Decarbonisation: The next ‘grand transition'

The European Union is adopting «decarbonisation» as an important priority of the policy agenda for the next few decades. The levers of the «grand transition» are expected to be largely technological. However, the issue of triggers and drivers seems to be rather open.While for some non-fossil energy technologies, the diffusion process of the past few decades – and the associated «learning curves» –actually brought their costs to a competitive level, other low/zero carbon technologies remain non-competitive at the present (and expected) fossil energy prices. What is more, a number of these technologies, like electric mobility, have the features of complex trajectories requiring systemic changes in a framework of socio-technical co-evolution (individuals’ choices and behaviours matter). Other options considered by the analysis supporting the Communication, like the circular economy, are changes involving the products, materials, and waste of all the major industrial value chains. Thus, in the present age of low-energy prices, or weak market-related triggering factors, policies can drive the «grand transition» forward to achieve the socio-technical setting of a «climate neutral economy». The paper analyses the conditions at which policies can guide the transition, in particular in terms of instruments, finance, and activation of the private sector.