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Transformative Policy Pathways to Decarbonization

 – Overview – 

This SSHRC-funded research project, being undertaken by an international research team headed up by Matt Hoffmann and Steven Bernstein, seeks to analyze both the obstacles to decarbonization and the conditions under which policy pathways to decarbonization are being and can be constructed. The carbon system or carbon lock-in does not arise from a single technology, institution, or cultural tradition.  It is an emergent property of multiple, interlinked technologies, institutions, and dynamics happening at multiple scales. Thus, destabilizing carbon lock-in and building new path dependencies will not take place on a single path. Instead, multiple pathways to decarbonization will need to be developed at multiple scales simultaneously. The aim of this project is to explore these pathways both theoretically and empirically and to provide guidance on how they can be developed practically.

Interventions

The project team includes:

  1. Graeme Auld
  2. Michele Betsill
  3. Harriet Bulkeley
  4. Benjamin Cashore
  5. Kelly Levin
  6. Matthew Paterson
  7. Simone Pulver
  8. Johannes Stripple

Janzwood, Amy. 2020. Global Business Leadership in Carbon Pricing: The Case of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC). Working Paper 2020-4. Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Millar, Heather, Eve Bourgeois, Steven Bernstein & Matthew Hoffmann. 2020. Self-reinforcing and self-undermining feedbacks in subnational climate policy implementation, Environmental Politics, DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2020.1825302

Bernstein, Steven and Matthew Hoffmann. 2019. Climate politics, metaphors and the fractal carbon trap. Nature Climate Change. 

Janzwood, Amy. 2019. Carbon Disclosure and Decarbonization: The Case of CDP. Working Paper 2019-3. Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Lemphers, Nathan. 2019. Rolling the snowball- Norway’s efforts to electrify transportation. Working Paper 2019-2. Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Yu, Bowen. 2019. Climate Clubs and Global Decarbonization: A Comparison of the APP and the CEM. Working Paper 2019-1. Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Bernstein, Steven and Matthew Hoffmann. 2018. Decarbonisation: The Politics of Transformation. In Governing Climate Change: Polycentricity in Action? Edited by Andrew Jordan, Dave Huitema, Harro van Asselt, and Johanna Forster. Cambridge University Press, pp. 248-265.

Tozer, Laura. 2018. Waterfront Toronto and the Transformation of the Green Building Market. Working Paper 2018-5. Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Bernstein, Steven, Matthew Hoffmann and Nathan Lemphers. 2018. The Global Subsidies Initiative: Catalytic Actors and the Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform. In The Politics of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Their Reform, edited by Jakob Skovgaard and Harro van Asselt, 173-189. Cambridge University Press.

Van der Ven, Hamish, Steven Bernstein, and Matthew Hoffmann. 2017. “Valuing the Contributions of Nonstate and Subnational Actors to Climate Governance.” Global Environmental Politics 17 (1): 1-20.

Tozer, Laura. 2016. “Power and Politics in Decarbonization Pathway: The Case of the Climate Group’s Smart 2020 Initiative“. Working Paper 2016-2. Environmental Governance Lab.

Bernstein, Steven and Matthew Hoffmann. 2016. The Politics of Decarbonization: A Framework and Method. Working Paper 2016-1. Environmental Governance Lab.