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5 - Governing Energy Transitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2021

Peter Newell
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

After setting out the centrality of governance to understanding and engaging with energy transitions, I show how ideologies and strategies of governance have been shaped by broader shifts in capitalism around neo-liberalism regarding the role of the state and the re-scaling of the global economy through processes of globalisation. I show how at every level from local, city, national, to regional and global governance, political systems reflect and are imbued with the structural and material power of incumbent energy providers and interests, reinforced by institutional power through high levels of access and representation in the key discussion and decision-making centres to frame their needs as congruent with those of the state and their energy pathways as the most viable for tackling the energy trilemma of energy poverty, security and sustainability. I describe an energy governance complex: a web of distributed (but unevenly concentrated) power and agency over different parts of the energy system and its multi-functionality. Ecologising governance draws attention not only to its interconnections and interdependencies but also to its ecological blindness.

Type
Chapter
Information
Power Shift
The Global Political Economy of Energy Transitions
, pp. 137 - 169
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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