Webinars in Economics of Environment, Energy and Transports
At 4pm on Zoom and has a duration of 60 minutes, with questions at the end.
In order to attend the webinar, registration is mandatory. Please use the following link to access the registration form.
Jan STECKEL (University of Leeds)
The political economy of coal: Obstacles to clean energy transitions
Abstract
In my talk, I will summarize lessons learnt from 15 case studies on the political economy of coal following one integrated framework. It proposes four country categories that show comparable properties to analyze the political economy of coal, including countries that i) phase out coal, ii) phase in coal, iii) are established users and iv) depend on coal exports. Regarding the prevalence of coal investments in many countries, it highlights the role of conflicting societal objectives, e.g. affordable electricity prices being more important than environmental targets. Vested interests are mainly related to locally concentrated job losses, expectations regarding regional development, coal royalties, as well as lobbying by a politically well-connected coal industry. Those factors can be either strengthened or extenuated by structural factors, including multi-level governance issues and the structure of the energy market. Entry points for policy vary for different country categories. De-risking financing of alternatives to coal as well as reforms of energy markets are most important entry points in countries that still invest in coal or plan to phase in coal to their energy systems.