Just Energy Transition Workshop June 3 and 4, 2022, University of Pittsburgh Onsite and via zoom Registration LINK Sponsor: European Studies Center at Pitt Scientific organizer: Shanti Gamper-Rabindran
SUMMARY The energy transition from reliance on oil and gas to greater shares of renewable energy is vital for ensuring a livable planet. This workshop brings together scholars from North America and Europe to explore the equity aspects of the energy transition, within the context of their countries’ historical patterns of energy production and consumption. For countries that have made significant adoption of renewable energy, how can policies be designed to further expand renewable energy adoption, while ensure broader sharing of benefits, both as valuable end in itself and in order to sustain political support for the energy transition. For countries that continue to have a strong reliance on fossil fuel extraction, how can policies help the shift towards renewable energy while assisting workers and communities, which have been reliant on fossil fuel extraction, to diversify their economies?
Agenda. Times are in EST. Day 1 June 3rd2022 Friday 800-803 Welcome: Allyson Delnore, Director European Studies Center 803-900 Keynote: Jim Skea 900-945 France: Patrice Geoffron 945-10Break Theme: fossil fuel economies 10-1045United States: Shanti Gamper-Rabindran 1045-1130Canada: Nancy Olewiler 1130-1145 Break 1145-1230 Scotland: Jim Skea 1230-1315 Discussions: Comparative lessons from the presentations
Day 2 June 4thSaturday Theme: Renewable energy and strategies for equitable benefits 8-845 Italy: Andrea Prontera 845-930 Spain: Pablo del Rio Gonzalez 930-945 Break 15 mins Theme: O&G companies transitioning to renewable energy 945-1030 Denmark: Mogens Rudiger 1030-1115 Norway: Espen Moe 1115-1130Break Theme: Europe’s energy transition 1130-1215 GermanyMiranda Schreurs 1215-1315Discussions on Europe’s Energy Transition 1315-1345Research Directions
DETAILS The Just Energy Transition Workshop is a timely workshop to examine the progress of the EU member countries, as well as that of United States and Canada, following the COP-26 in Glasgow in 2021 and the IPCC Sixth Assessment Reports published in 2022. The workshop presentations will also consider the EU member countries’ energy strategies in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The geopolitical implications of reliance on oil and gas have prompted calls in several EU member countries for decisive actions to shift out from oil and gas dependency to renewable energy in order to achieve secure access affordable energy sources and to mitigate the climate crisis. However, rising oil and gas prices has also been used by some to call for expansion of oil and gas extraction in the United States and Canada.
The workshop will pay special attention to the issue of Just Transition. Just Transition is a value embedded in the Paris Climate Agreement, which underscores “the imperative of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.” The Just Transition discussions during the United Nations climate negotiations recognize that dual challenges, first, ongoing fossil fuel extraction impose costs to these communities, and second, the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy pose the challenge of job losses and social dislocation in communities that rely on fossil fuel extraction. Additionally, the Just Transition envisions the energy transition would ensure benefits from renewable energy are more broadly shared among communities, both to meet the equity principle and to build support for the energy transition.
Presentations at the conference will discuss several questions drawing on specific countries’ experiences. What is the progress of the energy transition in these countries? To what extent have countries implemented strategies that would address the Just Transition? What strategies have been used to incentivize the shift of workers away from fossil fuel sectors, for instance in Scotland, and to reposition oil and gas companies as renewable energy companies, as in Denmark and Norway? To what extent have countries implemented renewable energy strategies that broaden benefits to communities, for instance, in Spain, Italy and Germany? And what is the implications of doing so, or failing to do so? How has France, with its heavy reliance on nuclear energy, strategized on the energy transition? How have the US and Canada, major oil and gas producers, proceeded with the energy transition? How have the current geopolitical challenges reshaped countries’ overall energy transition strategies?
