Cross-Border Renewable Energy Transitions

Lessons from Europe's Upper Rhine Region

Philippe Hamman, Philippe Hamman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000528527
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Commodities
• Index: Business

This book explores the intrinsically multiscale issue of renewable energy transition from a local, national and transnational perspective, and provides insights into current developments in the Upper Rhine Region that can serve as an international model.

Organised around the exploration of stakeholder issues, the volume first describes a framework for public action and modelling and then articulates a triple complementary focus from the viewpoint of law, economics and sociology. This multidisciplinary approach is anchored in the social sciences, but also explores the ways in which technological issues are increasingly debated in the implementation of the ecological transition. With a focus on the Upper Rhine Region of France, Germany and Switzerland, the contributions throughout analyse how concrete regional projects emerge, and whether they are carried out by local authorities, private energy groups, network associations or committed citizens. From this, it appears that real-world energy transition modes can be best understood as permanent transactional processes involving institutional regulations, economic levers and barriers and social interactions.

This book will be of interest to advanced students and scholars focusing on renewable energy transition, stakeholder issues, environment and sustainability studies, as well as those who are interested in the methodological aspects of the social sciences, especially within the fields of sociology, law, economy, geography, political science, urbanism and planning.

Part I

From conceptual framework to regional prospective modelling

1

Renewable energy transition beyond borders in Europe

From a literature review to a case study in the Upper Rhine Region

Philippe Hamman

DOI: 10.4324/9781003199977-2

A starting point: unpacking and reframing the “sustainabilisation” of society in times of crisis

At the Earth Summit in 1992, “sustainable development” (SD) was presented as an alternative approach to doggedly following the imperative of economic growth – one that was vague enough to be appropriated by a wide array of actors with diverging objectives (McManus, 1996) on the international as well as national and local levels (Zaccai, 2012). It became a popular and seemingly consensual concept in the 1990s and 2000s for political and economic decision-makers as well as for many associations and non-governmental organisations, with a diffusion between global and local scales, following the example of the Charter of European Sustainable Cities and Towns Towards Sustainability signed in 1994 in Aalborg (Hamman, 2012). But the economic crisis of 2007 revealed its flaws, showcasing the divide between a technical and economic view of sustainability and an ecological and social version (Hamman, 2017; Hamman, Anquetin, Monicolle, 2017).

Lamont C. Hempel suggested that sustainable communities can only exist when “economic vitality, ecological integrity, civic democracy and social well-being are linked in complementary fashion” (1999: 48). But the outcomes of the past 30 years are not very encouraging. Economic growth remains the mantra of major global institutions of governance, as well as many nation-states. Indeed, sustainable cities became perceived as engines of economic development in the 2000s. In terms of ecology, mostly technical innovations have been achieved. There is the idea that we can still grow, but grow “greener” (Bailey, Caprotti, 2014), even after the Paris UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21, December 2015), which highlighted SD as a key societal problem and its importance in interactions between scales. SD today often creates “social injustices as unintended outcomes” (Pearsall, Pierce, Krueger, 2012: 935), resulting from the neoliberalisation of “best practices”. This technological-economic focus on “ecological modernisation” and “industrial ecology” (Mol, Sonnenfeld, Spaargaren, 2009) is a far cry indeed from the environmental and socially oriented concept of “just sustainabilities” (Agyeman, 2013).

Let us start here by pointing out an apparent paradox: SD, which was initially introduced as an alternative paradigm, has come to embody a self-referential legitimacy that pays no attention to several debates. Some have made a distinction between “strong” and “weak” sustainability; the proponents of degrowth (for instance Georgescu-Roegen, 1971) argue that human activities irreversibly deplete resources. By contrast, SD presumes a possible compatibility as long as the benefits of growth are shared and that suitable environmental conditions are achieved.

