CEEN 590
Sustainable Energy as a
Social and Political Challenge
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Today’s agenda
• Simulation
• A path to a clean
energy system
• Why challenge is so
formidable (Victor)
• Carbon lock-in
• science-policy
dilemma
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How to read an academic paper
• What’s the main argument (or puzzle)?
• What subsidiary arguments support it?
• Are there underlying or explicit value
assumptions?
• What evidence is used to support the argument?
• Does the evidence support the argument?
• Do other (better?) arguments support the
observed outcomes?
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Sample exam
Part V: Short answer (guideline: 50-75 words). Answer three of the six questions that
follow. 10 points each, total 30%. Write legibly. Explicitly incorporate course concepts
and readings.
1. According to David Victor, why is global warming such a hard problem to solve?
2. According to Hoberg and Taylor in “Between Consent and Accommodation,” what
are the rules for how governments need to consider First Nations concerns in
decision-making?
3. Describe Unruh’s concept of “carbon lock-in” and explain the challenges it poses for
developing sustainable energy policy.
4. Using the Norman Ruff reading “Executive Dominance” and the lectures, explain
why premiers and prime ministers have so much power within the Canadian system of
government.
5. Describe the stages of the policy cycle model, with examples from Northern
Gateway Pipeline case or another energy policy with which you are familiar.
6. According to Burnstein, What is the impact of public opinion on public policy?
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Feasibility of Decarbonization:
California Case Study
Sustainable Energy Policy
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Feasibility of Decarbonization
March 19, 2013
Sustainable Energy Policy
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Feasible of Decarbonization
Sustainable Energy Policy
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Another vision of clean energy system
“We suggest producing all new energy with
[water, wind, and solar] by 2030 and replacing
the pre-existing energy by 2050. Barriers to
the plan are primarily social and political, not
technological or economic. The energy cost in
a WWS world should be similar to that today”
Jacobson, M.Z., Delucchi, M.A., Providing all global energy with wind,
water, and solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities
and areas of infrastructure, and materials. Energy Policy (2010),
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Victor’s 3 central political challenges
1. Very deep cuts to GHG emissions are
required
– Long residence time of CO2 in atmosphere –
given rate of emissions stock is hard to reverse
2. Costs immediate, benefits uncertain and
distant in time
– “time inconsistency problem”
3. Global nature of problem creates spatial
inconsistency: local costs, global benefits
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Hoberg’s version: Why climate action
is so hard politically
Cost of Mitigation
Benefits of Mitigation
Here
Global
Now
Distant in Time
Relatively certain
Highly uncertain
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Victor’s 3 myths about policy process
Scientist’s myth: scientific research can
determine the safe level of global warming
Environmentalist’s myth: global warming is a
typical environmental problem
Engineer’s myth: once cheaper new
technologies are available, they will be adopted
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Path Dependence
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Sustainable Energy Policy
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Sustainable Energy Policy
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Evolution of technical systems
Increasing returns result from
•Scale economies
•Learning economies
•Adaptive expectations
•Network economies
Sustainable Energy Policy
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Techno-institutional complex
• Not discrete technological artifacts
• Complex system of technologies embedded in
a powerful conditioning social context of
public and private institutions
• Technological systems – technological lock-in
• Institutional lock-in
– Private organizations
– governmental
Sustainable Energy Policy
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February 2, 2011
Sustainable Energy Policy
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Sustainable Energy Policy
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Science and Politics
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Core message:
Deficit Model: “You just don’t understand”
• more information will resolve conflicts and produce
appropriate policy response
Members of the public filter their responses to
science controversies through their value systems
Social science helps explain how this works
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Kahan et al
• Science comprehension thesis: members of
the public do not take climate change as
seriously as scientists because they don’t
understand the science
• Cultural cognition thesis: individuals form
perceptions of societal risks that cohere with
the values characteristics of groups with which
they identify
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Motivated reasoning
• motivated cognition: unconscious tendency to fit
processing of information to conclusions that suit some
end or goal
– biased information search: seeking out (or
disproportionally attending to) evidence that is congruent
rather than incongruent with the motivating goal
– biased assimilation: crediting and discrediting evidence
selectively in patterns that promote rather than frustrate
the goal
– identity-protective cognition: reacting dismissively to
information the acceptance of which would experience
dissonance or anxiety.
•
Daniel Kahan, “What Is Motivated Reasoning and How Does It Work?, Science and
Religion Today May 4, 2011.
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The politics of science:
Classic view: separation
Science
(facts)
Truth
Politics
(values)
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Politics of Science:
Recognition of “Trans-science”
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Jasanoff and Wynne 1998
Politics of Science
Constructivist View
Politics
Science
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Politics of Science
Constructivist View (when pressed)
Politics
Science
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Politics and Science
• Policy reflects value judgments, but embodies
causal assumptions
• Causal knowledge frequently very uncertain,
undermining power of science
• actors adopt the scientific arguments most
consistent with their interests
• “science” becomes a contested resource for
actors in the policy process, by lending
credibility to arguments
• the body of credible science bounds the range
of legitimate arguments, but only loosely
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Politics and Science (cont)
• Scientific controversies are frequently more
about underlying value conflicts
– e.g., conservation vs. development
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A continuum
Regulatory Science: Scientific assumptions adopted for the purpose of policymaking
Regulatory Science
Science
Politics
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Regulatory Science Approach
• Some causal assumptions are better than others
– science helps
• Some policies are better reflections of society’s
distribution of preferences than others -democratic institutions help
• Avoid: political decisions made by scientists and
scientific judgments being made by politicians
• Prefer: transparent justification for decisions
– Reveals boundary where scientific advice ends and
value judgments begins
– Promotes accountability
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Next week
• Formal governance
• Discussion questions on Friday
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