Public support and opposition among leaders and laggard countries of European sectoral energy transitions

The EU has a legally binding commitment to reach climate neutrality by 2050, and many of its member states have established similar commitments in national legislation; for example, Germany aims to reach net zero by 2045 and states that emissions shall move to net negative after 2050. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in specific sectors like electricity and heating must reach zero well before mid-century, calling for a rapid acceleration of sectoral transitions. That requires profound and rapid changes involving investment in low-carbon technologies like solar panels, onshore and offshore wind technologies, heat pumps, and the fast extension of necessary infrastructure like transmission and distribution lines, energy storage, and district heating. Some European countries are leading the way to a sectoral transition to zero emissions, while others are lagging significantly behind. On the other hand, such transformations may also increase public opposition linked to the side effects of energy infrastructure, with higher energy costs in the short term or with the loss of benefits associated with the Old fossil fuel-based socio-technical regimes. Public support and opposition to the energy transition are well-studied, but many questions remain open or insufficiently addressed. Do countries leading the energy transition experience advantages through higher acceptability and lower opposition? How do public support and opposition evolve through different phases of sectoral transitions? We can hypothesize that opposition increases when the transition accelerates because of the need for more investments in technologies and infrastructures with the associated negative effects (e.g., land use and local impacts). However, we could also state the opposite hypothesis: when the transition advances, new technologies become mainstream, costs decrease, and the side effects are better controlled by new regulations, resulting in decreasing opposition. It may also be a tipping point in public opposition from which onward the transition is broadly accepted and irreversible. We will empirically test these hypotheses in a set of European countries, including leaders and laggards of the energy transition in two intertwined sectors: electricity and heating. Firstly, using a new evaluation framework, we identify the countries leading the systemic transformation to zero emissions in electricity and heating. Secondly, we gather data on public support and opposition to the transitions in leaders and laggards’ countries. Finally, we assess the extent to which public support and opposition to the energy transition correlate with system transformation and how it has evolved over time. The data is collected through two existing projects in our Energy Transitions & Public Policy research group: Transition Metrics and BePart projects, which focus on measuring progress in sectoral transitions and on public support, respectively.