsibility to the Scottish Parliament for all matters other than those explicitly reserved within the Act to the UK Parliament. In effect, this gives the parliament constitutional responsibility for a wide range of policy areas that have an impact on climate change, including land use and forestry, environmental protection, waste management, housing, planning and most areas of transport. Reserved matters include international relations, fi scal policy and energy, the latter dealt with at Head D of Schedule 5 of the Act. Energy is not reserved in its entirety: the promotion of energy effi ciency is excepted while some powers reserved to the UK government are executively devolved, i.e. the Scottish Parliament deploys but may not change them.

The Scottish Government clearly sees renewable energy as central to the achievement of its climate change objectives and had already set targets for meeting 20% of energy requirements and 50% of electricity demand from renewable sources by 2020. Yet, the government’s scope for action is constrained by the constitutional distribution of power. Table 1 illustrates the division of constitutional responsibilities in energy by considering the linked activities of extraction, generation, transmission and consumption. In short, the Scottish government can encourage or discourage different types of energy production, excluding offshore oil and gas production, through planning policies and exercise of planning related powers. It can determine the level, but not the form, of

Political Autonomy in a Multi-level Arena: Climate Change Policy in ScotlandNicola McEwen (University of Edinburgh) and Jane Morgan (University of Strathclyde)


35

market-related incentives (such as the Renewables Obligation) for the generation and supply of renewable energy, and it can support the development of less mature energy technologies through grant and wider business development support. In relation to consumption, the Scottish government can set building standards for new buildings and promote energy effi ciency more widely through advice and investment, but not through requirements on energy businesses. However, the Scottish government cannot shape the fundamental operation of electricity and gas markets through legislation, regulation or taxation.

The Scottish government’s energy and broader climate change ambitions are infl uenced by other resource constraints, including fi scal constraints. The government has extensive autonomy, subject to parliamentary approval, in allocating its budget within its areas of competence, but it has little revenue-raising capacity. Around 85% of its £35bn budget comes from the block grant determined by the UK government; the limited power to vary the basis rate of income tax has not been used; a power to borrow does not exist.

The combined impact of constitutional and fi nancial resources, and the relevance of other resources, can be illustrated by examining specifi c policy areas. What is the scope of the Scottish government to promote product development and manufacture, for example, new marine energy technologies or carbon capture and storage (CCS)? The desire to promote marine technologies rests on the existence of a substantial natural resource for potential wave and tidal power, on resources of information and expertise (including research and development capacity) and on the fact that, unlike onshore wind, an industrial lead has not been captured by another country. For carbon capture

and storage, the impetus is expertise and potential sites for both generation and offshore storage.

Product development may involve an interaction between university research and commercial development. Funding of university research is largely a matter for the UK research councils while the shape of tax incentives for business R&D is also a reserved matter. The Scottish government has powers to provide grant support to business but these are constrained by budgetary capacity and by EU state aid rules, which aim to avoid distortion of competition. Scottish administrations past and present have been innovative: the previous administration introduced a grant scheme to promote deployment of marine technology, while the current administration’s £10m Saltire prize also aims to advance marine energy in Scotland and both have been supportive of the European Marine Energy Centre. Scottish governments have taken advantage of the Renewables Obligation, a market mechanism funded by consumers across Great Britain. By using executively devolved powers to set a strong incentive level for marine generation (higher than in England and Wales), technology development and deployment may be encouraged. But for CCS, there is currently no such incentive mechanism and the scale of grant required would be beyond the scope of Scottish budgets.


36

Reserved Executively devolved Devolved

Legal framework for the exploitation of natural resources

Offshore oil and gas licensing and decommissioning

Consent to construct electricity generation and transmission capacity

Planning framework for onshore coal mining and electricity generation not covered by the Electricity Act

Regulatory and fi scal framework for the operation of companies in the energy sector

All (see below *)

Regulation and incentivisation to achieve decarbonisation and energy conservation

Framework of requirements on energy companies (as part of * above) e.g. RO and CERT

Setting level of RO(S) Grant support for technology development by businesses; Promotion of energy effi ciency; Planning and building regulation in relation to building design/use

Security of supply and emergency planning

Emergency powers Consequence management and planning for this

Environmental protection All, including waste disposal, nuclear and carbon storage within territorial waters

Formulation of EU policy All

Table 1: Constitutional-legal resources relating to energy policy


37

Technology is only one part of the equation in tackling climate change. Governments are also seeking to achieve different behaviour by consumers (business and domestic) reducing the level of demand for high emission technologies. The constitutional capacity to proscribe and prescribe products sits largely with the UK government and the EU. The ability to place requirements on energy companies, for example, the installation of smart meters, is a matter of market regulation and thus is reserved to Westminster. But a Scottish government has a range of relevant powers at its disposal: planning policies can infl uence, for example, car use and uptake of micro-generation; education policies can shape young people’s awareness; environmental protection powers provide scope for the Climate Change Challenge Fund and responsibility for promoting energy effi ciency has allowed funding of advice and practical support for domestic and non-domestic consumers. Available budgets are again a constraint but only some actions require substantial public funding.

Negotiating Policy Autonomy in a Multi-Level EnvironmentThe above overview underlines the extent to which Scottish policy autonomy is embedded within a multi-level policy environment. This makes the infl uencing of, and co-ordination with, government at different levels an important facet of Scottish government activity.

Scottish-UK inter-governmental relations vary in character. There are pragmatic and quiet, if not hidden, exchanges but also more public exchanges which form part of the broader political debate on Scotland’s constitutional future. For example, the two governments quietly co-operated to ensure that EU proposals for “unbundling” of the

electricity sector would take account of separate Scottish ownership arrangements for transmission, and the governments worked closely together to develop the Carbon Reduction Commitment, a domestic emissions trading scheme on stream from April 2010. Co-operation has also been evident in climate change evidence and legislation, strategic environmental assessments and legislative provision for carbon storage regulation. On the other hand, the Scottish Government has publicly criticised the remit of the UK energy regulator and the current transmission-charging regime. It has sought to fl ex the boundaries of devolved competence, arguing for inclusion in the delegation to Copenhagen and proposing direct Scotland/ Norway dialogue on sub-sea grids. There is also fl uidity of approach: alongside public criticism of the pace of UK support for CCS, there is co-operation including in accessing EU funds.

The Scottish government has also sought to engage directly with the European Commission, for example, to promote investment in a North Sea supergrid and to access constitutional and fi nancial resources of the EU. The establishment of the Scottish European Green Energy Centre is intended to facilitate such engagement. The government has sought to raise the profi le of Scotland’s natural resource capacity to encourage EU investment, and has used EU policy on grids and transmission charging to act as a lever on the UK government in areas of energy policy that are reserved. But it is also constrained by the EU, and especially by the nature of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Emissions reductions within the traded sector (which includes much of the energy sector), and accounting for these, are determined by the ETS, and so meeting targets which go beyond those set by the EU may require more action within the non-traded sector. However, while this limits the extent to which investment


38

in renewables can contribute towards emissions reductions targets set by the Climate Change (Scotland) Act, such investment does assist in meeting the EU and Scotland’s energy targets.

Finally, the Scottish government is dependent on the co-operation of local government to meet outcomes set out in the National Performance Framework. Although there is no fi rm evidence to suggest that local government is a laggard in climate change mitigation activity, it is not clear that the Scottish government would have the authority to compel local authorities to implement policy changes designed to reach mandatory targets. The Scottish government provides local government with much of its revenue, but the 2007 concordat reduced ring fencing and substantially increased the autonomy of local governments to determine their own policy and spending priorities. We might anticipate that the extent to which local authorities prioritise climate change reducing actions will refl ect the extent to which the Scottish government can maintain leadership and authority derived from widespread political and public support for its climate change policies.

In sum, the Scottish government can and does act to mitigate climate change and promote renewable energy, but its capacity for action is constrained by constitutional, fi scal and other resources, as well as the parameters set by the multi-level institutional environment within which it must operate. Of course, the constitutional and fi scal settlements are not fi xed, and there is a dynamic debate on Scotland’s constitutional future which may enhance Scottish autonomy. But even an independent Scotland would face some autonomy constraints set, for example, by budgetary capacity, EU

state aid rules and directives, and a dependence on the compliance and support of local government.

Whatever the constitutional settlement, public opinion and the public will may pose an additional constraint. A survey carried out for the Scottish government in 2008 found that, while more than half of the respondents considered climate change an important and urgent problem, participation in environmentally conscious behaviours was low (Scottish Government, 2009). Clearly, leadership will be required to engage the public in accepting the lifestyle and behavioural changes required to achieve a low carbon future.

References:Rhodes, R A W (1999), Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2nd edition)Scottish Government (2009b) The Scottish environmental attitudes & behaviours survey 2008.


39

When considering how local government can contribute to decarbonising Scotland, it is important to understand the range of functions and fi nances required and available to these organisations.

Scottish local authorities can be viewed as both political and corporate organisations. Local policy and fi nance decisions are made by councillors who must take constituency and manifesto commitments into account. Local authorities are also corporate bodies delivering a range of functions. They are a service provider, delivering services such as education, social services, housing, refuse collection etc. Local authorities also play a regulatory role, issuing licenses and providing regulatory services such as trading standards and environmental health.

