Aleh Cherp

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Central European University

Energy security studies have expanded from their classic beginnings following the 1970s oil crises to encompass various energy sectors and increasingly diverse issues. This viewpoint contributes to the re-examination of the meaning of energy security that has accompanied this expansion. Our starting point is that energy security is an instance of s...

Among diverse factors shaping energy transitions, economic development, technological innovation, and policy change are especially prominent. Therefore explaining energy transitions requires combining insights from disciplines focusing on these factors. The existing literature is not consistent in identifying these disciplines nor proposing how the...

To keep global warming within 1.5 °C of pre-industrial levels, there needs to be a substantial decline in the use of coal power by 20301,2 and in most scenarios, complete cessation by 20501,3. The members of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), launched in 2017 at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, are committed to “phasing out existing unaba...

The feasibility of different options to reduce the risks of climate change has engaged scholars for decades. Yet there is no agreement on how to define and assess feasibility. We define feasible as “do‐able under realistic assumptions.” A sound feasibility assessment is based on causal reasoning; enables comparison of feasibility across climate opt...

To limit global warming to 1.5°C, fossil fuel use must rapidly decline, but historical precedents for such large-scale transitions are lacking. Here we identify 147 historical episodes and policy pledges of fossil fuel decline in 105 countries and global regions between 1960 and 2018. We analyze 43 cases in larger systems most relevant to climate s...

Climate change mitigation requires the large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Recent plans indicate an eight-fold increase in CCS capacity by 2030, yet the feasibility of CCS expansion is debated. Using historical growth of CCS and other policy-driven technologies, we show that if plans double between 2023 and 2025 and their fa...

Coal power phase-out is critical for climate mitigation, yet it harms workers, companies, and coal-dependent regions. We find that more than half of countries that pledge coal phase-out have “just transition” policies which compensate these actors. Compensation is larger in countries with more ambitious coal phase-out pledges and most commonly dire...

Climate policies are often assumed to have significant impacts on the nature and speed of energy transitions. To investigate this hypothesis, we develop an approach to categorise, trace, and compare energy transitions across countries and time periods. We apply this approach to analyse electricity transitions in the G7 and the EU between 1960 and 2...

Climate change mitigation requires rapid expansion of low-carbon electricity but there is a disagreement on whether available technologies such as renewables and nuclear power can be scaled up sufficiently fast. Here we analyse the diffusion of nuclear (from the 1960s), as well as wind and solar (from the 1980-90s) power at the national level. We s...

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) including its negative emission applications play a key role in climate change mitigation. Recent industry plans indicate an eight-fold increase in capacity by 2030, yet the feasibility of rapidly upscaling CCS is debated due to past failures and long-term storage constraints. Here we re-focus this debate on the fea...

Transitioning to net-zero carbon emissions requires phasing-out unabated coal power however recently it has only been declining in some countries, while it stagnated or even increased in others. Where and under what circumstances, has coal capacity reached its peak and begun to decline? We address this question with an empirical analysis of coal ca...

While macroeconomic models highlight rapid coal phase-out as an urgent climate mitigation measure, its socio-political feasibility is unclear. The negative impacts of coal phase-out for companies, workers and coal-dependent regions, and the unequal global distribution of the coal phase-out burden has triggered resistance and calls for just transiti...

Decarbonising the power sector requires feasible strategies for the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and the expansion of low-carbon sources. This study assesses the feasibility of plausible decarbonisation scenarios for the power sector in the Republic of Korea through 2050 and 2060. Our power plant stock accounting model results show that achievin...

Ending the use of unabated coal power is a key climate change mitigation measure. However, we do not know how fast it is feasible to phase-out coal on the global scale. Historical experience of individual countries indicates feasible coal phase-out rates, but can these be upscaled to the global level and accelerated by deliberate action? To answer...

At the annual G7 summit in 2022, G7 countries and the European Union committed to decarbonise electricity by 2035. Is this target feasible? What would achieving the target exactly require? This poster analyses the evolution of electricity sectors in G7 in 1960-2020 with an aim to compare the type, direction, and speed of transitions before and af...

Phasing out fossil fuels requires destabilizing incumbent regimes while protecting vulnerable groups negatively affected by fossil fuel decline. We argue that sequencing destabilization and just transition policies addresses three policy problems: phasing out fossil fuels, transforming affected industries, and ensuring socio-economic recovery in fo...

Decarbonisation of the power sector requires feasible strategies for rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and expansion of low-carbon sources. This study develops and uses a model with an explicit account of power plant stocks to explore plausible decarbonization scenarios of the power sector in the Republic of Korea through 2050 and 2060. The results s...

Decarbonisation of the power sector requires feasible strategies for rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and expansion of low-carbon sources. This study develops and uses a model with an explicit account of power plant stocks to explore plausible decarbonization scenarios of the power sector in the Republic of Korea through 2050 and 2060. The results s...

