Preface and acknowledgements
In the face of climate change, resource depletion, environmental pollution, and
other global challenges, attempts to transition to a low- carbon society are
ongoing across the world. International negotiations and agreements, national
policy strategies, and choices at firm and household levels all contribute to the
development and uptake of technological innovations, and are crucial for any
sustainable, low- emission future. The interplay of these multi- level activities,
choices, enabling factors, and potential negative side effects are complex and
difficult to disentangle. One important step towards this is to explore national,
regional, and local transition efforts. Here we can consider both specific
technologies and enabling policies, and the social context in which they are
supposed to function.
This book illustrates some of the risks and uncertainties associated with lowcarbon transitions, which are tightly linked to changes and innovations in the
sector, as they are currently happening, planned, or envisaged in different
national contexts. We experiment with narratives to present our results, aiming
to make our research accessible to a wider audience that includes, but goes
beyond, our academic peers. We firmly believe that it is important for scientists
and researchers to communicate their research findings in multiple ways,
channels, and formats. We aim to reach as broad an audience as possible in
order to inform science, policymaking, and other relevant social processes.
Our format, which we employed across all case study chapters, allows us to go
beyond the limitations of scenario building based on models. Formalised model
frameworks cannot adequately represent the many non- quantifiable aspects of
policies and their associated risks and uncertainties. Our format allows us to
include the perceptions and, more importantly, the expertise of a wide range of
stakeholders in energy transition development, in an effort to make
recommendations that are socially acceptable and robust.
Our work is interdisciplinary throughout and transdisciplinary in many
instances. The lengthy process needed to move from merely talking about
interdisciplinary work to actually doing interdisciplinary work is indicative of the
time it will take to master the much more recent idea of transdisciplinary work,
where the focus lies on co- development with non- academic stakeholders. We hope
this book will help us move closer to real transdisciplinary knowledge production.
In the face of climate change, resource depletion, environmental pollution, and
other global challenges, attempts to transition to a low- carbon society are
ongoing across the world. International negotiations and agreements, national
policy strategies, and choices at firm and household levels all contribute to the
development and uptake of technological innovations, and are crucial for any
sustainable, low- emission future. The interplay of these multi- level activities,
choices, enabling factors, and potential negative side effects are complex and
difficult to disentangle. One important step towards this is to explore national,
regional, and local transition efforts. Here we can consider both specific
technologies and enabling policies, and the social context in which they are
supposed to function.
This book illustrates some of the risks and uncertainties associated with lowcarbon transitions, which are tightly linked to changes and innovations in the
sector, as they are currently happening, planned, or envisaged in different
national contexts. We experiment with narratives to present our results, aiming
to make our research accessible to a wider audience that includes, but goes
beyond, our academic peers. We firmly believe that it is important for scientists
and researchers to communicate their research findings in multiple ways,
channels, and formats. We aim to reach as broad an audience as possible in
order to inform science, policymaking, and other relevant social processes.
Our format, which we employed across all case study chapters, allows us to go
beyond the limitations of scenario building based on models. Formalised model
frameworks cannot adequately represent the many non- quantifiable aspects of
policies and their associated risks and uncertainties. Our format allows us to
include the perceptions and, more importantly, the expertise of a wide range of
stakeholders in energy transition development, in an effort to make
recommendations that are socially acceptable and robust.
Our work is interdisciplinary throughout and transdisciplinary in many
instances. The lengthy process needed to move from merely talking about
interdisciplinary work to actually doing interdisciplinary work is indicative of the
time it will take to master the much more recent idea of transdisciplinary work,
where the focus lies on co- development with non- academic stakeholders. We hope
this book will help us move closer to real transdisciplinary knowledge production.