Energy, Sustainability and Society最新文献

Background

The aim of the energy policy proclaimed by all German federal governments since the Fukushima incident of 2011 is a fundamental transformation of the national energy system towards renewable (excluding nuclear) energies. However, since German energy policy is embedded into a European multilevel governance system, not only national but also European forces shape the German Energiewende.

Main text

By analysing the complex political and legal interlinkages, this study identifies fits and misfits between national and European policy initiatives in functionally related energy fields. First, it finds broad coherence between the EU and German energy transition objectives. Objectives deviate in one area, the phase-out of nuclear power in Germany which is not paralleled at the EU level. Secondly, it observes more extensive misfits around the preferred policy instruments that have pressured Germany to change. This concerns instruments tied to the support of renewable energy and the operation of electricity networks in support of the transition. Here, the German policy approach saw a misfit with internal energy market regulations in the EU.

Conclusions

Whereas European adaptation pressure caused a shift in the German renewable energy support policy, resulting in a slowdown in the expansion of renewable energies, EU pressure to end coal subsidies helped accelerate the phase-out of coal in Germany.

Background

The clean energy transition required for the decarbonisation of societies to meet climate, energy and sustainability goals make policymakers targets for broad business and non-business advocacy, ensuring that their often-conflicting interests are protected or considered in public policies. The concept of policy entrepreneurs foregrounds the role of agency in understanding such advocacy acts. This paper aims to further the understanding of policy entrepreneurship by comparing strategies used by policy entrepreneurs from various social spheres, who advocate policy change or the status quo, in four longitudinal cases related to EU energy and climate policy from 2011 to 2023.

Results

Policy entrepreneurship was mainly of a cultural-institutional nature, aiming at altering or diffusing people’s perceptions, beliefs, norms and cognitive frameworks, worldviews, or institutional logics. However, the European Commission’s (EC) actions also included structural entrepreneurship, aiming at overcoming structural barriers to enhance governance influence by altering the distribution of formal authority and factual and scientific information. The motives of policy entrepreneurs in the four cases differ, but strategies do not differ significantly between actors from the public, private and civic spheres of society. However, the results indicate that civil society policy entrepreneurs focus on building broader coalitions, than do public and private sector entrepreneurs. There is no indication that policy entrepreneurs from a certain sector are more successful than others in setting the agenda, changing the perceptions of policy actors, or influencing actual policy change.

Conclusions

It is concluded that policy entrepreneurs advocating policy change are more active and use more elaborate strategies than policy entrepreneurs advocating the status quo. They are also more successful in influencing policy outcomes. The EC was the only policy entrepreneur using structural entrepreneurship, but other policy entrepreneurs were also found to act in non-transparent ways, hiding who takes decisions. The EC acts to expand its reach into areas where the EU holds no or limited legal competence according to the Treaty of the EU. In all, this comes with democratic deficits related to accountability and legitimacy and raises concerns about technocratisation of EU policy processes. These tendencies should be combated to reinstate and reinforce the position and powers of both national and European legislators in formally making important decisions that impact the lives of European citizens and sustainability in the EU.

Background

Many of the problems currently facing our societies are long-term. Long-term problems are complex, often large-scale, and may require considerable planning and resources to avert undesirable outcomes in the (far) future. Consider issues such as climate change, nuclear waste disposal, and the sustainable management of ecosystems. The ability of a society to adequately address the most relevant problems depends on appropriate long-term governance, i.e., strategic, consistent, and coherent governance over an extended period of time.

Main text

Serious obstacles are inherent in long-term governance. These include short election cycles, intergenerational trade-offs, and the uncertainties involved in long-term decision-making. Liberal democracies appear to encounter difficulties in providing adequate responses to pertinent long-term issues, such as climate change, due to the institutions’ current design, which primarily focuses on safeguarding the interests of the present generation.

Conclusions

This paper introduces long-term governance as a distinct philosophical topic by defining it in relation to a novel perspective on long-term challenges. The paper defends an obligation to engage in long-term governance based on the basic rights of those who do not yet vote. This includes, in particular, an obligation to engage in research into long-term governance institutions.

