Technology Neutrality as Facilitator of a New Cross-Sectoral Governance System for Energy and Transport

EU 2030 climate and energy objectives aim to facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy by 2050. The energy transition includes EU transport policy, where liberalisations have created transport growth leading to congestion and increased air pollution because transport sectors rely almost exclusively on fossil fuels and thus, need to change from fossil fuel to renewable energy. This technological revolution needs both entrepreneurship and political steering. Moreover, the transition to renewable energies in transport require coordination with energy governance systems as the transition will increase demand for renewable energies and thus investment in energy infrastructure. However, EU policy-makers do not want to pick a specific technological winner instead, they favour a technological neutral industrial policy towards energy transition. Technology neutrality principle relies on a bottom-up approach to change, where industrial actors drive the energy transition and societal changes. Simultaneously, the EU industrial policy identifies specific sectors, e.g. batteries, which need extra support due to external competition. This creates a policy mix that represents different approaches to socio-economic changes, including both top-down political driven transition and bottom-up industry driven approach. Moreover, national governments are responsible for transport and energy infrastructure investments, which makes the energy transition increasing complex and more political as the number of sectoral actors and policy-makers have to work together to achieve a shared climate goal. Thus, transport decarbonisation and energy transition challenge existing sectoral governance systems, and increase existing complex sectoral decision-making landscape. This paper analyses the role of technology neutrality in achieving transport decarbonisation, where it focuses on how policy-makers balance technological innovation and investment in renewable energy infrastructure. Overall, the paper argues that technological neutrality is not sufficient in achieving transport decarbonisation, particular as the energy transition necessitate coordination and cooperation between the car manufacturers and the renewable energy sector that needs to increase infrastructure investments as transport decarbonisation will increase demand for renewables, mainly electricity.