Pub Date : 2024-05-23DOI: 10.3389/fsuep.2024.1390570
Peter Gudde, Nicolas Bury, Peter Cochrane, Nicholas Caldwell
The Skidmore Review of UK Government's net zero approach highlights a lack of a national framework which establishes local government role, responsibilities and area-based governance arrangements. Although unified political leadership agreed as part of devolution deals has helped some areas to marshal resources and support, the national delivery landscape for net zero remains patchy. This study develops a toolkit to help local areas improve local arrangements.A mixed methods research approach has been used to develop the toolkit. It incorporates a set of governance models, a method for assessing the values of good governance, a governance improvement process and an illustration of how the toolkit can be employed using three cases where the two-tier public administrative structure applies.Results from the research process suggest that although change is happening it lacks the coherence and scale needed, with non-urban multiple-tier public administrations getting left behind by their metropolitan, single-tier counterparts creating a credibility and performance gap between political rhetoric and local net zero delivery. This observed inertia highlights the need to change governance processes and practices if public administration is going to deliver its part of net zero effectively outside the UK Metropolitan areas.The gap in support for local government to develop net zero governance arrangements is well recognized in both this research and publicly funded research programmes. This study provides UK local authorities with a simple, effective toolkit, that could potentially help them build strong wider societal relationships that will assist them in playing their full part in the UK reaching net zero.
{"title":"Developing a toolkit to help smaller local authorities establish strong net zero governance in the UK","authors":"Peter Gudde, Nicolas Bury, Peter Cochrane, Nicholas Caldwell","doi":"10.3389/fsuep.2024.1390570","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fsuep.2024.1390570","url":null,"abstract":"The Skidmore Review of UK Government's net zero approach highlights a lack of a national framework which establishes local government role, responsibilities and area-based governance arrangements. Although unified political leadership agreed as part of devolution deals has helped some areas to marshal resources and support, the national delivery landscape for net zero remains patchy. This study develops a toolkit to help local areas improve local arrangements.A mixed methods research approach has been used to develop the toolkit. It incorporates a set of governance models, a method for assessing the values of good governance, a governance improvement process and an illustration of how the toolkit can be employed using three cases where the two-tier public administrative structure applies.Results from the research process suggest that although change is happening it lacks the coherence and scale needed, with non-urban multiple-tier public administrations getting left behind by their metropolitan, single-tier counterparts creating a credibility and performance gap between political rhetoric and local net zero delivery. This observed inertia highlights the need to change governance processes and practices if public administration is going to deliver its part of net zero effectively outside the UK Metropolitan areas.The gap in support for local government to develop net zero governance arrangements is well recognized in both this research and publicly funded research programmes. This study provides UK local authorities with a simple, effective toolkit, that could potentially help them build strong wider societal relationships that will assist them in playing their full part in the UK reaching net zero.","PeriodicalId":506620,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy","volume":"42 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141103385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.3389/fsuep.2024.1308441
P. Syafina, G. Oluleye
Lack of effective policies hinder the uptake of Utility-scale solar PV, even though they are projected to play a pivotal role in achieving Indonesia's 2050 net-zero energy target. This study seeks to identify a cost-effective pathway to increase the capacity of utility-scale solar PV in Indonesia through supportive policies that ensure equitable cost distribution between the government and industry. A novel Market Penetration Optimization Model is developed and applied in simulation mode to assess existing policies, and optimization mode to determine new policy recommendations and compare three policy induced diffusion pathways. Results show that current price-based policies are insufficient to stimulate growth in the solar PV market, only covering ~13% of the investment cost required by the industry. Thus, necessitating a reactivation of Feed-in-Tariffs. The optimal tariffs rates required range from 0.39 to 1.47 cents/kWh for the most economic pathway during the initial 10-year post-construction period. The Innovation Diffusion Theory-based pathway necessitates the lowest initial investment cost while yielding the highest revenue from electricity sales, demonstrating its superior cost-effectiveness compared to both the supply-based and linear pathways. This study enriches the literature by exploring the financial implications of policy induced diffusion pathways.