Background

The target of the Swedish climate policy framework is to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045, implying large transformations of the current industry, energy and transport sector. Electric vehicles, wind and solar power, biomass, carbon capture and storage, climate-neutral concrete and green hydrogen are considered key technologies in the Swedish climate transition. There is, however, a growing need to identify how such technologies impact the broader scope of sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to determine the positive and negative effects of the large-scale implementation of key technologies on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Additionally, the aim of this study is to allocate the effects as domestic or international spillovers. The study is based on expert opinions elicited from workshops in which the effects of each key technology on the SDGs were addressed. The workshop results were qualitatively analyzed to construct causal relationships and compared against published literature to gain empirical support.

Results

This study identified impacts for 11 out of the 17 SDGs. More than half of the impacts in Sweden were positive, whereas most negative impacts were identified as international spillovers. Positive impacts in Sweden are foremost linked to economic growth and job creation as well as sustainable industrialization and innovation. Internationally, negative spillover impacts mainly stem from mineral extraction, with consequences for human health, environmental degradation, local democracy and corruption.

Conclusions

The multifaceted linkages between climate mitigation efforts and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are highlighted in this study, illustrating a need for policy coherence. Large-scale implementation of key technologies will result in more positive than negative impacts in the domestic context, reinforcing the Swedish implementation of the SDGs. However, the opposite is true for international spillovers, where the Swedish climate transition might hamper the fulfillment of specific SDGs in other countries. To achieve a sustainable climate transition, a holistic view incorporating all the SDGs and the core principle of “Leaving No One Behind” needs to be employed. The next steps could include stakeholders in policy and industry to identify actions and initiate collaborative approaches to strengthen positive and minimize negative impacts from climate mitigation efforts on the SDGs.

Background

Germany’s commitment to climate neutrality by 2045 poses significant challenges for its energy-intensive industries, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia, where green hydrogen is essential for the decarbonisation of basic industries. In this study, we investigate social acceptance of the hydrogen-driven industrial transition, focusing on public perspectives and the perspectives of stakeholders in industry, non-governmental organisations, trade unions, and political administration.

Results

The results indicate broad support for industrial green hydrogen use but also highlight acceptance issues along its value chain. Key challenges emerge in political, economic, social, and environmental dimensions, with notable public risk perception of hydrogen transport. Our analysis shows that increasing concerns tend to be accompanied by a willingness to protest, while knowledge is associated with acceptance of industrial hydrogen use.

Conclusions

Stakeholders must find ways to gather and address local public concerns. Moreover, the results indicate the need to assess green hydrogen along its entire value chain and on an international scale.

Background

Climate change is exacerbating the lack of fertile land and the scarcity of irrigation water. To guarantee food security in this context, aquaponic systems have been developed. An aquaponic system achieves the simultaneous production of plants and fish by recirculating water through both subsystems. Combining these two production technologies provides an efficient and sustainable method of growing fish and producing plants. These types of systems are often installed in rural areas, where the electrical grid is not completely reliable.

Methods

This work assesses a Hybrid Renewable Energy System to improve the sustainability and efficiency of isolated aquaponic production systems. The simulated systems are based on renewable energy sources using photovoltaic, wind, diesel and battery technologies. The main contribution of this study is the improvement in the decision-making process for selecting the optimal hybrid system for each project. A multi-criteria decision-making procedure based on technical and economic variables of the project is proposed. The criteria used in this study are NPC (20 and 10 years), payback, initial cost, O&M cost and renewable fraction (%) cover by the system. The procedure requires calculating hourly simulations of the energy flow in the installation with different hybrid configurations. In this work, a case of a hybrid system located on the island of Santo Domingo (Cape Verde) is presented using more than 1680 different sizing configurations.

Results

The solution obtained improves the results offered by other hybrid system optimisation software. The investment in the multi-criteria solution is 20 k€ less expensive than that obtained using other software and provides a payback period of four years, half a year less without affecting the rest of the decision criteria. Compared to the diesel base case, the solution saves more than 200 k€ in 20 years and will save more than 28 tonnes of CO(_2) per year. Moreover, this approach ensures the selection of a technically feasible configuration that aligns with the constraints of each project.

Conclusions

This study will have an impact on the circular economy of experimental aquaponic farming production systems, making them more accessible in agricultural areas with energy problems.

Background

Agrivoltaics, the dual use of land for both agriculture and solar energy production, has gained increasing attention in recent years. However, its large-scale implementation is constrained by policy challenges. Despite growing interest, limited research has systematically examined how agrivoltaics are incorporated into policy frameworks worldwide. This study systematically reviews the scientific literature on agrivoltaic policies and the policy frameworks supporting their implementation.

