Love, Peace, and Harmony? Coalitions, Interests, and Discourses in Energy Transformation Processes

Abstract

Climate change is a threat to humanity. There exists a robust international consensus on its major contributor, namely carbon dioxide emissions primarily caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. This consensus is also reflected in much national level climate governance aiming to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets by transitioning away from centralized, fossil fuel based energy systems to a system of low carbon energy production. Despite this broad consensus on the need of sustainable energy transformation, citizen protest against energy transformation processes is increasing at the national and/or local level. The papers of this panel deal with coalitions, interests, and discourses in energy transformation processes in different contexts in order to analyze sources of conflicts and to discuss the contingency of the structural context, i.e. the landscape level, of energy transformation processes.