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 2003 established powers and duties for local authorities that can be used to tackle climate change. The Act, and the associated statutory guidance states that “a local authority shall discharge its duties in a way which contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development”. The Act also provides a statutory basis for Community Planning and the Power to Advance Well Being. Community Planning and the Power to Advance Well Being are functions of a local authority and as such should be used in ways which are compatible with the statutory duty of Best Value and other legal obligations.

In 2009, a new public sector duty was established when the Climate Change (Scotland) Act received Royal Ascent. The Act also contains powers to enable the Scottish Ministers, by order, to impose further duties on public bodies in relation to climate change. Guidance on the new duty will be published in 2010.

In addition to the statutory duties contained in the Local Government in Scotland Act (2003) and the Climate Change (Scotland) Act, all Scottish local authorities are signatories to Scotland’s Climate Change Declaration, which is a voluntary initiative designed to encourage, support and coordinate local government action on climate change. Launched in 2007, progress on the Declaration is reported in annual statements from local authorities, all of which are available at www.sustainable-scotland.net/climatechange.

When considering the role for local government in decarbonising Scotland, it is also important to assess how these bodies currently allocate resources. Of course, local government resources are allocated as part of the larger Scottish and UK budgets. In Scotland, therefore, the relationship between the Scottish Government and local government is critical to the distribution of resources. In November 2007, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Scottish Government agreed a new way of working, including a structure to share the responsibility for delivering

The Role for Local Government in Decarbonising Scotland – A First GlanceAmie Fulton, Sustainable Scotland Network


40

on national outcomes and purpose targets (COSLA and Scottish Government, 2007). As part of this new ‘Concordat’, the Scottish government now provides local government with a ‘block grant’ with very few ring-fenced funds. Local government therefore has more freedom to spend resources to best deliver statutory obligations and community needs.

In 2008, Scotland’s Local Authorities total Net Revenue Expenditure was £12.431 billion. Of this fi gure, £4.678 billion was on Education, £2.703 billion was on Social Work services and £1.103 billion was on Police services.

Looking at current public fi nance budgets it is diffi cult to identify annual spending on activities and services that may contribute to decarbonising Scotland. For some years, Scottish local authorities have improved the standard of their housing stock which has often had the added benefi t of improving energy effi ciency of these homes. As the public sector duty in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act, and other drivers like the CRC Energy Effi ciency Commitment begin, it may become easier to identify the fi nancial implications of climate change within local authority budgets.

The Scottish Government has published a delivery plan to begin to map a pathway to delivering the mandatory targets in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act. This plan, and delivering on the mandatory emissions reduction targets, will have many implications for local government service delivery, already spread thin and getting more stretched in the current economic climate. However, this duty also provides an opportunity and the impetus for local authorities to join up and accelerate their work on sustainable development and climate change.

There are many implications for local government when considering the scale of change aspired to in the Scottish Government’s transformational objectives. Many services and functions will be impacted including:

Planning and Enabling infrastructure for new energy systems, encouraging modaltransport shifts in travel patterns and implementing permitted development rights for micro generation

Housing Leading by example with highest standards of energy effi ciency in council housing stock

Finance Implementing a council tax rebate for householders installing energy effi ciency measures and the costs of implementing the CRC Energy Effi ciency Scheme

Leisure Improving and maintaining biodiversity of green space, improving the carbon emissions of leisure facilities and providing opportunities for active, low-carbon travel

Waste Monitoring and utilising landfi ll gas and working to reduce waste arising in households


41

Local government can provide a crucial leadership role in both its actions and its policies. In fact, many Scottish local authorities are currently ‘getting their own house in order’ by reducing operational emissions as part of the Carbon Trust Carbon Management Programme. Scottish authorities are also preparing for the start of the CRC Energy Effi ciency Scheme. Both of these initiatives are useful steps in the effort to decarbonise Scotland. However, the pace of change is sometimes slow, the scale of impact limited and more effective ways of working are required if the much larger transformation objectives are to be met.

The Climate Change Delivery Plan emphasises the importance of public attitudes and behaviours in achieving the statutory targets. Local authorities have an opportunity to lead by example and work with their communities to ensure that infrastructure changes, policies and behaviours are working together to meet the emissions targets. There are obvious opportunities for local government, as a key delivery agent for services to the community, to use their public-facing offi ces and services to encourage low carbon behaviours. However, there is still work to be done and untapped opportunities for local authorities to use their central position in communities to communicate and encourage low carbon behaviours.

In many regards, local government in Scotland has been given the powers and the fi nancial scope to grasp the opportunities that this challenging agenda has posed. However, there is still much work to be done within these organisations to deliver the rapid changes required in the Climate Change Act (Scotland).

References:COSLA and the Scottish Government, 2007. Scottish Spending Budget Review: The Concordat between Scottish and local Government http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/923/0054147.pdfSustainable Scotland Network, 2007. Best Value Toolkit. http://www.sustainable-scotland.net/bestvalue/index.asp?pg=2 Downloaded 26 January 2010.

Further reading:Audit Commission, 2009. Lofty Ambitions: The role of councils in reducing domestic CO2 emissions. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/125742/doclib/get-fi le.do?id=2339701Local Government Association, 2007. A Climate of Change: Final report of the LGA climate change commission. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/125742/doclib/get-fi le.do?id=547244Local Government Association, 2009. Cutting through the Green Tape: The powers councils have to tackle climate change. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/125742/doclib/get-fi le.do?id=862399

For many in our discussions a key issue was the creation of a society, or at least of societal groups testing new social practices – new ‘niches’ in terms of transition theory – which both support and demand action by government to reduce carbon emissions. Against this background, Richard Bellingham presented the Sustainable Glasgow initiative. With an innovative organisational structure and leadership, a city-wide strategy has been developed focusing on known solutions. A shared vision appealing to multiple interests and an underpinning novel analysis have been successful in bringing together a range of actors (including Glasgow City Council, university and industry actors) and changing their agendas. The challenge for the future lies in bringing in private investments and in working out the best type of public-private solutions for different investments. This is a top-down initiative, but its development has sought to factor in community and individual perspectives and proposes to continue to do so in implementation.

Smaller, community level initiatives were also examined for any learning points. The IEA (2009) emphasise the potential for experimentation at the local level. Results may feed into wider policy but also increase receptiveness of citizens to the changed environment and behaviours which national and local policy may seek. Hipwell et al. provided a contribution on the “Switched on to Switching off” project as an example of an experimental (in terms of process, technique and social practice rather than technology), volunteer led approach. This project is intensive in use of volunteer time but tests the hypothesis that peer and motivational support are more effective than more remote advice and information.

One concern discussed in the workshops was that many volunteer based community initiatives tend to draw on the resources of relatively affl uent people. There are, however, also examples of low-carbon work in less affl uent localities; grassroots initiatives can have a role in decarbonisation also in disempowered communities (Middlemiss and Parrish, forthcoming).

Such experiments must of course be evaluated if they are to inform further large-scale efforts; both success and failure present valuable lessons. Hipwell et al refer to the strict norms on evaluation in health research as a standard to aspire to.

In addition, the costs of and barriers to success of community initiatives should not be underestimated. We accept government expenditure on technological innovation because of the tendency of markets to under-invest in new technology, since individual fi rms have limited ability to capture returns on investment. For social, community level innovation, the barriers are arguably greater. New practices may not lend themselves to commercialisation and need volunteer or peer support together with fi nancial support to reach a wide-spread uptake (Steward et al., 2009). While the Climate Challenge Fund has supported a number of groups it remains to be seen whether the activity it has supported will be self-sustaining or infl uence others without further fi nancial support.

42

For many in our discussions a key issue was the creation of a society, or at least of societal groups testing new social practices – new ‘niches’ in terms of transition theory – which both support and demand action by government to reduce carbon emissions. Against this background, Richard Bellingham presented the Sustainable Glasgow initiative. With an innovative organisational structure and leadership, a city-wide strategy has been developed focusing on known solutions. A shared vision appealing to multiple interests and an underpinning novel analysis have been successful in bringing together a range of actors (including Glasgow City Council, university and industry actors) and changing their agendas. The challenge for the future lies in bringing in private investments and in working out the best type of public-private solutions for different investments. This is a top-down initiative, but its development has sought to factor in community and is a top-down initiative, but its development has sought to factor in community and individual perspectives and proposes to continue to do so in implementation.

Smaller, community level initiatives were also examined for any learning points. The

One concern discussed in the workshops was that many volunteer based community initiatives tend to draw on the resources of relatively affl uent people. There are, however, also examples of low-carbon work in less affl uent localities; grassroots initiatives can have a role in decarbonisation also in disempowered communities (Middlemiss and Parrish, forthcoming).

Such experiments must of course be evaluated if they are to inform further large-scale efforts; both success and failure present valuable lessons. Hipwell et al refer to the strict norms on evaluation in health research as a standard to aspire to.