Understanding the role of technology characteristics and the context in the diffusion of new energy technologies is important for assessing feasibility of climate mitigation. We examine the historical adoption of nuclear power as a case of a complex large scale energy technology. We conduct an event history analysis of grid connections of first siz...

Economically optimal climate strategies may be politically less feasible because they need strong collective action. Fortunately, achieving climate goals through more realistic differentiated policies may not be much more expensive.

Climate mitigation scenarios envision considerable growth of wind and solar power, but scholars disagree on how this growth compares with historical trends. Here we fit growth models to wind and solar trajectories to identify countries in which growth has already stabilized after the initial acceleration. National growth has followed S-curves to re...

This report presents 100 research questions that have been identified by scientific experts as key priorities for Social Science and Humanities (SSH)research on renewables, in order to inform and support EU-funded research and innovation leading to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050.

This report presents 100 research questions that have been identified by scientific experts as key priorities for Social Science and Humanities (SSH) research on renewable energy, in order to inform and support EU-funded research and innovation leading to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050. The questions together aim to promote SSH research that co...

Whether and how long-term energy and climate targets can be reached depend on a range of interlinked factors: technology, economy, environment, policy, and society at large. Integrated assessment models of climate change or energy-system models have limited representations of societal transformations, such as behavior of various actors, transformat...

Keeping global warming below 1.5°C is technically possible but is it politically feasible? Understanding political feasibility requires answering three questions: (a) “Feasibility of what?,” (b) “Feasibility when and where?,” and (c) “Feasibility for whom?.” In relation to the 1.5°C target, these questions translate into (a) identifying specific ac...

This paper contributes to understanding national variations in using low-carbon electricity sources by comparing the evolution of nuclear, wind and solar power in Germany and Japan. It develops and applies a framework for analyzing low-carbon electricity transitions based on interplay of techno-economic, political and socio-technical processes. We...

Ensuring energy security and mitigating climate change are key energy policy priorities. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III report emphasized that climate policies can deliver energy security as a co-benefit, in large part through reducing energy imports. Using five state-of-the-art global energy-economy models a...

Masahiro Sugiyama and colleagues write that Japan expanded the role of renewables after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident (Nature 531, 29–31; 2016). In fact, Japan's targets for renewables were essentially unaffected by the disaster — although the country did alter its nuclear plans. Japan's projected electricity mix for 2030 is set out...

Energy security is a multidisciplinary field which overlaps with engineering and energy systems analysis, earth sciences, economics, technology studies, political science, international relations, and security and military studies. Though discussions of energy security have been around for most of the 20th century, a systematic “energy security sci...

In the post–Cold War era, the concept of water security referred to the potential dangers of conflict over water resources and safety of drinking water infrastructure from attacks by military enemies or terrorists. By the 1990s, water security increasingly became discussed together with human security and such concerns as economic security, environ...

How would a low-carbon energy transformation affect energy security? This paper proposes a framework to evaluate energy security under long-term energy scenarios generated by integrated assessment models. Energy security is defined as low vulnerability of vital energy systems, delineated along geographic and sectoral boundaries. The proposed framew...

Annotated Bibliography on Energy Security

An annotated bibliography of major sources on water security

Energy security is one of the main drivers of energy policies. Understanding energy security implications of long-term scenarios is crucial for informed policy making, especially with respect to transformations of energy systems required to stabilize climate change. This paper evaluates energy security under several global energy scenarios, modeled...

This paper assesses energy security in three long-term energy scenarios (business as usual development, a projection of Copenhagen commitments, and a 450 ppm stabilization scenario) as modeled in six integrated assessment models: GCAM, IMAGE, MESSAGE, ReMIND, TIAM-ECN and WITCH. We systematically evaluate long-term vulnerabilities of vital energy s...

The former Soviet empire spanned eleven time zones and contained half the world’s forests; vast deposits of oil, gas and coal; various ores; major rivers such as the Volga, Don and Angara; and extensive biodiversity. These resources and animals, as well as the people who lived in the former Soviet Union – Slavs, Armenians, Georgians, Azeris, Kazakh...

The assessment of student learning driven by learning outcomes is often viewed as a tool to promote excellence in higher education. At the same time, many professors do not see a value in such approach, while nonetheless sincerely seeking to promote teaching and learning excellence. Is this a result of misunderstanding or is there an inherent confl...

The motivations prompting China's dramatic increase in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) are not always clear, especially regarding OFDI by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in energy and natural resources. First, both commercial and governmental interests are intertwined, although not necessarily in lock-step. Chinese SOEs listed in the West m...

Scholarly discourses on energy security have developed in response to initially separate policy agendas such as supply of fuels for armies and transportation, uninterrupted provision of electricity, and ensuring market and investment effectiveness. As a result three distinct perspectives on energy security have emerged: the 'sovereignty' perspectiv...