{"title":"A comparative assessment of policy induced diffusion pathways for utility scale solar PV: case study of Indonesia","authors":"P. Syafina, G. Oluleye","doi":"10.3389/fsuep.2024.1308441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fsuep.2024.1308441","url":null,"abstract":"Lack of effective policies hinder the uptake of Utility-scale solar PV, even though they are projected to play a pivotal role in achieving Indonesia's 2050 net-zero energy target. This study seeks to identify a cost-effective pathway to increase the capacity of utility-scale solar PV in Indonesia through supportive policies that ensure equitable cost distribution between the government and industry. A novel Market Penetration Optimization Model is developed and applied in simulation mode to assess existing policies, and optimization mode to determine new policy recommendations and compare three policy induced diffusion pathways. Results show that current price-based policies are insufficient to stimulate growth in the solar PV market, only covering ~13% of the investment cost required by the industry. Thus, necessitating a reactivation of Feed-in-Tariffs. The optimal tariffs rates required range from 0.39 to 1.47 cents/kWh for the most economic pathway during the initial 10-year post-construction period. The Innovation Diffusion Theory-based pathway necessitates the lowest initial investment cost while yielding the highest revenue from electricity sales, demonstrating its superior cost-effectiveness compared to both the supply-based and linear pathways. This study enriches the literature by exploring the financial implications of policy induced diffusion pathways.","PeriodicalId":506620,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy","volume":"11 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141018519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-10DOI: 10.3389/fsuep.2024.1378390
Roger Ballentine
Once a little-scrutinized and largely optional aspect of corporate greenhouse gas emissions disclosure, Scope 3 emissions accounting and reporting is now a common element of voluntary climate best practice and is increasingly being adopted as part of new mandatory corporate climate disclosure policies. As Scope 3 disclosure becomes more central to what companies are asked (or required) to do, we perhaps should ask anew what exactly it is we are trying to accomplish. While those NGOs and other stakeholders that designed the Scope 3 framework and who have included it in highly influential corporate leadership programs were well-intentioned, it is becoming clear that the system as designed is ill-suited to serve its fundamental purpose: driving corporate actions to reduce, avoid, and remove greenhouse gas emissions. Scope 3 inventories are often seen as an end in and of themselves, yet from a climate perspective, they are only tools—and only useful if they help lead to positive emissions impact. What companies are asked to do regarding value chain emissions is not adequately aligned with what climate science demands. Therefore, greenhouse gas accounting, disclosure, and leadership programs and rules must modernize their approaches to Scope 3. Options include: limiting data collection requirements to seeking actionable, primary data; using proxy data only as a baseline from which the demonstrated impact of emissions-reducing interventions can be credited by target setting and leadership programs; and by fully embracing the use of verified market mechanisms to enable investments in positive emissions impact.
{"title":"Scope 3: what question are we trying to answer?","authors":"Roger Ballentine","doi":"10.3389/fsuep.2024.1378390","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fsuep.2024.1378390","url":null,"abstract":"Once a little-scrutinized and largely optional aspect of corporate greenhouse gas emissions disclosure, Scope 3 emissions accounting and reporting is now a common element of voluntary climate best practice and is increasingly being adopted as part of new mandatory corporate climate disclosure policies. As Scope 3 disclosure becomes more central to what companies are asked (or required) to do, we perhaps should ask anew what exactly it is we are trying to accomplish. While those NGOs and other stakeholders that designed the Scope 3 framework and who have included it in highly influential corporate leadership programs were well-intentioned, it is becoming clear that the system as designed is ill-suited to serve its fundamental purpose: driving corporate actions to reduce, avoid, and remove greenhouse gas emissions. Scope 3 inventories are often seen as an end in and of themselves, yet from a climate perspective, they are only tools—and only useful if they help lead to positive emissions impact. What companies are asked to do regarding value chain emissions is not adequately aligned with what climate science demands. Therefore, greenhouse gas accounting, disclosure, and leadership programs and rules must modernize their approaches to Scope 3. Options include: limiting data collection requirements to seeking actionable, primary data; using proxy data only as a baseline from which the demonstrated impact of emissions-reducing interventions can be credited by target setting and leadership programs; and by fully embracing the use of verified market mechanisms to enable investments in positive emissions impact.","PeriodicalId":506620,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140717416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}