In addition, the costs of and barriers to success of community initiatives should not In addition, the costs of and barriers to success of community initiatives should not be underestimated. We accept government expenditure on technological innovation because of the tendency of markets to under-invest in new technology, since individual fi rms have limited ability to capture returns on investment. For social, community level

3.2 Community level action

One suggestion emerging from the workshops was to set up a dialogue process across Scotland to mobilise ideas for and interest in local experiments, modelled on the Danish experience of grassroots activities. This would have government and academic involvement and support. It could link to an expert group on transitions research, akin to the one that inspired Dutch transitions policy, and could also involve a wider range of stakeholders.

43



44

The Sustainable Glasgow Initiative aims to help Glasgow become one of Europe’s most sustainable cities. For Glasgow this means achieving a mix of objectives – reducing carbon – but also achieving urban regeneration; delivering jobs and training; helping change the city’s image; regenerating communities, and tackling fuel poverty. The initiative is led by the University of Strathclyde in an innovative partnership between academia, the city council, major energy companies, the regional development agency, and investment interests.

The initiative started in Autumn 2008 and over the last year has conducted a set of major feasibility studies into understanding Glasgow’s carbon emissions, and identifying the technically and fi nancially viable opportunities that would signifi cantly reduce the city’s carbon emissions within 10 years1. Realistic opportunities were found that could deliver a 30% emissions reduction. The initiative’s report was published on 27 January, 2010 and is available at www.sustainableglasgow.org.uk. Sustainable Glasgow is an ongoing process. It is early days to evaluate the full impact of the initiative, but there are already signifi cant lessons that can be identifi ed.

Developing the vision and building supportThe initiative developed a shared vision of the city’s low carbon future. Sustainable Glasgow has succeeded in bringing a number of signifi cantly different interests together around a single agenda. This was achieved by deliberately constructing the

initiative’s objectives and vision so that it took account of the objectives and agendas of different public and private organisations – and setting a timescale (10 years) for the delivery of that vision that is both ambitious, achievable, and builds momentum. The 10 year timescale means that initiative is very clearly focussed on approaches that are technically and fi nancially deliverable now – rather than on solutions that may become viable at some indefi nite point in the future. This clear focus on delivering projects has made the initiative credible in the eyes of investors.

By building the initiative to the point of “critical mass”; engaging in dialogue with key stakeholders; and delivering a convincing vision and strategy for Glasgow’s low carbon future, the initiative’s size, momentum, success and reputation has started to attract other partners – from both within the city and internationally. The partners and stakeholders now being drawn into the initiative include Glasgow Housing Association (Europe’s largest landlord), the National Health Service, IBM and the Clyde Gateway programme. Many of these are major investors in the city – as well as having important social dimensions to their objectives. This strong social dimension to the Sustainable Glasgow partnership may prove to be a unique differentiator in relation to other sustainable city initiatives.

The ‘Sustainable Glasgow’ projectRichard Bellingham, University of Strathclyde and Programme Director for Sustainable Glasgow


45

Analytical approachThe university team used new techniques that allowed the city’s carbon emissions and low carbon energy opportunities to be mapped in new ways – allowing the city to be understood holistically, and the spatial relationships between developments, infrastructure, carbon emissions, and resources to be used to identify new opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. This is a radical departure from the conventional approach deployed by planners and utility companies in the UK – which normally considers each development separately, and does not seek to overcome the barriers that often exist between different organisations. This piecemeal approach fails to identify opportunities to link developments together in ways that make new low carbon energy systems viable. The University’s involvement allowed the initiative to take a fresh, independent and evidence based perspective that was not limited by the interests or agenda of any one organisation and ensured that key skills and data were available to the Council and the wider partnership.

The analysis shows that Glasgow is responsible for around 8% of Scotland’s carbon emissions – and the main opportunities for the city lie in the development of district heating networks; harnessing of waste for energy; biomass energy systems; sustainable transport; energy management; and smart grids. By allowing these different technologies to support each other carbon reductions can be maximised and commercial risks reduced. The initiative estimates that delivering these projects could reduce the city’s carbon emissions by 30% within 10 years.

Structure and GovernanceThe municipal level creates real opportunities for achieving decarbonised societies and economies. Cities have the necessary scale to make projects viable, to attract investment and possess many powers that can applied to assist the implementation of a coherent strategic approach.

The study was controlled by a steering group composed of all the partners in the initiative. The University had the leading role in the partnership, controlling the initiative’s scope and direction, and gained strong political support from the Council. This allowed the formulation of a vision and approach that challenged the conventional approach in both the Council and the energy companies – which in turn enabled the identifi cation of new low carbon opportunities, new business models, and new public policies. Taken as a whole, these approaches mean that developers, investors, the Council, and energy companies are starting to think about the city, and their respective roles, in new ways. For example, the Council now sees itself as having a leading role in defi ning, planning and delivering Glasgow’s low carbon energy future – something that it did not perceive as being its role at the beginning of the initiative. A new governance structure is being created to control the ongoing development and implementation of the strategy. Developers and utility companies are now looking beyond the narrow geographic boundaries of their individual projects to identify wider opportunities and potential partnerships.


46

The initiative so far has predominantly been taken forward as a top-down initiative at a city level. Taking the city as a whole (rather than examining individual communities within the city) has proved successful in identifying a signifi cant range of major carbon reduction and business opportunities that are unlikely to have been identifi ed or seen as feasible if smaller geographic areas or communities had been used as the basis for analysis. That said, the study suggests that the initiative will achieve greater impact and success by also engaging with local communities for individual projects.

Business Models and InvestmentImplementing these opportunities will require investment of around £1.5 billion. Most of these projects will generate signifi cant revenues and offer good rates of return on capital investments. Much of this investment is expected to come from the private sector. In addition, by working with existing major investment projects in the city the initiative is succeeding in levering in additional public investment, and should deliver tangible results more quickly.

In urban areas there may be merit in employing business models which include community involvement and or community benefi t – as community based projects are likely to experience lower levels of public opposition. However community involvement needs to be considered in line with the need to meet fi nancing requirements.

More novel and larger scale infrastructure projects are likely to require different business models. For example, because there is no existing heat distribution system, the heat market is unregulated, and the overall size of investment is large, the proposed CHP/

district heating system would benefi t in particular from the creation of a public private partnership to raise capital, implement the infrastructure, and regulate the system’s operation.

A further option for raising and holding the required capital would be the creation of a public private investment trust which could invest in a whole range of low carbon projects across the city – such as renewable electricity, waste to energy, biogas, urban forests, district heating, and transport projects. This trust structure allows for projects to be combined for fi nancial purposes allowing for investment diversity and decreasing potential investor risk – thus allowing more innovative projects to attract funding.

Next StepsEnsuring that the opportunities identifi ed are delivered in reality will require a focussed programme of further activity to bring in the right partners; draw in the necessary funding; resolve regulatory issues; and integrate Sustainable Glasgow proposals into city plans, policies and strategies. Maintaining momentum will require a continued co-ordinated push from the Council and its partners. Projects around the world show that high-level political buy in is vital to building the support of stakeholders and ensuring a lasting positive impact.


47

BackgroundTransition Edinburgh South (TES) is an active, friendly and growing grass-roots community group with 158 members and friends based in south Edinburgh, in the wards of Southside/Newington and Meadows/Morningside, with an approximate population of 40,000. TES is part of the Transition Community Network and loosely follows the transition model, a model that identifi ed the role of its groups ‘to unleash the collective genius of their people to fi nd the answers to these questions: How are we going to signifi cantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change)?’

The TES energy group was keen to identify a practical project to achieve carbon saving in its local area. In 2009, WWF-UK indicated that housing is responsible for a third of carbon emissions and recommended the ‘retrofi tting’ of Scottish housing. In Edinburgh nearly 50% of the housing stock is tenements, with half being pre-1919 and considered ‘hard to treat’. Working in collaboration with Energy Saving Scotland Advice Centre South East (ESSAC) and receiving resources, training and advice from them, has allowed the TES energy group to build capacity and knowledge to conduct energy work in our local community.

The TES focus on community awareness and engagement means that it aims to work closely with the local community to achieve carbon saving. Most of its members adhere

to the ‘cognitive praxis’ of environmental movements, in particular sustainability that might be embedded in limit to growth, localisation of resources and a style of governance based on community driven social ecology, with a participatory policy approach.

Part of this approach includes educating and enabling members to undertake the activities needed to implement projects themselves and capacity building in the local community. We were also interested in the identifi cation of local expertise and resources in the community such as local trades and crafts, academic and professional expertise and potential for training. The social mix in South Edinburgh includes a large proportion of students as well as a settled resident population with local knowledge and expertise. The TES group organised a three stage project to implement decarbonisation.

The fi rst two stages of the ‘Switched on to Switching off’ project (SOSO) focus on energy effi ciency in two pre-1900 tenement streets. TES received funding from the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) for stage 1 in May 2009. Activities included community engagement and the training of volunteers to build capacity for conducting the project. The public engagement part of the project was completed at the end of December 2009, and a post-completion report is now available.

