50
able sources of energy. They are advancing a very different logic of legitimacy which targets global sustainability and local accountability.
Significantly, they have managed to induce a shift in city government policy, from supporting the incumbent utilities to embracing a new municipal
utility and a strategy of decarbonising the city’s energy systems.
4.5 What InterventIons Could enable sustaInable
outCoMes under transItIon?
Assessing historical examples in terms of sustainability norms is highly
problematic, since sustainability—as currently understood—was not then
an issue. Past interventions to reconfigure urban energy systems were
made in the name of other overarching principles prevalent at the time,
such as social equality or political security. What this brief foray into the
past has revealed is, first, that crises of accountability over energy are not
new. They have accompanied the emergence, consolidation and adaptation of energy systems since their early beginnings. Second, we have illustrated that what accountability can mean, how it is invoked, to what ends
and through what mechanisms varies hugely according to particular contexts of time and space. What passes without arousing public disapproval
in one context can be highly controversial in another. This prompts us to
pause and reflect, when recommending practices of legitimation or modes
of accountability governance, on what temporality might mean for their
shelf-life and future-proofing. Today’s accountability fix should not
become tomorrow’s accountability trap (Kramarz and Park 2017). Finally,
the examples drawn from Berlin’s history have shown how processes of
legitimising energy transitions are inextricably bound up in much wider
societal concerns, such as—in our three cases—the politics of distribution,
protection and representation. Efforts to institutionalise sustainable energy
transitions would, it follows, be well advised to heed, enrol or resist concurrent movements that are likely to influence—one way or another—the
viability of a particular preferred pathway (Bouzarovski and Haarstad 2018).
referenCes
Bäckstrand, K., Zelli, F., & Schleifer, P. (2018). The legitimacy and accountability
in polycentric climate governance. In A. Jordan, D. Huitema, H. van Asselt, &
K. J. Forster (Eds.), Governing climate change: Polycentricity in action (pp. 338–
356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
T. MOSS
able sources of energy. They are advancing a very different logic of legitimacy which targets global sustainability and local accountability.
Significantly, they have managed to induce a shift in city government policy, from supporting the incumbent utilities to embracing a new municipal
utility and a strategy of decarbonising the city’s energy systems.
4.5 What InterventIons Could enable sustaInable
outCoMes under transItIon?
Assessing historical examples in terms of sustainability norms is highly
problematic, since sustainability—as currently understood—was not then
an issue. Past interventions to reconfigure urban energy systems were
made in the name of other overarching principles prevalent at the time,
such as social equality or political security. What this brief foray into the
past has revealed is, first, that crises of accountability over energy are not
new. They have accompanied the emergence, consolidation and adaptation of energy systems since their early beginnings. Second, we have illustrated that what accountability can mean, how it is invoked, to what ends
and through what mechanisms varies hugely according to particular contexts of time and space. What passes without arousing public disapproval
in one context can be highly controversial in another. This prompts us to
pause and reflect, when recommending practices of legitimation or modes
of accountability governance, on what temporality might mean for their
shelf-life and future-proofing. Today’s accountability fix should not
become tomorrow’s accountability trap (Kramarz and Park 2017). Finally,
the examples drawn from Berlin’s history have shown how processes of
legitimising energy transitions are inextricably bound up in much wider
societal concerns, such as—in our three cases—the politics of distribution,
protection and representation. Efforts to institutionalise sustainable energy
transitions would, it follows, be well advised to heed, enrol or resist concurrent movements that are likely to influence—one way or another—the
viability of a particular preferred pathway (Bouzarovski and Haarstad 2018).
referenCes
Bäckstrand, K., Zelli, F., & Schleifer, P. (2018). The legitimacy and accountability
in polycentric climate governance. In A. Jordan, D. Huitema, H. van Asselt, &
K. J. Forster (Eds.), Governing climate change: Polycentricity in action (pp. 338–
356). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
T. MOSS