Germany's Energy Transition: A Comparative Perspective

✍ Scribed by Carol Hager, Christoph H. Stefes (eds.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 265
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book analyzes Germany's path-breaking Energiewende, the country's transition from an energy system based on fossil and nuclear fuels to a sustainable energy system based on renewables. The authors explain Germany's commitment to a renewable energy transition on multiple levels of governance, from the local to the European, focusing on the sources of institutional change that made the transition possible. They then place the German case in international context through comparative case studies of energy transitions in the USA, China, and Japan. These chapters highlight the multifaceted challenges, and the enormous potential, in different paths to a sustainable energy future. Taken together, they tell the story of one of the most important political, economic, and social undertakings of our time.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xxxv
The Grassroots Origins of the German Energy Transition....Pages 1-26
Why Subnational Actors Matter: The Role of Länder and Municipalities in the German Energy Transition....Pages 27-61
Critical Junctures and the German Energiewende ....Pages 63-89
The German Energiewende in a European Context....Pages 91-110
Avoiding Transitions, Layering Change: The Evolution of American Energy Policy....Pages 111-131
Exercising Power: China’s Transition to Efficient, Renewable Energy....Pages 133-163
Renegotiating Japan’s Energy Compact....Pages 165-184
Conclusion: Lessons from the German Energiewende ....Pages 185-193
Back Matter....Pages 195-235

✦ Subjects

European Politics;Environmental Policy;Environmental Politics;Political Science;Comparative Politics