Keynote Speaker Jim Skea (Ph.D. Cambridge) is the Co-chair of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was the Research Director of the interdisciplinary UK Energy Research Centre until 2012, leading the Phase I Energy 2050 project. He was appointed Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College London in 2009 and was President of the Energy Institute from 2015 to 2017. Skea also served as the former Chair of the Scotland Just Transition Commission and was a founding member of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change. He was awarded an OBE in 2004 and CBE in 2013 for his work on sustainable transport and sustainable energy respectively. He is currently a Research Councils UK Energy Strategy Fellow at Imperial College London.
Speakers Patrice Geoffron (Ph.D. Paris-Dauphine University) is a Research Fellow of the Centre on Regulation in Europe, member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Management and Network Economics, and co-editor of the Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment journal.In 2018, he joined the world council of the International Association of Energy Economics. He is a professor of economics, and in 2020 was the provisional administrator of Paris-Dauphine in addition to being the international vice-president and director of the economics laboratory previously.
Pablo del Rio Gonzalez (Ph.D. Autonomous University of Madrid) is the head scientist of the Environmental Economics group of the Institute of Policies and Public Goods of the Higher Council for Scientific Research. His lines of research focus on the intersection between environmental economics, innovation economics and energy economics. He has published nearly a hundred articles in high-impact international journals, has participated in seven European projects, and co-authored The Kyoto Protocol and its Impact on Spanish Companies.
Shanti Gamper-Rabindran (Ph.D. MIT) is an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Her book America’s Energy Gamble (Cambridge University Press 2022) details how political, financial and legal institutions entrench fossil fuel dependency, but how efforts to shift to renewable energy are gaining traction. Her edited volume The Shale Dilemma: A Global Perspective on Fracking and Shale Development (University of Pittsburgh Press 2018) details the United States pursuit of shale development and the impacts of shale extraction. She currently serves on National Academy of Science study panel on the chemical economy.
Espen Moe (Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles) is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His academic work focuses on the underlying dynamics of the political economy, structural economic change and long-term economic growth and development, with a special focus on energy systems and the transition away from fossil fuels. He is the author of Governance, Growth and Global Leadership and Renewable Energy Transformation or Fossil Fuel Backlash. He has published in journals such as Energy, Energy Policy and Energy Research & Social Science.
Andrea Prontera (Ph.D. University of Florence) is assistant professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science, Communication and International Relations at the University of Macerata, Italy. His latest book is The New Politics of Energy Security in the European Union and Beyond: States, Markets, Institutions. His main research interests lie in the areas of international political economy, EU politics and policies, comparative public policy, energy security, energy policy, energy transition, development policy, and sustainability.
Nancy Olewiler (Ph.D. University of British Colombia) is a professor at the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, affiliated with organizations such as Powertech Labs Inc. and the Center for Public Research. She has written two widely used textbooks and her research focuses on climate policy, natural resources, energy, and regulation and risk. She is currently a member of the Mitigation Panel for the Canadian Institute of Climate Choices, serves on the board of directors for the Institute for Research on Public Policy and Genome BC, and chairs the Macroeconomic Accounts Advisory Committee for Statistics Canada.
Mogens Rüdiger (Dr.Phil. Aalborg University, Ph.D. Copenhagen University) is a professor at Aalborg University, research coordinator for the Contemporary History research unit, and a member of various academic boards and councils. He is on the executive committee of research school for the Department of History, International and Social Studies at Aalborg University. He has written articles for several academic journals such as Energy Research and Social Science and Energy Policy, and co-authored Ethics in Danish Energy Policy. He was also involved in an energy and ethics project funded by the Independent Research Foundation
Miranda Schreurs (Ph.D. University of Michigan) is Chair of Climate and Environmental Policy at the Technical University of Munich. She was appointed by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel as a member of the Ethics Committee for a Secure Energy Supply. She is the Vice Chair of the European Advisory Council on Environment and Sustainable Development and served on the German Council on the Environment. Her books include Energy Transformation in Times of Populism, Nuclear Waste Governance, Transatlantic Environment and Energy Politics,and Environmental Politics in Japan, Germany and the United States.
Funding:This workshop is funded in large part by a Jean Monnet Network Grant through the Erasmus + Programme of the European Commission