Analysing future change in the EU's energy innovation system

We develop a novel approach for quantitatively analysing future storylines of change by combining econometric analysis and Monte Carlo simulation for four different storylines of change in the EU's energy innovation system. We explore impacts on three key innovation outcomes: patenting (innovation), co-invention (collaboration), and technology cost reduction (diffusion). We find that diverse mixes of policy instruments stimulate collaborative innovation activity. We find that both RD&D expenditure and trade imports support knowledge generation and exchange, and that these relationships are largely robust to future uncertainty. Conversely, we find that policy durability and stability are only weakly linked to innovation outcomes, suggesting that adaptive policy responding to rapidly changing innovation environments should play an important part of the EU's energy future

Taking the slow route to decarbonisation? Developing climate governance for international transport

Despite their significant, growing contribution to global emissions, international aviation and shipping have avoided a significant climate governance response until recently. This paper outlines the urgent need for, but major barriers to, decarbonisation of these industries, including various market failures and sensitivities over restraining demand. The need and potential for international governance to address these issues is seen to vary across aviation and shipping, given different industry structures and characteristics. A range of relevant inter- and transnational governance institutions is highlighted and an assessment of their overall adequacy offered. With a 2018 commitment to significant emission reduction, maritime governance effort has progressed further, although significant implementation challenges remain. Meanwhile aviation-related commitments rely more on out-of-sector offsets. Options for enhancing governance for decarbonisation are outlined, highlighting the importance of, inter alia, coordination between the UNFCCC and sectoral bodies, mechanisms to finance R&D and incentivise investment, and openness in key decision-making fora

Moving Forward to the Past, With Adaptation and Flexibility: The Special Role of Resource Storage

This chapter describes three paradigms in human-nature interactions with respect to the role of “resource storage.” The first paradigm is pre-Industrial Revolution, when humans had learned adaptation to the nature variability through storage of resources at oversupply periods. The second paradigm is post-Industrial Revolution, when access to reliable source of fossil fuels reduced the dependence on the nature and led to baseload industries and lifestyles, which were less and less in harmony with the nature’s cycles. The new paradigm, after notably damaging the biosphere, is the “move forward to the past” with adjusting the lifestyle and the industrial practices with the nature’s constraints through flexible manufacturing and consumption behavioral change in which energy storage and waste recycle play critical roles