Daniel Rosenbloom

• PhD in public policy
• Assistant Professor & Research Chair in Sustainability Transitions at Carleton University

In response to calls to develop more politically-informed transition studies, a burgeoning literature on discourse-transition complementarities and niche-regime interactions has recently emerged. This paper draws these strands of literature together in order to develop a discursive approach that investigates the process by which actors use language...

Transition studies have made constructive efforts to attend more closely to the politics of sustainability transitions, with discourse emerging as an increasingly important means of interrogating these dynamics. Drawing on discourse perspectives, this study deploys the multi-dimensional discursive approach to explore framing struggles surrounding a...

Carbon pricing is often presented as the primary policy approach to address climate change. We challenge this position and offer “sustainability transition policy” (STP) as an alternative. Carbon pricing has weaknesses with regard to five central dimensions: 1) problem framing and solution orientation, 2) policy priorities, 3) innovation approach,...

Purpose After decades of delay, there are promising signs that society may finally be getting serious about climate change. But the problem is now of such urgency that accelerating transition pathways to net zero is of paramount importance. Which governance approach gives society the best chance of simultaneously realizing the multiple sectoral and...

This paper applies insights from the literature on transitions in major consumption–production systems to clarify the nature of the challenge of moving to a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emission society. It highlights critical features of transitions including their multiactor/multicausal logic, phased development, and distributive impacts. Becaus...

The net-zero energy transition is an extraordinary societal challenge. It requires a swift, radical and economy wide transformation. With the aim of informing research and policy, we identify general phases of this transition and the overarching strategies that may be brought to bear in tackling this challenge. Drawing from the literature on sustai...

Phase-out is playing an increasingly prominent role as a policy approach to address various sustainability challenges. From leaded gasoline to agrochemicals and coal-fired power plants, a diversity of substances, technologies and other harmful elements are targeted by interventions that govern their gradual decline over time. While this rising prom...

‘Phase-out’ is increasingly mobilised in research and policymaking as an approach to catalyse the gradual decline of technologies, substances and practices that compromise environmental sustainability objectives. This trend is particularly pronounced in the context of climate change, demonstrated by the accumulation of a vast body of scholarship ov...

Phase-out has emerged as a policy approach to confront multiple sustainability crises. From ozone-depleting substances and hazardous chemicals to fossil fuels and transport technologies, phase-out experiences have been documented by diverse scientific communities. To consolidate this dispersed knowledge and inspire more systematic research, we map...

Phase-out is rapidly gaining traction as a central part of practical efforts to address sustainability challenges. However, the way it has been conceived of in policy debates and some academic work is problematic in that it (1) tends to be narrowly focused on substitution; (2) underexposes the bi-directional relationship between phase-outs and inno...

While transition research (Konrad, Truffer, and Voß 2008; Raven 2007; Wirth and Markard 2011; Papachristos, Sofianos, and Adamides 2013; Geels 2007) and innovation studies (see e.g. Perez 2009; Freeman and Louçã 2001) have long recognized the importance of interactions across sociotechnical systems in shaping change processes, there has been limite...

This is a reply to van den Bergh and Botzen who argue that a low-carbon transition is improbable without carbon pricing. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/38/23219 as a response to https://www.pnas.org/content/117/16/8664

Promoting low‐carbon innovation has long been a central preoccupation within both the practice and theory of climate change mitigation. However, deep lock‐ins indicate that existing carbon‐intensive systems will not be displaced or reconfigured by innovation alone. A growing number of studies and practical initiatives suggest that mitigation effort...

Many economists, businesses, and policymakers view carbon pricing as the single best policy approach to address climate change. Such optimism, however, tends to neglect the political conflicts surrounding climate policy and the necessity to accelerate the ongoing low-carbon energy transition. To unveil these conflicts, we analyze the responses of k...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world are mobilizing unprecedented public resources to mitigate economic collapse. However, these new programs run the risk of paying insufficient attention to the multiple sustainability crises we face. Climate change, in particular, threatens the very basis for continued human prosperit...

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, countries are launching economic recovery programs to mitigate unemployment and stabilize core industries. Although it is understandably difficult to contemplate other hazards in the midst of this outbreak, it is important to remember that we face another major crisis that threatens h...