An approach in terms of social transactions (Hamman, 2012, 2019b) has shed light on the tensions between continuous innovations, for instance those aimed at reducing the impact of car traffic in cities without actually limiting traffic (by limiting speed, etc.) and disruptive innovations requiring a change of paradigm (like promoting the use of cycling). The concept of alternative also opens new perspectives, reflected by the work of Tim Freytag, Stefan Gössling and Samuel Mössner (2014), who have pointed out the gap between the official presentation and urban marketing of a sustainable neighbourhood and the perceptions of everyday residents. A key focus will be on showing how territories and cities can act as concrete mediums for innovative change in a globalised context (Brugmann, 2009).

SD can be considered as a contingent concept, whose practical relevance has been evidenced in the 1990s and 2000s by the reframing of public policy in Europe (Hamman, 2012). The concept was developed during years of globalisation, whose context has changed since the 2007 crisis. Has SD become obsolete, as Dennis Meadows suggests (“It is too late for sustainable development”, in Sinaï, 2013), or, conversely, is it “underused” because of too many criticisms? (Theys, 2014). We raise the question of the alternative as such, in a context that has been referred to as “post-political” (Žižek, 1999): the public debate is broadly characterised by blind spots concealed by “consensus politics”. Under consensus politics, no one is allowed to claim to be against sustainability (Swyngedouw, 2009), and a commitment to preserving the planet from climate change and other “global” threats (tsunamis, floods, droughts, nuclear catastrophes, etc.) is expected (Brown et al., 1987). But SD policies can be limited by the lack of support from citizens, who may not wish to commit or see them as contradicting their image of public service: not treating weeds in cities may for instance attract controversy (Hamman, 2012). The problem of alternatives is central:

• for societal reasons, as SD creates a striking structural paradox by calling for active citizens to change daily practices in terms of housing or consumption and at the same time creating passive individuals in need of “education” in a “normalised” way (particularly for the purposes of monitoring energy consumption).
• in the sense that capacities of social and political anticipation drive the decision-makers involved.
• for scientific reasons, to move away from mainstream studies that either recognise sustainability (and endorse its “novelty”) or reject it (depicting it as the extension of an economic discourse promoting capitalism and growth) (Hamman, 2019a).

In other words, must we move away from a dominant vision of economic growth as the only horizon for progress, in a world marked by the finitude of resources? Or will science and technology bring about the emergence of “sustainable” models of compatibility (like the concept of “green growth”, etc.)? These are two socially situated readings, whose implementation/promotion is not necessarily aimed at the same audiences. Focusing on the register of “transition” allows us to show this, when it comes to paying attention to energy production and/or consumption, and to the organisation of more or less (de)concentrated systems.

A shift from “sustainability” to “transition” paradigm?

The concept of transition emerged in the 1980s (for a more precise historical overview, see Grubler, 2012; Araújo, 2014) in connection to Energiewende – the German term for the energy transition/turn that is now commonly used in other languages as well – and spread during the 2010s, for instance with the transition towns movement, which calls for redeploying a sustainable local economy.¹ Crucially, it emphasises that in the current difficult economic climate, one cannot simply call for “revolutions” because of an ecological necessity to move on or fuel catastrophism without inciting counterproductive reactions from social groups whose situation has deteriorated. In France the gilets jaunes (“yellow jackets”) movement² has made this clear: it spread from November 2018, initially as a protest against fuel price increases, presented as a “green tax” by the government but perceived to target those who are already subject to heavy taxes, especially among the middle classes, as opposed to the more wealthy, believed to be spared. The ecological message is becoming blurred and is increasingly seen as an alibi or as a cause of worsening socio-economic inequalities; calls for long-term responsibility have not rallied enough citizens, as many have to deal with pressing short-term issues. In November 2018, three months after resigning as Minister of the Ecological Transition, Nicolas Hulot cited the conflict of concerns for “the end of the month” and “the end of the world” as a reason for his struggles: due to social matters, environmental threats are put on the back burner in many social spheres.

