Triptych on climate mitigation - going beyond politics

[Benjamin Sovacool]

Dear all, a busy start to the year—see below for a note from Tom Dietz discussing a trio of articles recently published (open access for a limited period) on the topic of “beyond politics” for climate change mitigation. Enjoy!

 

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Colleagues:

I think some of you may be interested in this triptych on climate mitigation forthcoming in Energy Research and Social Science. It is available free open access until 12 February 2020 at the URLs below.

Best

Tom

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Gilligan, Jonathan M and Michael P Vandenbergh. 2020. "Private Climate Governance." Energy Research and Social Science 60:101400. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101400.

Abstract: The growing sense of urgency by the public for action to address climate change stands in stark contrast to the slow pace and limited accomplishments of national and international institutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Political institutions face significant structural barriers to taking strong and rapid action to cut emissions, but private environmental governance has potential to avoid those barriers and achieve rapid emissions reductions. It appears unlikely that private governance alone can reduce emissions enough to stabilize the climate, but it does have the potential to reduce emissions sufficiently and quickly enough to buy time for enacting more comprehensive public governance measures. In this Perspective, we review what is known about private governance, present a framework for analyzing private governance initiatives, outline the prospects of the framework for understanding and guiding private governance, and identify future research priorities for applying this framework.

Open access:

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1aHOS7tZ6Zn9yY

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Stern, Paul C and Thomas Dietz. 2020. "A Broader Social Science Research Agenda on Sustainability: Nongovernmental Influences on Climate Footprints." Energy Research and Social Science 60:101401.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101401.

 

Abstract.  Vandenbergh and Gilligan's book Beyond Politics and their essay in this issue open up a broad and under-explored agenda of research to inform efforts to limit climate change. They focused largely on understanding how companies and other non-governmental entities can be important agents of change. We sketch the implications non-governmental action for research as well as how such research can underpin action. A focus on opportunities across the life cycles of goods and services that provide for human needs and wants points to four key questions for research. We also note key challenges for social science research, including involving researchers from areas of social science that have been little involved previously in research on limiting climate change. We hope these arguments can contribute to a more robust and generalizable social science that can make greater contributions to limiting climate change. We encourage fellow social scientists to pursue the research questions we raise. Open access: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1aHlQ_oMjTBKCs   +++

Chen, C.-F., Wang, Y., Adua, L., & Bai, H. (2020). Reducing Household Fossil Fuel Consumption by Enabling Technology and Behavior. Energy Research and Social Science, 60:101402.

 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101402.

Inspired by Beyond Politics and extending its thesis focusing on the household sector’s potential in enabling energy efficiency technology and behavioral plasticity in reducing carbon emissions, we examine this sector’s critical role in the operation of grid-connected technologies, particularly electric vehicles (EVs) and demand response (DR), through the lens of private governance. In this perspective, we present a framework for understanding social-technological integration. We discuss the role of households’ actions in technology adoption and operation and utilities’ actions contributing to the impact of these technologies on emissions reduction. Our perspective attempts to offer a brief overview and some insights regarding the energy-saving potential from consumer initiatives and utility programs in motivating customers to adopt DR and EVs, while highlighting the behavioral challenges to realizing sufficient reductions in carbon emissions. We observe, indeed, that the household sector can contribute significantly to the reduction of carbon emissions with technical innovations that bring customers to the center of control and decision-making.

Open access: 

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1aM1U7tZ6ZnA0Q

 

 

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Thomas Dietz

 

-University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Sociology and Animal Studies

Member: Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Center for Global Change and Earth Observation, Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center

Michigan State University

-Gund Affiliate, Gund Institute for the Environment, University of Vermont

environment.msu.edu

sociology.msu.edu

animalstudies.msu.edu

csis.msu.edu

globalchange.msu.edu/

glisa.msu.edu