The recent report (the Sixth Assessment Report of Working Group 1) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly points to the urgency of global climate action. Optimal governance regimes ...are necessary for climate change mitigation in major greenhouse gas‐emitting countries and economic sectors. Given our study's domain, the ‘climate change governance’ concept suffices as our theoretical framework. Adopting comparative legal and policy analysis and the case study approach, we examine the climate governance regimes in four regional carbon‐intensive countries – South Africa, China, Germany, and the United States of America – with the primary objective of identifying areas for improving their regulatory capacity to mitigate climate change. Thus, we examine the relationship between climate policy goals/targets, the prevailing policy environment, and supportive strategies for achieving policy goals in our case study countries. Drawing on the climate governance literature, we adopt ‘target setting’, ‘supportive measures/strategies’, ‘comprehensiveness’, and ‘oversight body’ as the indices for our analysis. Our results reveal striking similarities and contrasts in the focus countries, signalling opportunities for improvements across different parameters. The study suggests the need for policy symmetry between governance (emissions reduction) goals and regime design elements such as proportional supportive strategies and comprehensive coverage of carbon‐intensive economy sectors. We also canvass the necessity of avoiding policy and institutional fragmentations that hamper the emergence of clear and well‐coordinated climate policy direction in countries. As climate change governance is now at a critical juncture, this study will significantly improve the regimes of our focus countries and other jurisdictions with similar peculiarities.
Understanding the dynamic behaviour of Sub-Saharan African households as they move along the energy ladder is essential for the energy transition in developing countries. This study applies Fixed and ...Random effect panel data models to analyse the drivers of rural and urban households' energy transition in Nigeria from 2010 to 2018. The estimation results from the panel models with robust standard errors show that rural households tend to increase their expenses on fuel sources that potentially substitute the energy source whose prices have increased. However, there is no significant relationship between the price and expenditure on different fuels in urban households. Irrespective of spatiality, we find that aside from income – education, household size, and internet access are essential drivers of household fuel choices. More importantly, we find evidence of reverse energy transition. We argue that this reverse energy transition limits the shift to cleaner fuels and increases the economic vulnerabilities of rural households. Our analysis also reveals that Nigerians’ preference for fuels is shifting to be price inelastic. We make a strong case for policies and interventions that raise household income, empower women, reduce the cost of living, and improve clean and affordable energy access to encourage energy transition.
•Analyse the drivers of rural and urban households' energy transition in Nigeria.•Irrespective of spatiality, income, education, family size are essential drivers.•We found evidence of reverse energy transition in Nigerian households.•Nigerians' preference for fuels is shifting to be price inelastic.•We make a strong case for policies and interventions for energy transition.
Background
Achieving climate targets will require a rapid transition to clean energy. However, renewable energy (RE) firms face financial, policy, and economic barriers to mobilizing sufficient ...investment in low-carbon technologies, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Here, we analyze the challenges and successes of financing the energy transition in Nigeria and Brazil using three empirically grounded levers: financing environments, channels, and instruments.
Results
While Brazil has leveraged innovative policy instruments to mobilize large-scale investment in RE, policy uncertainty and weak financing mechanisms have hindered RE investments in Nigeria. Specifically, Brazil’s energy transition has been driven by catalytic finance from the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). In contrast, bilateral agencies and multilateral development banks (MDBs) have been the largest financiers of renewables in Nigeria. Policy instruments and public–private partnerships need to be redesigned to attract finance and scale market opportunities for RE project developers in Nigeria.
Conclusions
We conclude that robust policy frameworks, a dynamic public bank, strategic deployment of blended finance, and diversification of financing instruments would be essential to accelerate RE investment in Nigeria. Considering the crucial role of donors and MDBs in Nigeria, we propose a multi-stakeholder model to consolidate climate finance and facilitate the country’s energy transition.