To meet the Paris climate commitment of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius, industrialized economies will need to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25 percent of 2010 levels by 2030 and move to carbon neutrality by about 2070 (IPCC 2018). This implies a dramatic transformation of societal systems such as elect...

As sustainability challenges and the transformative changes they necessitate stretch well beyond the boundaries of individual socio-technical systems, there is a pressing need to generate more sustained interest in the dynamics occurring across rather than within systems. In response, this viewpoint takes stock of existing work on multi-system dyna...

Overview of the project COALSTAKE. The team consisting of the University of Basel, the University of St.Gallen, and the University of Toronto is running a research program that investigates sources of cross-national differences in coal policy-making. Our focus is on the links among energy stakeholders' resource endowments, practices, and the evo...

This chapter explores the essential role of politics, the state and technology in achieving transitions towards sustainable development in the area of energy. It focuses on some recent examples of emerging sustainability transitions witnessed in developed countries, with a special focus on: (1) the phase out of coal in Ontario, Canada; and (2) the...

This thesis explores the politics of decarbonization pathways, with a particular focus on the responses to and conflicts surrounding the transition to a low-carbon energy future. As part of this, the dissertation: (1) scrutinizes how the concept of “pathways” is understood within climate-energy policy and analysis; and (2) attends to the struggles...

Canada is embarking upon a low-carbon energy transition, which will involve the diffusion of innovations and the reconfiguration of energy systems. This paper examines the potential contribution that transition experiments can make to this process. Transition experiments can be understood as deliberate interventions which test novel configurations...

[Discussion paper presented to the Economics & Environmental Policy Research Network] Climate policy stability is often considered to be instrumental in redirecting significant financial flows toward climate action by minimizing risk and uncertainty for investors. The logic is that uncertain climate policies create too many risks for private sector...

Transition pathways have attracted increasing interest as a useful analytical lens through which to capture the interlocking processes, patterns, and directions that might constitute substantial movement toward sustainability. While recent research has elaborated the political character of pathways, there is still room to further scrutinize the rol...

Smart grid technologies are an important dimension of electricity system change and governments have been actively involved in their diffusion in a number of jurisdictions. Deployment rates for technologies involving the public have varied, despite governments pursuing similar policies/programs and implementing comparable technologies, such as smar...

Discussion paper for Sustainable Canada Dialogues side event at Generation Energy in October 2017. Outlines the concept of 'transition experiments' along with the opportunities a program of experimentation might provide for the pursuit of low-carbon pathways in Canada. Potential benefits include learning, capacity building, and public education and...

Despite rapidly falling costs, financing remains a serious barrier to the diffusion of distributed solar photovoltaics (PV) in Canada, a promising low-carbon electricity generation technology. We assess the potential of one financing program model, Property Assessed Payments for Energy Retrofits (PAPER), for the deployment of PV. This program desig...

Over the past decade, a number of jurisdictions have taken significant steps to encourage the diffusion of solar photovoltaic technology (PV). Supportive policy frameworks have been widely adopted, spurring deployment and driving down the cost of PV components. The increased competitiveness of this technology presents a promising opportunity for me...

Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is emerging as a promising alternative in the suite of measures needed for the long-term transition of urban areas to sustainable and resilient places to live. Aesthetically pleasing, carbon neutral, and potentially transformative in how electricity grids operate in urban areas, BIPV has much to offer our ci...

This article employs the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions to explore the historical evolution of the electricity regime in the province of Ontario from 1885-2013 and to interpret the potential for future movement towards decarbonization. With an emphasis on the political and social dimensions of transitions, this analysis trac...

Over the past decade, solar photovoltaics (PV) have attracted increasing attention as promising low-carbon innovations worthy of government investment. Numerous incentive frameworks have been developed to encourage the deployment of PV, with the electricity sector surfacing as the focal point for this policy engagement (through the feed-in tariff a...

Solar photovoltaics (PV) have become an increasingly important part of the global energy landscape over the past several years. As jurisdictions around the world continue to encourage the deployment of PV systems, module costs have plummeted and vastly improved the competitiveness of PV. As a result, the PV market has grown immensely, reaching $93...

This study attempts to answer the question ‘are universities taking sustainability seriously’? Specifically, this paper examines the extent higher education institutions have institutionalized sustainability into their decision-making processes. It investigates whether universities have incorporated a comprehensive conception of sustainability into...