Co-creating policies on societal transformations as a factor of resilience of modern society

Abstract

International climate policy settled targets to mitigate impacts of climate change through decarbonization of various sectors of national economies, such as energy generation, mobility or housing (IPCC, 2019). Energy sector contributes a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions, therefore various goals were settled to decarbonize energy and electricity generation, even up to 100% by the year 2050. Renewable energy sources (RES) are one of the possible options to decarbonize electricity generation (Patt, 2015). RES is also considered by energy security policies as an option to satisfy energy demand with locally available energy resources and to mitigate the risks connected with volatility of energy supply from other countries (European Commission, 2014). Deployment of RES at scale will lead to societal transformation and to the transformation of energy systems, including all its parts such as energy generation, transmission and distribution. It will lead to a transition from centralized energy solutions based on large-scale fossil fuel energy generation power plants to more decentralized solutions based on diversified RES such as solar, wind, geothermal and others. Electricity transmission and distribution grids, including high direct voltage grids and smart grids, will be playing a greater role to balance RES that are in various places or to cover intermittency in energy supply and demand. This process of societal change based on the transformation of energy systems is termed “energy transition” within mainstream energy policy making processes (Sovacool, 2016). This “energy transition” is deemed a wicked process as it involves many stakeholders with their various and sometimes conflicting interests, perspectives and aims (Komendantova, 2018). Therefore, understanding the positions of various stakeholders and development of common-ground policy-oriented options is crucial (Komendantova et al., 2018). As such, the public are an important stakeholder and an end-user of services in the energy transition hence it is crucial to understand patterns of public acceptance of energy transition process. It is within this context that we should understand that the transition towards a more sustainable energy system will require not only the implementation of technological solutions but also a change in behavior of people with respect to the growing use of RES. Laypeople need to be at the Nadejda Komendantova et al. Policies on societal transformations