Main text

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) framework, peer-reviewed literature from Scopus and Web of Science was analysed, including journal articles, review papers, and conference proceedings in English. Out of 308 publications, 12 focused on policy instruments for agrivoltaics and met the inclusion criteria. The selected studies, published between 2021 and 2024, were examined to identify recurring policy themes, instruments, and implementation approaches. The review identified two main research approaches: one assessing the potential of agrivoltaics within legal frameworks through policy adjustments of existing legislation, and the other addressing policy instruments specific to agrivoltaics. A compilation of policies from several countries was conducted, encompassing different types of instruments, with economic and financial incentives being the most frequently identified. Key literature gaps included limited geographic coverage and inadequately addressed issues. The lack of policy integration across the energy, agriculture, and land use sectors, coupled with unclear guidelines regarding agrivoltaics, was identified as a constraint to its upscaling.

Conclusions

The study highlights the fragmented nature of agrivoltaic policy and the need for more policy-integrated frameworks to support its expansion. The findings underscore the importance of addressing policy effectiveness, stakeholder roles, business models, and strategies in underrepresented regions. Limitations of this review stem from the limited geographic scope of the literature analysed and the non-inclusion of grey literature. Future research should examine how different policy instruments influence the adoption of agrivoltaics and how cross-sector coordination can support its development. These insights contribute to advancing research on agrivoltaics and policymaking, supporting the broader energy transition.

Background

Understanding the influence of economic inequality on energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and the uptake of renewable energy is becoming increasingly important as the European Union (EU) intensifies its efforts towards climate neutrality and sustainable development. Despite recent shifts in the income distribution, persistent disparities among social groups remain a critical factor with respect to energy behaviour and environmental outcomes. This research article explores how income inequality affects per capita energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, and the share of renewable energy in the EU. Additionally, it examines how these variables relate to economic performance by using gross domestic product (GDP) as a benchmark.

Results

This study applies ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to panel data covering 27 EU member states for the period 1990–2023. The results reveal a U-shaped relationship between income inequality and energy consumption per capita. At moderate levels, inequality is associated with reduced energy use; however, beyond a certain threshold, greater inequality leads to increased energy consumption, which is driven primarily by the high demand from wealthy population segments. Furthermore, per capita energy consumption is a strong predictor of emissions, although the marginal impact weakens at higher consumption levels, thus suggesting diminishing returns. Renewable energy significantly helps decrease per capita emissions, but its effectiveness also marginally decreases as its share increases, thus indicating saturation effects. Diagnostic tests for autocorrelation, heteroskedasticity, and cross-sectional dependence confirm the statistical robustness and reliability of the model.

Conclusions

This study highlights the necessity of integrating social equity into climate and energy policy frameworks. Reducing income inequality can promote energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, thereby contributing to the EU’s dual objectives of environmental sustainability and inclusive economic growth. These findings suggest that energy transition policies are more effective when they are complemented by measures that address economic disparities. Future research should explore inequality thresholds that alter environmental impacts and identify policy synergies that maximize both climate and social outcomes.

Background

Replacing diesel and gasoline in combustion engines with fuels from renewable resources can reduce emissions in the transport sector. This study investigated public perceptions of alternative fuels to reveal potential adoption drivers and barriers for a successful introduction in road transport.

Results

The findings point towards a high acceptance of alternative fuels in road transport. Benefits for the environment and drivers were acknowledged, whereas barrier perceptions were comparably low. The acceptance of alternative fuels was affected by perceived environmental benefits and environment-related attitudes. Higher environmental awareness and perceived responsibility for environmental problems were related to higher acceptance, higher benefit perceptions, and lower barrier ratings.

Conclusions

Considering the key finding that environment-related attitudes and the perception of environmental benefits were factors positively impacting the acceptance of alternative fuels, communication concepts should be designed to inform transparently and comprehensibly about the environmental effects of alternative fuels. Where applicable and possible, fuel design should reduce user-perceived barriers—such as high costs and infrastructure incompatibility. Policy making should furthermore support planning security via long-term framework design in order to enable heightened fuel adoption and positive climatic impacts of alternative fuels.