Energy transition and energy security: a twofold, multi-scalar challenge for the European territory
p. 123-138
Texte intégral
Introduction
1The steady rise in global energy demand and the close connection between fossil energy consumption and climate change have led to a growth in the scientific and political debates over how best to address future energy requirements and, in particular, how to effectively promote and accompany a transition towards a low-carbon society. At the same time, considering that European Union (EU) imports cover about half of its energy needs, energy security has become a policy priority for the EU and its Member States. As a matter of fact, energy issues have been at the heart of the European agenda since its inception, and the progressive consolidation of sustainability and security of supply as the main complementary pillars of the EU energy strategy have allowed for Europe’s energy system to become incrementally lower-carbon, more competitive, and more secure.
2However, while the EU has been successful in institutionalising a climate policy, the formulation of a fully effective energy security policy remains a more complex issue. This is mostly due to the differences that characterize the various national agendas. Whereas there is a clear, urgent need to agree upon shared objectives at the EU level, as well as to persuade the EU Member States to speak with one voice, this need is not always translated into practical results and current European energy policy continues to be strongly influenced by the heterogeneity of national approaches, portraying it as one of the least successful areas of integration, despite its importance for the everyday life of EU population and in moving towards a shared sustainable future. The scarce attention for potential synergies and trade-offs between climate change and energy security is acknowledged by the European Commission through the recent EU Green Paper on a 2030 framework for EU climate change and energy policies, which states that “the 2030 framework must identify how best to maximise synergies and deal with trade-offs between the objectives of competitiveness, security of energy supply and sustainability” (EC, 2013).
3To shed some light on the above, the chapter presents the main findings of the research project MILESECURE-20501, that aimed at “overcoming the political, economic and behavioural traits and trends that led Europe to its difficulties in reducing fossil fuel consumption, and in diversifying its energy balance at a rate which would guarantee energy security, reduce the threat of climate change, and diminish the risk of an energy gap in the coming decades” (MILESECURE.2050 DOW, 2012). In the rationale of the project, energy security is seen as a final output of the energy transition towards a low-carbon society. This transition has to be considered as a process that is influenced by the interaction of multiple intended and unintended elements. This is partly attributable to individual attitude, in particular by the complex range of factors that influence the ways consumers operate in the current market. Overall, the project applied behavioural and social sciences to investigate the challenges that may prevent societies from achieving an energy secure, low-carbon transition, and to suggest how future policies can be adjusted or fine-tuned to effectively tackle these challenges.
4After this introduction, the chapter provides a brief overview of EU energy trends and policies (section 2), to then sketch out the societal dimension of energy transition through the analysis of a number of concrete anticipatory experiences of energy transition at the local level (section 3). On the basis of the latter, further considerations are formulated towards a governance of energy transition (section 4). Finally, the conclusive section proposes a consistent framework of guidelines and recommendations on how to improve the governance of energy transition in EU at the various territorial levels (section 5).
1. Exploring EU energy trends and policies
5The EU energy agenda is greatly influenced by the uneven European energy geography, which constitutes the object of a growing set of strategies and policies. In particular, the EU energy regime is characterised by three main features (Cotella, et al., 2016a):
- First, the EU’s energy system is characterized by a high rate of energy consumption. Gross inland consumption of energy within the EU in 2013 accounted for 16% of global energy consumption.
- Second, the EU has an extremely high rate of import dependence. It imports 53% of the energy it consumes, including almost 90% of its crude oil, 66% of its natural gas and 42% of its solid fuels.
- Third, fossil fuels continue to dominate the primary energy consumption, but their share declined from 82% in 1990 to 73% in 2013. The share of renewable energy sources more than doubled over the same period, from 4.5% in 1990 to 12.6% in 2013, increasing at an average annual rate of 4.5%.