The ‘Switched on to Switching off’ projectMichèle Hipwell, Jamie Auld Smith & Michelle Clark, Transition Edinburgh South


48

TES has received funding for stage 2 and applied for funding for stage 3 of the project. In stage 2, the project team will continue to engage the local community in reducing domestic energy consumption and implementing additional domestic energy effi ciency measures and micro-renewables at the individual, stair and community level. Changeworks (Edinburgh) will also conduct a detailed National Home Energy Rating survey of typical fl ats in one street, which will be used to provide bespoke information to householders. A regular newsletter and interactive website will also be available

In the third stage, the group plans to set up a Community Environment Hub in South Edinburgh, a centre for local residents which will provide personalised advice and support and expert information to reduce carbon by increasing home energy effi ciency, promoting low carbon travel and food choices, recycling, waste reduction and water effi ciency. The group will continue to engage the community through outreach activities such as community events. The centre will also provide a space to train staff and members and to share training promoting sustainable ways of living with other environmental groups. A feasibility study for renewable energy in tenements has also been commissioned. TES is also considering the development of a Combined Heat and Power plant in its local area.

Stage 1 of the projectFor this project TES worked with another community group, the Edinburgh South Energy Effi ciency, in two tenement streets in South Edinburgh: Hope Park Terrace and Woodburn Terrace. The approach adopted combined community engagement with individual engagement of householders, establishing a dialogue with householders

to identify their strengths, concerns and intentions around energy effi cient behaviour and climate change.

The project also trained members with the collaboration of specialists. A training package for motivational interviewing was designed by consultant health psychologists for the project. Motivational interviewing is a person centred approach to behaviour change that combines exploration and guidance and aims to resolve ambivalence about possible change. There is strong evidence of its successful use in health behaviour change. In addition, a two hour evening training on energy effi ciency in the home which concentrated on energy use in tenements and the use of the Home Energy Check (HEC) was provided. An all day training session was also conducted by the Scottish Education for Action and Development. An ‘energy fair’ took place in early September which combined a programme of talks by specialists in energy effi ciency and renewable energy, stalls with information on energy effi ciency and local projects, and events for children It was attended by over 100 members of the local community, including three local MPs and MSPs and resulted in over 30 enquiries each for Changeworks, the ESSAC and other organisations.

Interviewing took place in 2009 and seventy three fl ats in the streets took part in in-depth interviews lasting from 30 minutes to 1 hour. A semi-structured interview combined general questions about households’ view on home energy effi ciency with questions on attitude and knowledge towards climate change and peak oil.


49

The project team and one of the consultants conducted a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the project, including an evaluation of the motivational interviewing skills developed during training, a qualitative analysis of the process and outcome of training and of the interviews, including initial changes in attitudes, intentions, goals and behaviour. The ESSAC received 60 HECs and additional quantitative information was collected about energy effi ciency, including initial carbon reduction, housing information and demographic characteristics of the participants.

RecommendationsIt has always been considered that the completion of Stage 1 of this project alone would be insuffi cient to justify substantial recommendations. The aim of the project is the development of an honest and long term process of engagement to promote substantial shifts in attitudes and intentions, in resolving discrepancy between intentions and behaviour and providing bespoke local information for the facilitation of goal directed behaviour to all aspects of sustainability. The emphasis is on a genuine participatory approach where the vision for the development of low carbon strategies is created through dialogue with the group and the rest of community. The second stage follows closely from the fi rst, and during the course of this, it is hoped to build on the promising initial results and draw more defi nite conclusions about the value of the approach. The project will continue to be closely monitored to determine whether this in-depth approach to decarbonisation is an effective way to increase the involvement of householders in low carbon strategies and promote long term changes in households. Extending outreach to the wider local community in the third stage of the project will also help determine the additional contribution of locally based facilities to promote sustainability.

Within the context of decarbonisation initiatives, this project represents an experimental, theory driven, participatory and to date volunteer-led initiative that will potentially contribute to the development of approaches to low-carbon behaviour change and community-led responses to climate change in Scotland. It also demonstrates a multi-disciplinary approach to climate change, with collaboration of volunteers from community groups, social scientists, engineers, architects and others involved in decarbonisation.

There is also an increasing need for theory driven and evidence based evaluations of the different behaviour change and community based initiatives currently available to address climate change. Projects using different approaches need to be carefully evaluated and compared, using sound qualitative and quantitative research strategies. Motivational interviewing is one example of a behaviour change approach where both training and the outcome of training have been carefully evaluated. In general, health interventions are carefully monitored and evaluated using systematic qualitative and quantitative reviews of the comparative effi cacy of different interventions. This approach to evaluation needs to be developed more systematically and inform policy decisions about the type of public engagement appropriate for a more systematic involvement of civil societies in the decision making processes of strategies leading to decarbonisation.

The making of decarbonisation policy in Scotland is also interlinked with debates around devolution. For example, the UK and Scottish governments have reached different conclusions with regard to nuclear power. Having multiple levels of government making decisions might thus affect the decarbonisation pathway. On other issues, Scottish and UK Governments collaborate closely, although these instances are less visible via media. See the section by workshop presenters McEwen and Morgan for more insights on the dynamics of policy making across multiple levels. More consensus and coordination between Scotland and UK would make the policy landscape less complex for those governed, but having more policy-making bodies also opens up for policy competition, and a race that sometimes goes to the top rather than the bottom (and sometimes not).

For some, Scottish devolution came with the promise of a different style of policy-making. The element of proportional representation in the election system, leading to a parliament with a larger number of smaller parties, with a higher likelihood of minority governments, might be conducive to a more collaborative style of policy-making, which in turn could lay the foundation for a longer-term focus of policy, although that may reduce accountability and the responsiveness of policy makers to public opinion.

The relative importance of different levels of government and their interaction should however also be understood in the wider context of a heritage of liberalised energy markets in the UK. This includes for example a regulatory regime focussed on competition and little public (central or municipal) ownership of assets. Decarbonisation appears to require a step back from liberalisation. For example, the Climate Change

Committee recently stated that for power generation the current combination of markets and market instruments is “not best designed to deliver required long-term decarbonisation,” and called for a fundamental review (CCC, 2009: p3), as cited by Douglas Prentice below.

50

The making of decarbonisation policy in Scotland is also interlinked with debates around devolution. For example, the UK and Scottish governments have reached different conclusions with regard to nuclear power. Having multiple levels of government making decisions might thus affect the decarbonisation pathway. On other issues, Scottish and UK Governments collaborate closely, although these instances are less visible via media. See the section by workshop presenters McEwen and Morgan for more insights on the dynamics of policy making across multiple levels. More consensus and coordination between Scotland and UK would make the policy landscape less complex for those governed, but having more policy-making bodies also opens up for policy competition, and a race that sometimes goes to the top rather than the bottom (and sometimes not).than the bottom (and sometimes not).

For some, Scottish devolution came with the promise of a different style of policy-making. The element of proportional representation in the election system, leading to a

Committee recently stated that for power generation the current combination of markets and market instruments is “not best designed to deliver required long-term decarbonisation,” and called for a fundamental review (CCC, 2009: p3), as cited by Douglas Prentice below.

3.3 Devolution

The discussions at the workshops considered the relationship between policy makers and publics on the issue of climate change policy. One starting point was that public support so far seems to be relatively weak, and that strong action on climate change therefore is a high risk option for politicians. For instance, ambitious climate change targets sit rather uneasily with major investments in roads in Scotland, suggesting that politicians remain wary of giving climate change mitigation priority over other policy drivers including economic development, at least over the shorter term. Some participants, however, disagreed with the picture of public resistance to the need for sacrifi ces for climate change mitigation, suggesting that stronger political leadership may not be so risky. Also, the cases of the smoking ban and the equal opportunities legislation were mentioned as being successfully introduced despite lacking overwhelming public support, at least initially.

Different solutions to the public-policy maker tension were debated. One option suggested was to isolate the policy makers from the policies – for example, delegating responsibility for carbon budgeting to the UK Climate Change Committee – so that they will not be directly blamed for any unpopular initiatives.

A more democratic (and sustainable) strategy is to articulate a case for decarbonisation that is more attractive to large numbers of voters. A dividing line here was whether this case should be made within the current paradigm of economic growth, emphasising technological development and export revenues as selling points, or within an alternative no-growth paradigm (for more information on a no-growth paradigm see Jackson, 2009). It was agreed, however, that either way, the case for decarbonisation

must include a broader message about intergenerational and international justice, health advantages, local economic benefi ts, etc. and not just decarbonisation per se.

The relationship between policy makers and publics is of course not just about votes. The most important role of the public for decarbonisation is in relation to energy consumption practices. Moreover, publics also have ideas and the potential to lead change. All this suggests that involving publics is necessary and that remote, elitist policy making whilst sometimes successful also has serious limitations. On the other hand, the need for change is urgent, and public opinion may change only slowly, suggesting that elements of a technocratic approach cannot be excluded.

The discussions at the workshops articulated different visions of decarbonisation, for example we heard examples of top-down, technology focussed solutions versus bottom-up, community-driven change (more on this in the next section). In relation to this it is worth discussing briefl y the relationship between sustainable development and decarbonisation as policy objectives. It was suggested, on the one hand, that we should not let the sustainable development agenda be narrowed down to only policies dealing with climate change, and that climate change is an opportunity for the development of a broader sustainable development agenda. On the other hand, some of the proposed climate change mitigation solutions, for example carbon capture and storage, fi t more easily with the current growth-oriented consumer society than with common versions of the sustainable development narrative. The visions and ‘imaginaries’ needed to drive social change will need to refl ect a broad set of concerns and desires to attract followers.