Calls to phase out fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy-based solutions dominate the global discussion on low-carbon energy transition. However, the nature of this transition may vary across ...different countries on account of opportunities for innovative solutions that balance socio-economic and environmental sustainability goals. This piece argues that natural gas (NG) still has a vital role in the near to long-term future energy mix. This position implies that the objective of quickly phasing out NG needs reassessing. We further argue that there remains an opportunity for NG to be a key enabler of a “just” future net-zero emission energy system by mid-century, especially with the political-economic realities of certain countries and new technological innovations around NG utilisation. In this case, we argue that an essential element of “justice” could mean that nations at various levels of economic development adopt different approaches to the energy transition. Thus, decarbonisation efforts must consider socio-economic realities and the different contexts of technology application. The proposed uniform reduced energy demand and the blocking of public financing to NG projects lack the nuance of a sustainable solution, especially related to Sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, our analysis suggests that the one-size-fits-all approach to climate action in the context of natural gas commercialisation needs a rethink and countries should be allowed to define low-carbon pathways considering their local circumstances.
•Explores a corporate shift from dirty to clean energy by oil and gas companies.•Introduces the concept ‘oil and gas majors transitioning' (OGMT) to explain the shift.•Situates OGMT within the energy ...transition and energy transition governance normative frameworks.•Corporate steering, technical leverage, and synergies are vital for OGMT.•Petroleum-producing states can complement corporate action with policy support.
This paper provides a conceptual context for exploring how oil and gas majors can shift from dirty fuels to clean energy forms. This energy evolution has become critical as climate change concerns challenge oil and gas corporations' future existence. In these socio-technical milieus, the Danish Oil and Natural Gas Company (DONG Energy) has evolved from a fossil-dominated undertaking to a green energy company, Ørsted. Thus, the paper introduces the concept of 'oil and gas majors transitioning' (OGMT), situates it within the 'energy transition' and 'energy transition governance' normative frameworks, applies it to the evolutionary journey of Ørsted as a case study, and provides insights on how other fossil fuel undertakings can also govern a possible transition to a green energy economy. The study suggests that mainstream oil and gas companies have great potential to transition to clean energy portfolios by optimising organizational steering, technical leverage, and intra- and inter-industry synergies. However, policy support from petroleum-producing host states remains pivotal to the success of OGMT.
Lack of access to clean cooking energy systems negatively affects the health and welfare of millions of people in developing countries. Different factors such as household income, household size, ...fuel price, and information spread have been identified as barriers to the widespread uptake of clean cooking systems. However, analyses exploring the dynamic influences of these factors towards accelerating clean cooking from the long-term perspective are limited. Here, we employ a system dynamics modelling framework to simulate how various strategies could affect the adoption of clean cooking systems in Nigeria over time. Our results reveal that clean cooking adoption is a fluctuating process, and the trends present a non-linear behaviour. We found that the adoption of clean cooking energy systems would occur faster early in the simulating year among urban households than in rural households. The results indicate that, at low prices of liquefied petroleum gas, many rural households will switch to clean cookstoves with higher adoption rates than consumers in urban households. Additionally, results from baseline scenario analysis revealed that, without significant policy interventions, not all households would switch to clean cooking. Our analysis further indicates that households with fewer members tend to transition quicker to clean cooking options than larger households. The impact of clean cooking due to communication among households would be more significant among rural households than among urban households. While the model results are perceptive, we emphasise that potent policies are needed to accelerate the diffusion and adoption of clean cooking energy systems in Nigeria and other African countries.
Cognizant of the nexus between energy and climate change, reliable climate policies need to be informed by a thorough understandingof the future evolution of energy systems by using ‘energy models.’ ...Consequently, for effective policy response, individual states need to have domestic energy modelling capacities. In this perspective, we provide a bird’s eye view on the varying energy modelling capacities of four case study countries – South Africa, China, Germany and the United States of America. We employed a simple but logical approach to compare energy modelling capacities across these four high-carbon states. We argue that, although the case study countries fare relatively well in their energy modelling capacities, there remains room for further improvements. The study suggests that for a successful climate policy informed by energy models, there is a need to establish strong and well-funded institutions to sustain energy modelling expertise. It also evinces the necessity of a good communication platform between the research institutions and policymakers. Another potent insight is the desirability of international engagements to ensure best practices in energy modelling in support of climate policies.
