Exposing agricultural cooperatives to competition.

We examine the optimal regulation of agricultural markets when farmers have organized their activity in a cooperative which is the monopoly supplier of an upstream product and which competes with a single rival firm in selling a homogenous downstream product. The rival's marginal cost is private information and therefore the rival expects to earn an information rent. We show that the optimal access price discriminates against the private rival because rent is more valuable in the cooperative than in the private firm, and the regulator therefore sacrifices some cost efficiency in order to shift rents. Thus, while competition will benefit farmers, consumers and tax payers, the extent of competition should optimally be somewhat limited.Agricultural markets; cooperatives; regulation; access pricing.

Unpacking democracy: The effects of different democratic qualities on climate change performance over time.

There are no trade-offs between strengthening democracy and mitigating climate change. Climate change cannot be used as an excuse to weaken democratic institutions. Democratic qualities have no effect on CO2 over time or across countries. Deliberative, participatory, liberal, egalitarian, and electoral qualities are tested.publishedVersio

Measuring renewables’ impact on biosphere integrity: A review

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Do people prefer offshore to onshore wind energy? The role of ownership and intended use.

Global investments in offshore wind energy are expected to escalate over the coming decades, fueled by improvements in technology, declining costs, and increasing political support. The complexity, scale, and location of these developments make international ownership and export of electricity more feasible. We examine how the general public's acceptance of wind energy will be affected by a political shift in focus from onshore to nearshore or offshore locations, from local or national dominance of ownership to international dominance, and from meeting local or national needs to meeting international ones. We use a nationwide choice experiment with 1612 individuals in Norway to reveal the preferences for these attributes and apply a mixed logit regression model to estimate the willingness to pay to avoid certain outcomes. We show that, although respondents prefer offshore and nearshore locations to onshore ones, they are even more concerned with maintaining local or national control both through ownership and intended use of the added electricity. Although the preferences for national ownership are strong for both nearshore and offshore alternatives, the preference for meeting national needs becomes less important when wind energy developments are located farther off the coast. Three wind energy scenarios are used to further investigate these preferences: 1) international consortium for offshore wind energy, 2) national alliances for nearshore wind energy, and 3) local energy communities for onshore wind energy. We also discuss how a shift to nearshore and offshore wind energy can be enabled by paying greater attention to people's concerns over national control of wind energy resources.Do people prefer offshore to onshore wind energy? The role of ownership and intended use.publishedVersio

Community Acceptance of Wind Energy Developments: Experience from Wind Energy Scarce Regions in Europe

Renewable energy plays an important role in the transition to a low emission society, yet in many regions energy projects have resulted in increasing societal polarization. Based on a comprehensive literature review and a survey among stakeholders from specific regions in Germany, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Spain with little prior experience with wind energy, we highlight six categories of factors that shape community acceptance of onshore wind energy development: technical characteristics of wind energy projects, environmental impacts, economic impacts, societal impacts, contextual factors and individual characteristics. We identify key similarities in acceptance-related patterns of wind energy development across the selected regions, but also important differences, highlighting the very context-specific nature of community acceptance. The findings contribute to improving the understanding of the forces, factors and relationships at play between policy frameworks and perceptions of wind energy under different conditions. We conclude by proposing policy recommendations regarding measures to increase the positive impacts and reduce the negative impacts of wind energy projects, and to strengthen existing drivers and reduce barriers to community acceptance of wind energy development

Faster, broader, and deeper! Suggested directions for research on net-zero transitions

The growing attention to the political goal of achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century reflects past failures to alter the trajectory of increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a consequence, the world now needs to decarbonize all systems and sectors at an unprecedented pace. This commentary discusses how the net-zero challenge presents transition scholarship with four enhanced research challenges that merit more attention: (1) the speed, (2) breadth and (3) depth of transitions as well as (4) tensions and interactions between these.Faster, broader, and deeper! Suggested directions for research on net-zero transitionspublishedVersio

Troublesome Leisure Travel: The Contradictions of Three Sustainable Transport Policies

Sustainable passenger transport policies are most often directed towards everyday travel and ignore the large and expanding amount of leisure travel. The paper examines whether policies aimed at reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions for everyday travel may have the opposite effect on leisure travel by reviewing studies of three sustainable passenger transport policies: developing more compact cities, building pro-environment awareness and attitudes, and promoting the growth of information and communication technologies. We found that the policies may indeed have unintended effects and suggest several mechanisms that could explain why this opposite effect occurs. Consideration is also given to the implications for developing more comprehensive sustainable transport policies

Five criteria for global sustainable development

A clear understanding of the global-level sustainable development concept is necessary before applying it to projects at a national, local or firm level. Such lower-level projects may concern managing production and consumption of energy, organization of cities and using land productively. However, the Sustainable development goals adopted at the United Nations Summit in September 2015 do not provide adequate guidance, even at the global level, because the goals are too many, too vague and often not quantified. Based on the 1987 report Our Common Future, we derive five criteria for the development of primary goals and corresponding indictors and quantified thresholds to be met

Troublesome Leisure Travel: The Contradictions of Three Sustainable Transport Policies

Sustainable passenger transport policies are most often directed towards everyday travel and ignore the large and expanding amount of leisure travel. The paper examines whether policies aimed at reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions for everyday travel may have the opposite effect on leisure travel by reviewing studies of three sustainable passenger transport policies: developing more compact cities, building pro-environment awareness and attitudes, and promoting the growth of information and communication technologies. We found that the policies may indeed have unintended effects and suggest several mechanisms that could explain why this opposite effect occurs. Consideration is also given to the implications for developing more comprehensive sustainable transport policies