51

The discussions at the workshops considered the relationship between policy makers and publics on the issue of climate change policy. One starting point was that public support so far seems to be relatively weak, and that strong action on climate change therefore is a high risk option for politicians. For instance, ambitious climate change targets sit rather uneasily with major investments in roads in Scotland, suggesting that politicians remain wary of giving climate change mitigation priority over other policy drivers including economic development, at least over the shorter term. Some participants, however, disagreed with the picture of public resistance to the need for sacrifi ces for climate change mitigation, suggesting that stronger political leadership may not be so risky. Also, the cases of the smoking ban and the equal opportunities legislation were mentioned as being successfully introduced despite lacking legislation were mentioned as being successfully introduced despite lacking overwhelming public support, at least initially.

Different solutions to the public-policy maker tension were debated. One option

must include a broader message about intergenerational and international justice, health advantages, local economic benefi ts, etc. and not just decarbonisation

The relationship between policy makers and publics is of course not just about votes. The most important role of the public for decarbonisation is in relation to energy consumption practices. Moreover, publics also have ideas and the potential to lead change. All this suggests that involving publics is necessary and that remote, elitist policy making whilst sometimes successful also has serious limitations. On the other hand, the need for change is urgent, and public opinion may change only slowly, suggesting that elements of a technocratic approach cannot be excluded.

The discussions at the workshops articulated different visions of decarbonisation, for example we heard examples of top-down, technology focussed solutions versus bottom-up, community-driven change (more on this in the next section). In relation to

3.4 Publics and policy

The workshop discussion thus exposed diverging opinions and understandings. This is inevitable and it refl ects the workshop participants drawing on a broad range of experience and expertise. In this way it also refl ects the evolving debate in society about energy and climate change and the positions of different stakeholders, and serves to map out at least part of the ideological backdrop against which policy needs to be justifi ed.

A key tension in the discussion was between top-down change and bottom-up initiatives. Part of this tension is about the relationship between policy makers and publics, as discussed above. Another side of this issue is whether top-down, managed change is possible on the scale necessary and in the relatively short time available. Or, conversely, if top-down change is made necessary for the same reasons. Opinions diverge as to what type of governance is most effective. Voices were raised for decentralised solutions, serving both to reconnect energy consumption and production, and to move power to local communities. But there were also those suggesting that centralised solutions have proven to be more effi cient. Clearly, some uses of energy (such as heating) are more suitable for provision by community and decentralised solutions than others.

There was also a tension between technological solutions and new social practices, though most participants agreed that both are needed. It seems clear, though, that technological solutions fi t better with the formal, centralised governance structures, and that changing social practices is sometimes seen as more achievable at a local scale. However, there are examples of centrally-led attitude changes around social practice issues such as smoking and seat belts. For those advocating technological solutions, the

role of industry is crucial for fi nancing, development and implementation, whereas civil society takes on a more prominent role if the focus is shifted towards social practices. At a rather fundamental level, some questioned the compatibility of continued economic growth and decarbonisation, whereas other stressed the necessity of leveraging the power of private industry.

These tensions are not new and they are here sketched out in very simplifi ed forms, but they can nevertheless help us understand the current debate on energy and climate change. The workshop participants appeared to agree that there is now less faith in markets and voluntary action in delivering the desired changes to the energy system. For example, see Douglas Prentice’s contribution on fi nancing mechanisms (below), which refers to concerns raised by the Climate Change Committee regarding the state of energy market regulation.

This characterisation of the debate is to some extent a consequence of how the workshops were designed. The second workshop was partly oriented towards exploring community level initiatives, and this is likely to have reinforced the emphasis on decentralisation and civil society. Nevertheless, in the short term the fi nancial crisis limits the viability of relying heavily on private capital so less capital intensive decarbonisation actions become increasingly important. And, given the scale of change required to decarbonise, society will arguably have to undergo quite radical change in the medium to long term.

52

The workshop discussion thus exposed diverging opinions and understandings. This is inevitable and it refl ects the workshop participants drawing on a broad range of experience and expertise. In this way it also refl ects the evolving debate in society about energy and climate change and the positions of different stakeholders, and serves to map out at least part of the ideological backdrop against which policy needs to be justifi ed.

A key tension in the discussion was between top-down change and bottom-up initiatives. Part of this tension is about the relationship between policy makers and publics, as discussed above. Another side of this issue is whether top-down, managed change is possible on the scale necessary and in the relatively short time available. Or, conversely, if possible on the scale necessary and in the relatively short time available. Or, conversely, if top-down change is made necessary for the same reasons. Opinions diverge as to what type of governance is most effective. Voices were raised for decentralised solutions, serving both to reconnect energy consumption and production, and to move power

role of industry is crucial for fi nancing, development and implementation, whereas civil society takes on a more prominent role if the focus is shifted towards social practices. At a rather fundamental level, some questioned the compatibility of continued economic growth and decarbonisation, whereas other stressed the necessity of leveraging the power of private industry.

These tensions are not new and they are here sketched out in very simplifi ed forms, but they can nevertheless help us understand the current debate on energy and climate change. The workshop participants appeared to agree that there is now less faith in markets and voluntary action in delivering the desired changes to the energy system. For example, see Douglas Prentice’s contribution on fi nancing mechanisms (below), For example, see Douglas Prentice’s contribution on fi nancing mechanisms (below), which refers to concerns raised by the Climate Change Committee regarding the state of energy market regulation.

3.5 Some unresolved tensions

A further tension in the discussions was between incremental changes intended to grow or accumulate into systemic change, and more immediate and disruptive large system changes. The case for disruptive change is built on the urgency of climate mitigation and the need for very large emissions reductions, alongside suspicions that an incremental strategy may in the end deliver only incremental changes, not transformative change. The case for incremental change is built on the uncertainty of how to achieve the changes needed, a need to explore options further and an assumption that society may be more willing and able to deal with a gradual change than a dramatic step change. In this context it may also be worth considering the risk of backlashes against strong pro-environmental agendas, as was discussed in the case of Denmark. The need for decarbonisation is urgent, however, and the case for stronger interventionist action is getting stronger. These tensions suggest that the political landscape is changing, where new compromises can be made and new solutions can be supported. We suggest that these new solutions will entail larger roles for both government interventions as well as for civil society action.

53

A further tension in the discussions was between incremental changes intended to grow or accumulate into systemic change, and more immediate and disruptive large system changes. The case for disruptive change is built on the urgency of climate mitigation and the need for very large emissions reductions, alongside suspicions that an incremental strategy may in the end deliver only incremental changes, not transformative change. The case for incremental change is built on the uncertainty of how to achieve the changes needed, a need to explore options further and an assumption that society may be more willing and able to deal with a gradual change than a dramatic step change. In this context it may also be worth considering the risk of backlashes against strong pro-environmental agendas, as was discussed in the case of Denmark. The need for decarbonisation is urgent, however, and the case for stronger of Denmark. The need for decarbonisation is urgent, however, and the case for stronger interventionist action is getting stronger. These tensions suggest that the political landscape is changing, where new compromises can be made and new solutions can be supported. We suggest that these new solutions will entail larger roles for both


54


The global ecological footprint of humans is generally increasing as wealth increases. This poses a serious challenge to all policies aimed at reducing our general effect on the environment and our CO2 emissions particularly. Figure 1 shows this.

As is well established empirically, energy use per capita continues to grow despite very considerable improvements in energy effi ciency since the oil crises of the 1970s. This is shown in Figure 2. This increase in energy use has also been a major contributory factor in recent CO2 emissions growth, when overall GHG emissions have been decreasing in the UK. Recent research suggests that despite attempts targeted at (and successes in) improving energy effi ciency the two main causes of growing energy use, and with this growing energy related emissions, are in housing and personal transport.

As the Financial Times reported on 12 October 2009, liberalisation of the UK’s energy market should be reversed, with ministers taking more control of decisions such as building new renewable energy generation, according to the government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC). The call for a U-turn on 20 years of government policy that has created one of the world’s most liberal energy markets came as CCC Chairman Lord Turner concluded that the deregulated markets produced neither the needed investment in low-carbon forms of energy nor a diversity of supply. “We are questioning whether we have gone too far in deregulating the energy market,” said David Kennedy, the CEO of the CCC committee. “The strongest way [to achieve lower output from utilities] is mandatory investment in low-carbon power” (Harvey, 2009).

Energy & emissions reduction fi nancing mechanismsDouglas JP Prentice, EurocapitalGroup

Figure 1: Global ecological footprint (ha of land use)& GDP per person for 135 countries

France

UK

U.S.A.

