Elina Brutschin

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis | IIASA · Energy Program

This Correspondence argues in response to Coolsaet et al. (2024) that there is an important role to play for stance-independent justice discussions that are not tied to specific social, political or critical perspectives. These can be valuable for climate research audiences, but also as a basis upon which to critically debate and research injustice...

Some experts contend that addressing global climate challenges requires consideration of technologies such as Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and, possibly, Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). Previous studies, primarily centered on the OECD region, have indicated that most of these technologies are contentious, eliciting low levels of public support....

Despite faster-than-expected progress in clean energy technology deployment, global annual CO2 emissions have increased from 2020 to 2023. The feasibility of limiting warming to 1.5 °C is therefore questioned. Here we present a model intercomparison study that accounts for emissions trends until 2023 and compares cost-effective scenarios to alterna...

As emerging methods for carbon removal and controversial proposals around solar radiation modification are gaining traction in climate assessments and policy debates, a better understanding of how the public perceives these approaches is needed. Relying on qualitative data from 44 focus groups (n = 323 respondents), triangulated with a survey condu...

Climate change and decarbonization raise complex justice questions that researchers and policymakers must address. The distributions of greenhouse gas emissions rights and mitigation efforts have dominated justice discourses within scenario research, an integrative element of the IPCC. However, the space of justice considerations is much larger. At...

Public perception of emerging climate technologies, such as greenhouse gas removal (GGR) and solar radiation management (SRM), will strongly influence their future development and deployment. Studying perceptions of these technologies with traditional survey methods is challenging, because they are largely unknown to the public. Social media data p...

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is a key element of any mitigation strategy aiming to achieve the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, as well as national net-zero and net-negative greenhouse gas emissions targets. For robust CDR policy, the credibility of certification schemes is essential.

The mitigation scenarios database of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report is an important resource for informing policymaking on energy transitions. However, there is a large variety of models, scenario designs, and resulting outputs. Here we analyse the scenarios consistent with limiting warming to 2 °C or below...

Questions around the technical and political feasibility of deep mitigation scenarios assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have increasingly been raised as have calls for more directly analyzing and incorporating aspects of justice and fairness. Simultaneously, models are increasing the technical representation of novel carbon-...

To reach the mitigation goals of the Paris Agreement, many countries will have to phase out their coal power plants prematurely , i.e., before the end of their normal lifetimes, which will lead quite possibly to significant stranded assets. This could present a major challenge, particularly for many of the rapidly developing countries whose electri...

The implementation of ambitious climate policies consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement is fundamentally influenced by political dynamics. Yet, thus far, climate mitigation pathways developed by integrated assessment models (IAMs) have devoted limited attention to the political drivers of climate policymaking. Bringing together insights f...

A large-scale transformation of the energy system, which climate mitigation entails, is a global and highly politicized problem. This thematic issue brings together scholars who work with Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)—which are used for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and other key analyses of future climate trajector...

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, paved the way for a new hybrid global climate governance architecture with both bottom-up and top-down elements. While governments can choose individual climate goals and actions, a global stock-take and a ratcheting-up mechanism have been put in place with the overall aim to ensure that collective efforts will...

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...

The COVID-19 pandemic might have tremendous consequences on decarbonization efforts across the globe. Understanding governments’ policy action in the short and medium term is key to assess whether the response to the crisis will crowd out or fast-track decarbonization efforts. We surveyed over 200 policymakers and stakeholders from 55 different cou...

Long-term mitigation scenarios developed by integrated assessment models underpin major aspects of recent IPCC reports and have been critical to identify the system transformations that are required to meet stringent climate goals. However, they have been criticized for proposing pathways that may prove challenging to implement in the real world an...

While supply disruptions of oil imports are widely considered a serious threat to a country's energy and overall national security, systematic investigations into the effects of security concerns on investments in energy technology are rare. Complementing existing energy policy literature, this paper investigates the impact of conflict involvement...

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...

This study traces the activities of the European Commission in the natural gas sector from 1980 to 2016, by concentrating on market liberalisation and infrastructure development as the main pillars of the European gas security architecture. By building on previous literature, the Commission’s policymaking is analysed along its formal and informal p...

This chapter starts by tracing the idea of the unification of the European energy markets from the times of the European Coal and Steal Community in 1950s and then explains why European countries subsequently became heavily dependent on oil supplies from the Middle East. It is then argued that oil disruptions of the 1970s, new gas discoveries and t...

Chapter 4 traces the European Commission’s activities and initiatives during the EU’s efforts to liberalise its natural gas market. The observations made in this chapter suggest that when faced with opposition from a number of powerful states and during times of low incentives for new energy policies, the Commission utilises its informal powers suc...

This paper analyzes the effects of fossil fuel rents on R&D expenditures and patent grants in the field of energy-related technology. We argue that an increasing share of fossil fuel rents lessens the innovation of new energy technologies. We consider a sample of countries beyond the common selection of OECD members and investigate innovation effor...

The Arctic, a vast and uninviting region that encompasses about six percent of the Earth's surface and an estimated 22% of the world's undiscovered fossil fuel resources, is rapidly becoming one of the critical geopolitical issues of our time. Much of its resource trove is located under the region's disputed international waters. Working from a reg...

Chapter 6 offers an overview of some of the most interesting insights based on the descriptive evidence provided in Chaps. 4 and 5. First, as one would expect, the Commission applies different strategies depending on the level of demand for energy policies. While in the periods of high level of incentives for coordinating energy policies, the Commi...

Chapter 5 traces the evolution of policies related to trans-European gas infrastructure from 1980 to 2016. This major building block of the European gas security architecture has received little attention from academia so far. This is partially because some major legislation on European infrastructure was passed only recently. The number of occasio...

In Chapter 3, the reader is introduced to the Commission’s formal powers such as agenda setting as well as informal powers such as making use of policy networks, based on the insights from previous studies. One of the key explanatory factors that is mentioned across different studies of European policymaking in the energy sector is the concern over...

This chapter introduces the motivations behind studying the activities of the European Commission within the European natural gas market. The European Union (EU) currently faces a number of challenges, one of them being the creation of the European Energy Union during times of low energy prices and highly uncertain political environment. By studyin...

This chapter traces the role of eastern European countries during the negotiations of the third gas directive and their role in bringing on the decision agenda the so-called “Gazprom clause”. It is argued that the enlargement did not significantly change the interest heterogeneity on the liberalisation issues and that the main explanatory power for...

The enduring crisis in Ukraine presents the European Union (EU) with a conundrum. Should it strengthen its economic and energy ties despite Russia’s growing assertiveness in the hope to solidify its medium term energy security and reel in Russian foreign policy? Or should it rather continue to tighten the screws on the Putin regime, in the hope tha...