This issue addresses two distinct yet interconnected global energy challenges: energy security and energy access. Energy security is primarily a national level concern whereas energy access is largely a problem at the household level. However, these levels are not isolated from each other. For example, inadequate access compels governments to build...

Global energy systems face multiple interconnected challenges which need to be addressed urgently and simultaneously, thus requiring unprecedented energy transitions. This article addresses the implications of such transitions for global energy governance. It departs from the reductionist approach where governance institutions and mechanisms are an...

The AG focused on providing advice on strategy, objectives and research priorities, thereby contributing to a vision of environmental research and where efforts at the European level can add value. The advice is grounded in scientific knowledge as well as our understanding of policy and socio-economic needs. The AG started its work in the context o...

for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine, energy security has become a top priority because of their acute vulnerabilities. These states consume far more energy relative to the size of their economies than Western European countries because of the relatively large size of the industrial sector in their economies and energy inefficiencies in all sectors. La...

The effectiveness of Environmental Assessment (EA) depends on its ability to effect change in the way human activities impact the environment. Unfortunately, environmental professionals are all too familiar with a gap between protecting the environment ‘on paper’ (e.g. in the EIS and related documents) and destroying it ‘on the ground’ where the ac...

A transition to environmentally sustainable societies should involve a significant and comprehensive — strategic — change. Much of the promise of SEA is associated precisely with its perceived capacity to facilitate such a strategic transformation by influencing selected ‘strategic decisions’. This paper examines the potential effectiveness and lim...

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Risk Assessment (RA) processes are rarely used to complement each other despite potential benefits of such integration. This paper proposes a model for procedural and methodological integration of EIA and RA based on reported best practice approaches. The proposed model stipulates ‘embedding’ RA into EIA an...

At the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 governments undertook to develop and adopt national sustainable development strategies as a key component of implementing the goals of Agenda 21. Only partial progress was reported at the 2002 World Summit in Johannesburg, with uncertainty as to the effectiveness of those strategies that had been introduced. This pap...

The Russian Federation environmental assessment (EA) system comprises state environmental review (SER) undertaken by state authorities and assessment of environmental impacts (OVOS) undertaken by the developers. Despite significant progress in the 1990s, integration between SER and OVOS, screening and scoping provisions and alignment with internati...

The long-term impact of the Chernobyl accident on the most affected populations in Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation is still evident in terms of a continuing elevated level of thyroid cancer, prominent psychosocial effects, a depressed economy and a low level of well being. Some of these impacts are directly and primarily attributable to...

Environmental assessment (EA) systems in the countries-in-transition (CITs) in Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia have been significantly reformed over the last decade. Considerable research efforts have focused on the degree to which EA in this region conforms to best international practice, functions well and results in environ...

Economic liberalization in former socialist countries may have various implications for their environmental sustainability. Positive effects of this process are potentially associated with improved efficiency, investments into cleaner technologies, responsiveness to environmentally aware markets, and ending subsidies to heavy industries. On the oth...

Azerbaijan inherited the Soviet State Environmental Review procedure, which was overly technocratic and lacked essential elements of effective EIA. A parallel system more closely conforming to the ‘classic’ EIA was created in 1996 and has been applied to dozens of major developments, particularly in the oil sector. This ‘dual-track’ system has help...

The International Workshop on Public Participation and Aspects of Health in Strategic Environmental Assessment took place on 23-24 November, 2000 at the Regional Environmental Center (REC) for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in Szentendre, Hungary. The workshop was held at the invitation of Norway and the Czech Republic, and with the support of It...

Over the last fifteen years, Environmental Assessment systems of transitional societies of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia have undergone dramatic change from appraisals integrated into centrally planned economies to formal procedures aimed to ensure interdisciplinary analysis of environmental impacts and linked to publicly accountable...

The paper describes the main directions and the outcomes of the reform of EA legislation in practice in 27 former socialist countries in the 1990s. During this period, more than 100 legal acts in the field of EA have been introduced and EA has become one of the most widely used environmetal policy tools. The process of political and economic transi...

Increasing application of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of land-use plans has been accompanied by concerns about their quality. This paper suggests a tool for the systematic evaluation of the quality of SEA reports, based on criteria derived from formal SEA provisions, including the draft European Union SEA Directive, general objectives...

Though the majority of EIA laws in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) requires assessment of effects of proposed development activities on human health, most countries find it difficult to implement this requirement in practice. This is mostly due to institutional, procedural and methodological differences between EIA and health impact assessment (HI...

The reforms of the Soviet political and economic systems in the late 1980s and early 1990s were closely associated with environmental concerns. The support for the reforms was propped by popular dissatisfaction with environmental performance of the socialist economy. Politicians widely played the "environmental card" to challenge the existing polit...