Switzerland

AustriaGermanyItaly

Glo

bal

eco

log

ical

foo

tpri

nt/

cap

ita

(ha)

12

10

8

6

4

2

00 2000010000 30000 40000

GDP/capita (Int. dollars 2001 PPP)Source: Holm and Englund (2009)

55


The situation in fi nancial markets continues to de diffi cult. Debt fi nancing is still exceptionally diffi cult, notwithstanding the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme, except for the very biggest projects with state backing where credit risks are better controlled. Banks are still rebuilding their balance sheets, which is easier in Europe then the US. Asset backed fi nancing is easier but still not as it was, due to fewer providers on the market, and those around providing lower funding levels. Offtake fi nancing is easier still, but not as good as pre-Lehman. Regarding equity there is increasing interest in the area from private equity funds and some hedge funds but the attitude to risk has moved greatly and a lot of funds are sitting on cash, primarily it is thought due to currency risk. Sovereign Wealth Funds are cash rich but many were burned by too early exposure to US pre-Lehman and are now much more cautious. Therefore there is great potential in government energy infrastructure projects, carbon capture and storage, etc. However, there is a lack of concrete policies, and many of the policies are still too aspirational and long term. Social fi nance/investment area is showing a more positive response, together with considerable and increasing potential from ethical/green institutional funds.

An interesting potential is in energy cooperatives which could help to address several relevant considerations, e.g. high levels of capital expenditure and limited resources, externalities and meaningful stakeholder participation. Including hybrid commercial-

Source: Holm and Englund (2009)

Figure 2: Energy use and energy/GDP 1960-2002

USA

Europe

100

80

60

40

20

01960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Ener

gy

(exa

jou

le)

Energy use

Energy/GDP

56


cooperative forms of fi nancing, it is felt that this area offers considerable potential. Such structures already exist in wind farms and some anaerobic digestion projects. There is therefore the possibility to extend the idea to many forms of energy generation: solar, combined solar-wind and combined wind-biogas, as well as to community transport.

The CHP project at Lothian Waste offers an interesting case study. A site at Millerhill has been selected to reprocess Edinburgh & Midlothian municipal waste and possibly also from East Lothian. CHP is good in theory, but heat offtake is a big problem in practice and this issue is being very actively addressed. At the site there is the possibility to deploy several renewable energy technologies and the proposal is to structure a bid as a hybrid cooperative with local community energy cooperatives and private sector capital providers. Similar opportunities exist in many cities and bigger towns, also in agriculture anaerobic digestion.

References:

Harvey, Fiona (2009) Government climate body calls for U-turn over energy deregulation. Financial

Times. www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93dc7126-b6c5-11de-8a28-00144feab49a.html

Holm, S and Englund, G (2009) Increased ecoeffi ciency and gross rebound effect: Evidence from

USA and six European countries 1960–2002, Ecological Economics 68:879–887.

4 Discussion

This section will draw out the key messages from the programme, based primarily on workshop discussions. The section will address each of the three key objectives of the programme:

1) to explore alternative policy frameworks for governing and delivering decarbonisation (section 4.1),

2) to investigate the feasibility of applying the identifi ed policy approaches for decarbonisation in Scotland (4.2) and

3) to raise interesting new research questions about how to manage and deliver system change that can be tackled through further interdisciplinary research collaboration (4.3).

57

The Governing Decarbonisation programme explored questions of how to manage the transition to a low carbon society in Scotland. The discussions among the programme participants lend some support for the following proposal.

It is early days for the application of transitions management as an approach, and therefore proof of its effectiveness is limited. There is relatively little practical experience, or examples of managed (or steered) transitions being delivered in the real world. Nevertheless given the problems in achieving the speed and scope of change sought by policymakers solely through market based mechanisms its application should be considered.

A key message from the workshops is the need for both top-down and bottom-up driven action. This is in part about the need to be responsive to those initiatives and experiments that are ongoing. This is also about the need for social change, often happening at local scales. Social change needs to happen alongside technical change as well as enabling technical solutions. The Danish case demonstrated the effectiveness of energy planning, alongside an active public debate and stimulated by local and community activities.

Scotland should consider pursuing an integrated policy approach based on a combination of top-down steering and bottom-up experimentation, with less dominance of market-based measures than is currently the case.

It’s worth being clear what the notion of experimentation means in this context. It means that something is not proven. This may not be the solution as such, but can

also be its application in a new context or at a larger scale. Experimentation here does not necessarily mean technological R&D, but also, for example, developing new social practices, testing an existing organisational model in a new location, or transferring a technology between sectors.

There is an important difference between experimentation in new actions (practices, technologies, etc.), and experimentation in scaling up and rolling out the solutions once they have been tried out. Supporting small scale, localised experiments is one thing, but how can they be made to have a bigger impact on society, leading to broader change? There is a need for experimentation in the process of diffusion and up-scaling – including policy action to support this. Learning from experiments can be used to scale up the project/action or to replicate it in other places.

However, scaling-up solutions can be diffi cult. For example, the activities of the ‘Switched on to Switching off’ project are dependent on voluntary work that may be diffi cult to mobilise across a very large scale. Scaling up may require professionalization of the work, and thus a different funding model (Hess, 2007). On the other hand, voluntary work can be inexpensive and thus an attractive approach if enough people can be involved. Replication also has its challenges as local experimentation is likely to depend on the specifi cs of the local setting. Solutions need to be adapted to fi t other places.Whatever strategy is chosen, it is important that there are processes in place to learn from the experiments, and that Government at different levels is prepared to follow up with sustained support for further change towards system transitions, rather than just one-off initiatives.

58

4.1 New policy approaches and ideas

A processual and refl exive style of policy making is needed, with monitoring and evaluation providing evidence about the effects of experiments and laying the foundations further initiatives.

Moreover, the urgency of decarbonisation suggests that solutions with large emissions reduction potential in the near future should be prioritised. Accordingly, there were discussions at the workshops about whether there is enough time to experiment. To meet relatively short term targets, to 2020, more radical, novel solutions may be too slow to make an impact. The transitions approach offers a way of steering short term action towards long term goals, but may need to be re-focussed from highly novel ideas, to also include less radical options.

With this kind of policy – be it at Scottish, UK or other levels – there is also a need for policy experimentation and learning, in different ways. Experiments may take the form of trials with changed policies such as relaxed building regulations in an area to allow for new solutions to be implemented and tested. Moreover, experimentation works best in conditions of uncertainty, as a way of learning more about what works and how. This also means that monitoring and evaluation of experiments is necessary, in order to learn from them. Another consequence is that there will be failures, and policy makers and others need to be prepared to take risks.Challenges to the transitions approachThe discussions also raised several problematical issues around how a transitions policy should be designed. The workshop participants were sceptical about the scope for managing (in the sense of controlling) system change, echoing Dutch experience. Societies and economies are open to many long and short term internal and external

infl uences that are likely to be outside the ability of any transitions policy system to “manage”. A looser ‘steering’ approach may be needed. On the other hand, the policy recipe of transitions management also calls for control policies: a ‘stick’ as well as ‘carrot’ to drive system change. This is clearly politically more diffi cult to do, as it will challenge incumbent interests head on, and may not be easily aligned with the goals of energy security and affordability. Also, the scope to do this at Scottish level may be limited both by available policy levers, and also the political will to act in isolation. Finally, the aim of ‘destabilising’ the system can also be seen as too risky and uncontrollable. Nevertheless, large change is needed, and there needs to be suffi cient pressure on the system to change. An intentional decarbonisation transition presupposes effective control policies. In the third workshop, it was suggested that increased accountability of companies and organisations with regard to their carbon footprints would be key to the development of effective control policies.

Our discussions also touched on the politics of transitions. For example, Adrian Smith highlighted the risk of cooption of visions by actors dedicated to preserving current social structures, whilst there is clearly also a need to mobilise private capital for the investments needed for a transition. The unresolved tensions in the debates also highlight the varying, and sometimes confl icting, visions that different actors have for what kind of society we should aim towards. Finally, there are also issues around the distributional effects of different policies – between rich and poor, between urban and rural areas, etc. Transitions policy will need to be not only effective, but also equitable, as far as is possible. There is clearly more to be said about this issue of justice than can be covered in this report, but it must be considered when developing visions and plans for a low carbon future.

59


Transitions policy is politically challenging, and requires leadership to ensure equitable outcomes and apply suffi cient pressure on the energy system whilst mobilising private capital.

There were also questions raised about whether such transitions policy could deliver in terms of the timing and the size of emissions reductions achievable. Especially against a background of continued high greenhouse gas emissions. While the Dutch seem to be able to demonstrate some examples of success, little is known about impacts of specifi c policies. There is a need for more systematic knowledge about the effectiveness of experiments, across different sectors, and countries.

Another issue is that of a transition policy’s relation to other energy policies. The Dutch transitions approach is in some ways similar to what is already being done in the UK in terms of, for example, energy-related R&D and investment support. However, the Dutch approach seems impressive with regard to developing long term visions, coordinating different policy areas, as well as fostering collaborative processes for innovation across government and together with industry.

It is important to ensure that a transitions policy does not become a separate policy track, but is integrated with wider energy policy, and economic and social policy more generally.

Practical experiment projects rarely fi t neatly into the domain of one policy area alone, and may require and suggest actions across policy areas.

60


To work effectively in Scotland (and the UK), a transitions policy would need to harness multiple levels of government. We saw in the case of the US that the interplay between different levels of government can, at its best, drive experimentation, and the overall development of decarbonisation policy.

Collaboration across local, Scottish, UK and EU levels of government needs to be part of a transitions policy.

Scotland clearly has greater scope to act in some areas than in others, as defi ned by the resources available and by devolution arrangements. In addition to coordination with multiple levels of government, Scottish government has more scope to take a lead in areas such as support for community action, than, say, changing the regulation of energy markets. Community action has the potential to try out new social practices (as well as experiment with technology) and to build support for wider climate policy.