The most common household fuel utilized in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria is kerosene, liquified petroleum of gas (LPG), firewood, charcoal, and electricity. These energy commodities are ...contributing to simplify people's life. They are used in satisfying energy demands such as cooking, heating, and lighting for every single home. The energy prices were collected from 2010 to 2021, and we forecasted from 2022 to 2024. There is data available from 2010–2021 about prices for some of these commodities, but they are scattered, narrow, and in some cases, there is just a general-referred value for the whole nation and only for a single year from the past. These situations have limited the development of economic studies which undertake analyses regarding consumers’ behavior. The forecasted fares for kerosene and LPG were calculated under the basis of accessible information but limited by the National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria. The available electricity tariffs were collected from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission from the existing eleven private electricity distribution companies (DISCOS). In the case of firewood and charcoal, the costs were estimated departing from the research work of Gujba et al. 1. In the second part, we specify the way how data was obtained and its treatment for specific time periods. The statistics include the values for each fuel in the different geopolitical regions and for the most popular presentations available to the end customers. The forecasting was developed for past and future years during the under-study period of time. The information presented in the article refers to the research study: Urban and rural household energy transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does spatial heterogeneity reveal the direction of the transition?
There is an attempt by conventional oil and gas companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through sustainability practices to maintain a position of relevance in a low-carbon energy future. One of ...such measures is the idea of upstream energy integration (or field electrification), yet emerging and in its nascency. The concept of energy integration is to electrify upstream petroleum production operations through renewables to reduce carbon intensity and mitigate process emissions. While this seems promising, its dynamics and wider ramifications remain unexplored in the scholarly literature. Drawing on the socio-technical transition theory and adopting a qualitative approach to energy systems analysis, this perspective type piece identifies and discusses the implications of the emerging trend of upstream energy integration. The analysis proceeds with three thematic parallels and five central motifs that potentially set research and policy framing agendas to complement existing energy governance frameworks. These include Process energy needs, Resources and materials sourcing, Embodied energy implications, Scalar deployment costing and Temporal dynamics for transition (the PREST framework).
Climate change governance has metamorphosed from multilateral pacts such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement to the enactment of country-specific ...dedicated legislation for mitigation and adaptation. A common feature of this phenomenon is the establishment of an expert committee on climate change, or simply, a climate change commission (CCC). For effective climate change governance, a multidisciplinary CCC will play a key role. The objective of this study is to inquire into the multidisciplinary requirements of a CCC and how multidisciplinarity can influence the efficacy of climate governance measures. Accordingly, it inquires into transnational circumstances on the disciplinary/multidisciplinary composition of CCCs and samples the perspectives of over 120 climate policy experts—through a structured survey—to draw insights into how countries could establish a suitable multidisciplinary CCC in legislative and policy processes. Key results from transnational circumstances and expert perspectives reveal the propriety of establishing CCCs to drive robust mitigation and adaptation policies. As the study shows, multiple countries have already incorporated diverse domains and backgrounds of expertise in the composition of their CCCs. Furthermore, our experts’ survey reveals overwhelming support among respondents (98%) for CCCs, and all those who support these commissions believe they should be, to some degree, independent and multidisciplinary. Experts’ perspectives reveal a spectrum of specific desirable multidisciplinary categories—legal, physical science, biosciences, energy and engineering, economics, planning, social sciences, ethics, governance, health, and communication. We also highlight some caveats regarding multidisciplinarity and reflect on the existence of quasi-institutions across countries without dedicated CCCs.
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