IE WP 23/04 Prospective Voluntary Agreements to Escape Carbon Lock-in

Abstract

The paper looks for co-evolutionary policy responses to carbon lock-in – a persistent state that creates systemic market and policy barriers to carbon low technological alternatives. We address the coordination role for authorities rather than the corrective optimisation and analyse experiences from environmental voluntary agreements and foresight activities. The paper argues that combining the virtues of these tools into a new policy tool, named Prospective Voluntary Agreement (PVA), can help facilitate an escape from carbon lock-in and provide policy resources for addressing lock-in related issues. The merit of PVA lies with the enhancement of collaborative policy culture and inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary stakeholder learning that creates commitment to desired action for escaping lock-in.environmental voluntary agreement; foresight; increasing returns; lock-in; path-dependence