Community level action has important roles to play in decarbonisation transitions.

Building on the delivery plansIn an effort to better defi ne a long term vision and begin to set out plans to achieve it, the UK and Scottish Governments have both set out their delivery plans. The Scottish Delivery Plan (Scottish Government, 2009a) – and UK Transition Plan (HM Government, 2009) – are focussed on measures including fi nancial instruments (subsidies and investments), technology (demonstrations, R&D) and regulation, and some information provision and promotion, backed up by economic analysis.

Existing policies are innovative, with for example the Scottish Climate Change Act including new policy ideas such as annual targets and duties on public bodies. However, the current delivery plans have relatively little to say about how to manage and organise the social and institutional processes that may lead to the change required, and often about who the specifi c actors are that will take these actions. The language is dominated by specifi c ‘actions’ and ‘measures’, which are crucial for success of course, but these actions and measures are often ‘black-boxed’, in that they do not show, convincingly, how the policy action leads to the desired outcome. There is a need to be more explicit on processes, ways of working as well as business models and organisational models.

We believe that the analysis behind future delivery policy would benefi t from a strengthened input from social sciences, addressing issues of change processes.

As discussed in the workshops, there is also a need for qualitative visions alongside the established quantitative targets. Visions and narratives about where society is heading can help coordinate actors and motivate action. Such policy may be diffi cult to evaluate and manage, but may engage and speak more directly to many actors.

61

4.2 Transitions policy for Scotland

We hope that this report has helped explore the case for a transitions approach to policy for decarbonisation. Clearly there are many unanswered questions, which could be addressed in future studies and initiatives with more time for in-depth analysis. Some of the key questions include the following:

– What kind of experiments work best, including both experimentation in new solutions, and in diffusion and up-scaling?

– What good examples are there of policy following up and learning from experiments? What can research on evidence-based policy making tell us about this?

– How can improved evidence of the effectiveness and applicability in different circumstances of different transitions approaches be gathered and used to infl uence policy?

– What existing policies sympathetic to transitions approaches exist in Scotland already, e.g. the Climate Challenge Fund?

– Apart from the particular multi-level government arrangements in Scotland, what is specifi c about achieving system transitions in Scotland, with its particular history, culture, geography, etc?

For the research community, there is also the challenge of understanding whether there is a need to develop a revised approach to transitions policy that responds to the demands for delivering urgent, large-scale change. To answer these questions, we propose the establishment of a research-based expert network on decarbonisation transitions, to better support policy making in this area. Finally, then, a key question is how the research community, policy makers and others can better engage with each

other to attempt to resolve the tensions between different understandings and visions of transitions.

The objective of an expert network on decarbonisation transitions was discussed at the third workshop. Suggestions for objectives were wide-ranging, including a ‘clearing house’ for information and research on experiments and transitions, identifying and promoting good examples of political leadership, and being an independent source of advice and support for community groups and other stakeholders more broadly. There was a clear interest in setting up a network to connect academics with policy makers and other actors.

We propose a network of academics, policy makers and others to further explore the issues raised in this programme and to develop practicable policy proposals for transitions policy for Scotland.

It was also noted that there are a number of established networks tackling climate change issues, and unnecessary duplication should be avoided. However, some overlap of interests can be benefi cial, and a network on decarbonisation transitions promises to contribute distinctive insights.

For now, this discussion perhaps raises more questions than answers. But it is our hope that it contributes to the long-term thinking, vision-making and translation of policy targets into real action and change, across society, that Scotland will need to undertake in the coming months and years.

62

4.3 Research needs

63

References

Audit Commission (2009) Lofty Ambitions: The role of councils in reducing domestic CO2 emissions. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/125742/doclib/get-fi le.do?id=2339701

AWEA, American Wind Energy Association (2008) Wind Energy Production Tax Credit (PTC) Factsheet. http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/ptc_fact_sheet.pdf

Byrne, J et al. (1998) An Equity-and Sustainability- Based Policy Response to Global Climate Change. Energy Policy, 26(4): 335-343.

Byrne, J., Hughes, K., Rickerson, W. and Kurdgelashvili, L. (2007) American Policy Confl ict in the Greenhouse: Divergent Trends in Federal, Regional, State, and Local Green Energy and Climate Change Policy. Energy Policy, 35(9): 4555-4573.

CCC, The Climate Change Committee (2009) Meeting Carbon Budgets – the need for a step change. Progress report to Parliament. Executive Summary.

Correlje, A. and Verbong, G. (2004) The transition from coal to gas: radical change of the Dutch gas system, in System Innovation and the Transition to Sustainability: Theory, Evidence and Policy (Eds) Elzen, B., Geels, F. and Green, K. (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, Glos) pp 114 – 136.

COSLA and the Scottish Government (2007) Scottish Spending Budget Review: The Concordat between Scottish and local Government http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/923/0054147.pdf

Danish Energy Agency (2009) Danish Energy Policy 1970-2009. Vision: 100% independence of fossil fuels, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ekins, P. and Skea, J. (eds) (2009) Making the transition to a secure and low-carbon energy system: synthesis report, UK Energy Research Centre, London.

Energy Transition (2008) Energy Innovation Agenda. http://www.senternovem.nl/mmfi les/Energy%20Innovation%20Agenda%2009-09-2008_tcm24-281800.pdf

Garud, R. and Karnøe, P. (2003) Bricolage versus breakthrough: distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship, Research Policy, 32(2): 277-300

Geels, F. (2002) Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfi guration processes: a multi-level perspective and a case-study. Research Policy 31: 1257-1274.

Geels, F. (2004) From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory. Research Policy, 33(6/7), 897-920Geels, F. (2005) The dynamics of transitions in socio-technical systems: A multi-level analysis of the transition pathway from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles (1860-1930). Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 17:4, 445-476.

Geels, F. (2006) Major system change through stepwise reconfi guration: a multi-level analysis of the transformation of American factory production (1850-1930). Technology in Society 28(4), 445-476.

64

References

General Energy Council and Council for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (2004) Energy transition: A climate for new opportunities, The Hague, Netherlands.

Goldenberg, S. (2010) Pentagon to rank global warming as destabilising force, The Guardian, Sunday 31 January 2010.

Harvey, F. (2009) Government climate body calls for U-turn over energy deregulation. Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93dc7126-b6c5-11de-8a28-00144feab49a.html

Hess, D. (2007) Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation and the Environment in an Era of Globalization, The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Holm, S and Englund, G (2009) Increased ecoeffi ciency and gross rebound effect: Evidence from USA and six European countries 1960–2002, Ecological Economics 68:879–887.

Hughes, K. (2009a) An Applied Local Sustainable Energy Model: The Case of Austin, Texas. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 29(2): 108-123.

Hughes, K. (2009b) The City as a Community-Based Force for Sustainability in Energy Systems. Dissertation Submitted to the University of Delaware, Newark.

HM Government (2009) The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan – National strategy for climate and energy

IEA (2004) Energy Policies of IEA Countries – Netherlands - 2004 Review. IEA, Paris.

IEA (2006) Energy Policies of IEA Countries: Denmark 2006 Review. IEA, Paris. http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2006/denmark2006.pdf

IEA (2008) Energy Policies of IEA Countries – Netherlands - 2008 Review. IEA, Paris.

IEA (2009) Cities, Towns and Renewable Energy – Yes In My Front Yard. IEA, Paris.

Jackson, T. (2009) Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Earthscan.

Jamison, A. (2001) The Making of Green Knowledge, Cambridge University Press.

Jamison, A. (2004) Learning from Lomborg: or where do anti-environmentalists come from? Science as Culture, 13(2); 173-195

Kemp, R., Schot, J. and Hoogma, R. (1998) Regime Shifts through Processes of Niche Formation: the approach of Strategic Niche Management. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management 10: 175-195.

Kern, F. and Smith, A. (2008) Restructuring energy systems for sustainability? Energy transition policy in the Netherlands. Energy Policy 36: 4093-4103.

Lipp, J. (2007) Lessons for effective renewable electricity policy from Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, Energy Policy 35: 5481–5495

65

References

Local Government Association (2007) A Climate of Change: Final report of the LGA climate change commission. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/125742/doclib/get-fi le.do?id=547244

Local Government Association (2009) Cutting through the Green Tape: The powers councils have to tackle climate change. http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/125742/doclib/get-fi le.do?id=862399Middlemiss, L. and Parrish, B. (forthcoming) Building capacities for low-carbon communities: The role of grassroots initiatives, Energy Policy.

O’Riordan, T. (2009) Conclusions, in Adger and Jordan (eds) Governing Sustainability. Cambridge University Press.

Pew Center on Global Climate Change (2010) Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards. http://www.pewclimate.org/sites/default/modules/usmap/pdf.php?fi le=5905

Pew Center on Global Climate Change (2009) Renewable & Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards. http://www.pewclimate.org/sites/default/modules/usmap/pdf.php?fi le=5907

Rhodes, R A W (1999), Control and Power in Central-Local Government Relations, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2nd edition.

Roland-Holst et al. (2009) Clean Energy and Climate Policy for U.S. Growth and Job Creation. Berkeley, CA: College of Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley.

