Abstract
The ambition to keep global warming well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, as recognised in the Paris Agreement, implies a reorientation towards low-carbon societal development and, ultimately, the decarbonisation of human societies and economies. While climate policy has been geared towards achieving set emission reduction targets, the decarbonisation of key socioeconomic sectors such as energy-intensive natural resource-based industries (ENRIs) has not yet been sufficiently addressed, neither politically nor in science. Decarbonising the ENRIs is a complex societal problem that will require structural transformation technologically as well as socially. Understanding the conditions for transformative change therefore necessitates integrated knowledge from multiple perspectives of different research fields. In this paper, we examine the potential of combining three different research fields and critically scrutinize the challenges to integration for understanding the conditions for industrial decarbonisation: energy system analysis, sustainability transition research and policy studies. We argue that these perspectives are complementary—a fundamental condition for fruitful integration—but not easily compatible since they are sometimes based on different ontological assumptions. The research fields are in themselves heterogeneous, which poses additional challenges to an integrated research approach. Drawing on experiences from a Swedish research project (GIST2050) on industrial decarbonisation, we suggest a modest approach to integrated research that could progressively develop from multidisciplinary exchange towards more integrated forms of interdisciplinarity by means of cross-disciplinary dialogue and understanding.
Highlights
In the recent and on-going redirection of climate policy, climate change is being reframed from an emissions problem to an energy system problem or, more broadly speaking, a societal problem
We explore perspectives and approaches within three research fields employed in the Green Industrial Sustainability Transitions (GIST) project, which are relevant for understanding the conditions for governing energy system transformations in general and industrial decarbonisation in particular: energy system analysis, sustainability transition research and policy studies
We discuss the benefits and barriers of integrating perspectives from three different research fields employed in a concrete research project (GIST2050) and propose a modest approach to integrated research that is honest about what it takes to integrate research and avoids the seemingly common trap of virtue signalling, promising a lot but achieving little
Summary
In the recent and on-going redirection of climate policy, climate change is being reframed from an emissions problem to an energy system problem or, more broadly speaking, a societal problem. The ambition to keep global warming well below 2 ◦C above pre-industrial levels, as recognised by and expressed in the Paris Agreement, implies a reorientation towards low-carbon societal development and, the decarbonisation of human societies and economies. Such societal transformations will have to amount to nothing less than structural transformation of every sector of society, including key industries such as energy-intensive natural resource-based industries (ENRIs) accounting for approximately 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions [1]. These industries have previously been largely exempted from progressive climate policies, as that would pose a critical governance challenge for policy makers, i.e., how to decarbonise the ENRIs without compromising the international competitiveness of industries key to national economies
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