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Transitions to sustainable development

Transitions to sustainable development. Karolina Safarzynska. Outline of the presentation. Sustainability transitions Lines of current research: - the optimal diversity of energy technologies - diversity of energy sources - modelling the rebound effect Conclusions. ].

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Transitions to sustainable development

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  1. Transitions tosustainable development Karolina Safarzynska

  2. Outline of the presentation • Sustainability transitions • Lines of current research: - the optimal diversity of energy technologies - diversity of energy sources - modelling the rebound effect • Conclusions

  3. ]

  4. Sustainable development

  5. Core Questions of Sustainability Science • How the dynamic interactions between nature and society can be modeled? • What are long-term trends in environment and development reshaping nature-society interactions? • What systems of incentive structures can most effective guide society toward sustainability? Kates et al., (2001) Science

  6. Sustainability policies • Regulations • Prices • Behavioral change • Technological change

  7. Transition Network Knowledge Network for System Innovations and Transitions Sustainability Transition Research Network Environmental Innovations and Societal Transitions

  8. Transitions • Transitionsare “… a gradual continuous process of societal changes in which society (or a complex subsystem of it) structurally changes its character..” • They are characterized by persistent problems deeply rooted in current practices and prevailing structures. Rotmans et al. (2000)

  9. Transitions Geels, (2005)

  10. Managing Transitions Kemp and Loorbach, (2005)

  11. Evolutionary modeling of sustainability transitions Safarzynska, (2010)

  12. Open questions for modeling • Multi-level • Multi-phase • Coevolution • Learning Safarzynska, Frenken, van den Bergh (2012) Research Policy

  13. General Question • How to support sustainability transitions? Guiding by understanding • How to analyze the second-order effects of policies? By designing models to unravel mechanisms underlying the system development

  14. Policies • The optimal allocation of investments between different energy technologies • Energy efficiency • Energy taxes • Nuclear and renewable obligations

  15. The optimal diversity

  16. An innovation-selection model shares of investments technology fitness mutation the average fitness =1 if technologies can be recombined recombination

  17. Three-technology context

  18. Selection environments Fitness Constant unit costs Costs decreasing steadily over time Costs decreasing along learning curves

  19. Investment in recombinant innovations X3 X3 X1 X1 X1 Recombination alone Recombination and mutation Safarzynska, van den Bergh (2011) Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

  20. The average cost of energy technologies Safarzynska and van den Bergh (2013) Journal of Evolutionary Economics

  21. Final remarks • Sufficient investments in recombinant innovations ensure that a new technology emerge • But too much investments in recombinant innovations can result in a lock in to a new technology, which limits possibility for future recombinant innovations

  22. Diversity in energy systems • Are changes in diversity of energy sources indicative of structural transformations? • How energy diversity changes over the course of economic development?

  23. Diversity of energy sources consumption of energy source j in country i total energy consumption in country i and if if

  24. Diversity of energy sources • Energy diversity: • The similarity measure between countries i and k:

  25. Diversity of energy sources Safarzynska (2013) in preparation

  26. Energy space Safarzynska (2013) in preparation

  27. Final remarks • Countries grow by diversifying energy sources • Energy diversity is indicative of structural changes

  28. Modeling the rebound effect in two manufacturing industries • Polices aimed at reducing energy use are often ineffective • Improvements in energy efficiency do not bring a proportional reduction in energy use (Jevon’s paradox)

  29. Problems • Demand and supply aspects of the rebound effect studies separately • A structural change towards high quality fuels is often ignored • Aggregate data does not reveal specific mechanisms behind the rebound effect

  30. Coevolution of demand and supplyand electricity use • Heterogeneous power plants • Boundedly rational firms • Two classes of consumer

  31. Heterogeneous plants • Electricity market is composed of 11 heterogeneous power plants (gas, coal and nuclear) • Pricing and output decisions are modeledwith the Cournot game.

  32. Heterogeneous plants • Cobb-Douglass production functions: • Investments ina new power plant are based on the discountedvalue of investments:

  33. Electricity market Safarzynska, van den Bergh (2011) Energy Policy

  34. Producers of final products • 5 firms offer differentiated product • Two types of innovation processes: incremental improvements in product design and the search for radical innovation

  35. Electricity as an input • Electricity is an input in production: • Changes in energy efficiency: τt=τt-1(1+στ)

  36. Formal model – poor and rich consumers • 2 classes of consumers: 11 rich and 89 poor • Consumers rank products according to utility: where x is product quality p is price n is the network effect l captures the snob effect

  37. Network effectsthrough • Market shares stj – the market share of technology j • A technical characteristics

  38. Illustrative example Safarzynska (2012) Technological Forecasting and Social Change

  39. The indicator

  40. Probability of the rebound effect

  41. Policies • a tax on electricity • ‘nuclear obligations’ to produce ten percent of electricity from nuclear energy.

  42. The probability of energy backfire (out of 100 simulations)

  43. Nuclear obligations • Nuclear obligations increased significantly the share of electricity produced with nuclear energy • It increases the share of nuclear energy in electricity production from 4% to 24%

  44. Final remarks • Clustering of consumer choices makes the rebound effect more likely to occur (the network effect) • The effectiveness of policies depends on the network effect

  45. Conclusions • Managing transitions to sustainability requires understanding micro-mechanisms that underlie system development

  46. Co-authors • Jereon van den Bergh (ICREA, Barcelona, Spain) • KeonFrenken (Eindhoven University, Netherlands) • Roy Brouwer (VU, Netherlands) • MarjanHofkes (VU, Netherlands) • ElefhteriaVasileiadou (VU, Netherlands)

  47. Thank you!

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