Scottish Government (2009a) Climate change delivery plan – Meeting Scotland’s statutory climate change targets.

Scottish Government (2009b) The Scottish environmental attitudes & behaviours survey 2008.

Smith, A and Kern, F. (2009) The transitions storyline in Dutch environmental policy. Environmental Politics 18(1): 78-98.

Stern, N. (2007) The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Steward, F., Liff, S. and Dunkelman, M. (2009) Mapping the Big Green Challenge. NESTA.

Sustainable Scotland Network (2007) Best Value Toolkit. http://www.sustainable-scotland.net/bestvalue/index.asp?pg=2 Downloaded 26 January 2010.

Union of Concerned Scientists (2009) Production Tax Credit for Renewable Energy http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/solutions/big_picture_solutions/production-tax-credit-for.html

66

References

van der Vleuten, E. and Raven, R. (2006) Lock-in and change: Distributed generation in Denmark in a long-term perspective, Energy Policy 34: 3739–3748.

Voss, J-P., Smith, A. and Grin, J. (2009) Designing long-term policy: rethinking transition management, Policy Sciences 42:275–302.

67

Appendix A: Workshop Programme Agendas

Day 1- September 3, 2009

9:00 Registration & Coffee9:15 Introduction and keynote presentation by Colin Imrie10:30 Policy Approaches to System Transformation & Introduction to Transitions Management (Mark Winskel)11:15 Coffee11:30 Dutch Transitions Management Policy (Hugo Brouwer)12:30 Lunch1:30 Transitions Management Breakout Groups & Report Back3:00 Danish Energy Experience (Andrew Jamison)4:00 Danish Experience Breakout Groups & Report Back5:00 Recap of Day5:15 Wine Reception

Day 2- September 4, 2009

9:15 Registration & Coffee9:30 Introduction10:00 The Pros and Cons of Transition Management: An Academic Comment (Adrian Smith) & Breakout Groups12:00 Lunch1:00 Lessons and Implications for Scotland and the UK Breakout Groups & Report Back3:00 Coffee3:15 Plenary discussion & Summing up 4:00 Close of workshop

Governing Decarbonisation Agenda – Workshop 1September 3-4, 2009

68


Day 1: Wednesday November 18th

9:00 Registration and Coffee/Tea9:30 Welcome and Introduction

Policy Risk, Financial Risk and Climate Change Policy10:00 Brian Wynne, Lancaster University: The role of uncertainty and risk in climate change policy making10:30 Douglas Prentice, Eurocapital Group Ltd: The role of the fi nance sector and fi nancial risk in a decarbonisation transition11:00 Coffee and Tea Break11:15 Breakout Groups: Dimensions of Risk in Decarbonisation12:00 Reporting Back from Breakout Groups and Discussion12:30 Lunch

Multi-level Governance (part 1)1:30 Nicola McEwen, University of Edinburgh: Scottish climate change policy in a multi-level governance structure1:50 Jane Morgan, University of Strathclyde: Scottish Government’s scope for action2:10 Panel Discussion and Q&A (Nicola and Jane)2:40 Coffee and Tea Break3:00 Amie Fulton, Sustainable Scotland Network: The role of Scottish local authorities and communities3:40 Ross Loveridge, Scottish European Green Energy Centre: The relationship between Scotland and the EU4:20 Plenary Discussion on Multi-level Governance5:00 Close of Day 1

Governing Decarbonisation Agenda – Workshop 2November 18-19, 2009

69


Day 2: Thursday November 19th

9:00 Coffee and Tea9:15 Welcome and Recap of Day 1

Multi-level Governance (part 2)9:30 Kristen Hughes, Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy, USA: Multi-level governance of climate change in the USA and the importance of American sub-national efforts.10:00 Plenary Discussion on American Case Study11:00 Coffee and Tea Break11:15 Matthew Harwood, Scottish Power: How Scottish Power engages with different levels of government12:00 Lunch

Decarbonisation projects at a community level12:45 Richard Bellingham, University of Strathclyde: Sustainable Glasgow1:15 Michèle Hipwell/Jamie Auld Smith, Transitions Edinburgh South: Switched on to Switching off1:45 Breakout Groups: Support and Evaluation of Experimental Projects2:30 Reporting Back from Breakout Groups and Discussion2:55 Break

Concluding session3:10 Philip Wright, Scottish Government: The Scottish Government’s response to climate change4:10 Summary, Next steps4:30 Close of Workshop

Governing Decarbonisation Agenda – Workshop 2November 18-19, 2009

70


Morning Session

9:00 Registration and Coffee 9:30 Welcome and Introduction9:50 Presentation of Draft Programme Summary Report - Nils Markusson10:30 Panel of Commentators - Duncan McLaren, Friends of the Earth Scotland - Joseph Murphy, University of Leeds - Andy Kerr, University of Edinburgh11:00 Coffee/Tea Break11:30 Plenary Discussion of Draft Report 12:30 Lunch

Afternoon Session

1:30 Introduction to Afternoon Session 1:45 The Way Forward: Plenary Discussion Session 2:15 Speed Networking Session 3:15 Coffee/Tea Break3:45 Collaboration Wall4:30 Conclusions, Taking this forward & Wrap up5:00 Wine Reception

Governing Decarbonisation Agenda – Workshop 3February 9, 2010

71

Appendix B: Workshop Participants

Participated in Governing Decarbonisation Workshop 1September 3-4, 2009

Francisco Ascui Edinburgh University

George Baxter Scottish and Southern Energy

Richard Bellingham Strathclyde University

Noam Bergman Oxford University

Chas Booth Association for the Conservation of Energy

Hugo Brouwer Dutch Government, Energy Transitions Directorate

Matthew Celnik Doosan Babcock

Claire Doherty Scottish Power

Tim Foxon Leeds University

Colin Imrie Scottish Government

Tom Houghton Strathclyde University

Rachel Howell Edinburgh University

Andrew Jamison Aalborg University

Andrew Kerr Edinburgh University

Kirsty Lewin Scottish Government

Nils Markusson Edinburgh University

Nicola McEwen Edinburgh University

Duncan McLaren Friends of the Earth Scotland

Brighid Moran Edinburgh University

Jane Morgan Strathclyde University

Ben Murray Consultant

Judith Robertson Oxfam Scotland

Stewart Russell Edinburgh University

Simon Shackley Edinburgh University

Adrian Smith SPRU, Sussex University

Lise Tole Strathclyde University

Mark Winskel Edinburgh University

72


Participated in Governing Decarbonisation Workshop 2November 18-19, 2009

Jamie Auld Smith Transition Edinburgh South

Richard Bellingham University of Strathclyde

Chas Booth Stop Climate Chaos Scotland

Peter Booth University of Strathclyde

Catherine Brys Doosan Babcock

Noel Cass Lancaster University

Jane Findlay Fife Council

Amie Fulton Sustainable Scotland Network

Nick Gotts Macaulay Land Use Research Institute

Dave Hawkey Scottish Government

Matthew Harwood Scottish Power

Michele Hipwell Transition Edinburgh South

Kristen Hughes University of Delaware

Kirsty Lewin Scottish Government

Gordon Liddle University of Dundee

Sonia Liff Appleby Ltd

Ross Loveridge Scottish European Green Energy Centre

Nils Markusson University of Edinburgh

Michael Marra Oxfam

Nicola McEwen University of Edinburgh

Stuart McIntyre University of Strathclyde

Brighid Moran University of Edinburgh

Jane Morgan University of Strathclyde

Douglas Prentice Eurocapital Group Ltd

Sheena Richardson East Lothian Council

Stewart Russell University of Edinburgh

James Simpson Scottish Government

Ben Twist University of Edinburgh

Janette Webb University of Edinburgh

Mark Winskel University of Edinburgh

Philip Wright Scottish Government

Brian Wynne Lancaster University

73


Participated in Governing Decarbonisation Workshop 3February 9, 2010

Jamie Auld Smith Transition Edinburgh South

Richard Bellingham Strathclyde University

Chas Booth Association for the Conservation of Energy

Quentin Cooper

Jane Findlay Fife Council

Nick Gotts Macaulay Institute

Jim Hammond Edinburgh University

Liz Hawkins Scottish Government

Michèle Hipwell Transition Edinburgh South

Rhys Howell Edinburgh University

David Infi eld Strathclyde University

Andrew Kerr Edinburgh University

Stuart Knowles Fife Council

Gordon Liddle Dundee University

Nils Markusson Edinburgh University

Duncan McLaren Friends of the Earth Scotland

Malcolm McRobert Sustainability Insight

Brighid Moran Edinburgh University

Jane Morgan Strathclyde University

Joseph Murphy Leeds University

Ben Murray Blackwood Environmental Consulting

Douglas Prentice Eurocapital Group

Judith Robertson Oxfam Scotland

Jan Webb Edinburgh University

Rebekah Widdowfi eld Scottish Government

Mark Winskel Edinburgh University

Chen (Jelly) Zheng Napier University

Documents

New Governing Decarbonisation in Scotland Exploring the … documents/Gov... · 2010. 6. 8. · Governing Decarbonisation in Scotland Exploring the Transitions Options Summary Report