Public policymakers are thus left with transition, which has become a new buzzword, especially in the field of energy: the idea of a “manageable” evolution has become a new rallying cry (Hamman, 2019c). Socio-ecological change does not follow a single, linear trajectory; rather, it is characterised by a dialectic of constant adaptations and ruptures (Lockie, Sonnenfeld, Fisher, 2014: 95–105). The transition paradigm involves an incremental perception of the changes to be implemented. In contrast to the “collapsology” approaches that announce a breakdown of our industrial societies, speaking of transitioning from a situation A to a purportedly better situation B means that there are solutions in sight, in a “controllable” future. But at the same time, the ecological transition is a normative societal project, as is sustainability. The rhetoric of the “common good” and of the shared future of the planet has become ubiquitous – see, for instance, Barack Obama’s assertion in 2015 as he unveiled in his climate change initiative: “We only get one planet. There is no Plan B”. Behind this, there is both an appeal to active citizens (each should commit at their own level, in their city and neighbourhood, on a daily basis) and a discourse of standardisation that encompasses the “private” sphere (such as “recommendations” concerning food or energy consumption practices, etc.) and promotes “education for SD”, which essentially means that citizens are being treated as children. This dialectic is a building block of sustainability governance (Hamman, 2019b).

If we refer to the concepts of Niklas Luhmann (1985), in this “pedagogy” of transition, the consensus sought is not necessarily “real” but it is “supposed”. Indeed, for Luhmann, social life is a structure of expectations: the expectations of each person towards others, but also the ability to guess the expectations of others, or “expectations of expectations”, that is, responding to what would be a latent expectation. This reflects the concrete work required for a variety of stakeholders to feel involved, including citizens and inhabitants. A “double reconstruction” can be identified:

On the one hand, that of the public as a set of contributors. On the other hand, that of the citizen as a person who is supposed to listen to what is said and take into account what is advised, while at the same time taking part in the community’s discussions.

(Rumpala, 2010: 328)

A number of variations have emerged within the transition discourse, such as hard/soft energy path between fossil and renewable energy sources for climate change adaptation (Sovacool, 2011). The hard/soft paths for energy were popularised with seminal writing by Amory Lovins (1977) in the 1970s. As with SD, there is a normative dimension, particularly if we consider that transition selectively emphasises aspects of sustainability among others (Theys, 2014). An example of this is the tension between the techno-centric and eco-centric interpretations, with adaptation through innovation – transaction in continuity – versus a “decolonisation of natural systems” with less emphasis on technology (Fischer-Kowalski et al., 1997) and the promotion of social ties – transaction in disruption. What could a real alternative actually look like?

Envisioning modernity in Europe in terms of “less” or “without” yields alternatives by withdrawal (including from economic and financial competition, which does not mean withdrawing from the social field altogether) giving exposure both to forms of knowledge and to actors to the detriment of others in concrete stakeholders’ systems (Goulet, Vinck, 2012). This accounts for the depth of interactions between individual and collective actors and the environment. Consequently, it suggests revisiting the continuity/disruption dyad – which remains stuck in the opposition between economic growth and degrowth, as in SD – as a triad, with the hypotheses of innovations through withdrawal or of large globalised networks. For instance, a mode of territorial self-governance or local energy self-sufficiency can be highlighted as “alternative” objectives, including in games and conflicts between different key actors – established ones and newcomers alike. We are then faced with a practical challenge of hybridisation processes between permanent hierarchical and non-hierarchical modes of governance (Hamman, 2019a). Increasing challenges related to partnerships and coordination between diverse stakeholders (states, public and private companies, cooperatives, local authorities, etc.) have arisen in both North and South (Artis, 2018) in the area of the energy transition.

In this context, an energy transition is to be understood as “a set of changes to be accomplished in the ways of producing, consuming and thinking energy” (Cacciari et al., 2014: 1). It involves a great diversity of actors in processes of adjustment and disruption – and therefore goes far beyond a merely technical dimension (Scarwell, Leducq, Groux, 2015), through “the enrolment of additional actors than the incumbent policymakers, technocrats and innovators” (Valkenburg, Cotella, 2016: 1).

The energy transition discourse puts climate change front and center in current sustainability issues; this is sometimes called the “carbonisation” of sustainability (Scanu, 2019). For instance, in France, Vincent Béal and Gilles Pinson (2015) have identified two phases in this process. During the 1990s and early 2000s, sustainable development utterances were widely mobilised with the objective of “modernising” public action by promoting local project dynamics emphasising deliberative and partic...