6This framework poses various challenges in relation to energy security, including the need to import fuel and energy, and the related risks of a partial or total interruption of physical energy flow and/or major shifts in energy prices. This is the reason why the differentiation of energy sources and energy imports and the promotion of self-reliance are at the core of European energy policy. In particular, the document Energy 2020: A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy organizes the main foundation of present EU energy policy around five priorities (EC, 2010): (i) achieving an energy-efficient Europe; (ii) promoting a truly pan-European integrated energy market; (iii) empowering consumers and achieving the highest level of safety and security; (iv) extending Europe’s leadership in energy technology and innovation and (v) strengthening the external dimension of the EU energy market.
7Complementarily, the European Commission developed a long-term energy perspective through the Energy Roadmap 2050, a document with a longer timeframe that gives direction for energy policy after 2020, with the aim of reducing pollutant emissions in 2050 by 80-95% compared to 1990. Building on these objectives, the EU energy policy is articulated around various complementary issues: renewable energy, energy efficiency, integration of the EU energy market, completion of the energy network, security of energy supply and energy technology and innovation.
8In particular, the existing EU energy and environmental policy package includes a number of strategies, directives and regulations that focus on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable energy sources by approving mandatory targets of a 26.5% share of energy from RES in overall EU energy consumption by 2030 and an overall greenhouse gas reduction 40% target by 2030 [EUCO 169/14].
9Aside from renewable energy targets, the EU has committed to reach the objective of 20% energy savings in 2020. To meet this, it has realized a variety of energy efficiency policies and directives. Among them, the Energy Efficiency Directive [DIRECTIVE 2012/27/EU] includes general energy efficiency policies and measures addressing specific energy consumption sectors e.g. buildings, transport and industry.
10Furthermore, the Directive establishes energy audits, management systems and a requirement for Member States to set indicative national energy efficiency targets for 2020, which are to be determined nationally and can be based on different indicators such as final energy consumption, final energy savings, or energy intensity. In addition, the internal energy market has been at the centre of various initiatives. A series of Directives for electricity and gas regulation were established, requiring designation of independent regulatory authorities for all Member States which should monitor the whole electricity and gas market, facilitating their regular functioning and the rights and obligations of each of the legal entities and undertakings involved in the markets (Cotella, et al., 2016a).
11In order to deal with energy security challenges, the EU has adopted a special Directive imposing obligations on Member States aimed at ensuring a high level of security of oil supply, through reliable and transparent mechanisms, based on solidarity amongst Member States, maintaining minimum stocks of crude oil and petroleum products, and putting in place the necessary procedural means to deal with serious shortages. Similarly, in the context of external relations, the EC has established a wide range of initiatives and strategic dialogues with Russia, Central Asia, Caspian Sea countries, the Mediterranean Sea countries, the Arab states on the Persian Gulf, and Turkey.
12The above insights clearly show how EU energy climate and security policy is still far from reaching coherence. The heterogeneity of the implemented actions and the capacity for manoeuvre by separate Member States make energy security appear more as the sum of the different national perspectives than as a unitary policy.
13If one agrees that “an energy system is secure when it evolves over time with sufficient capacity to absorb adverse uncertain events, so that it is able to continue satisfying the energy needs of its intended users, with ‘acceptable’ changes in volume and price” (Gracceva and Zeniewski, 2012), it is possible to derive the following warnings from the elements presented above:
- The radical changes envisaged by the wide range of policies introduced to pave the way to a low-carbon energy system may pose challenges to the security of the EU energy system.
- The risk is that, if not properly designed, policies aimed at the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions may affect the resilience of energy systems and their capacity to tolerate disturbances and to deliver stable and affordable energy services to consumers.
- By supporting technological and market solutions designed to achieve different policy objectives, climate change policies can have an impact on energy security and generate extra costs.
14To further reflect on these challenges, it may help to conceive the whole energy transition process as a “societal” process: an organic movement that is both the result of intentional actions, and the product of the interactions of multiple actors and the intended and unintended consequences of these. The following sections argue that the role of society is crucial for a secure energy system as part of a transition towards a low-carbon economy.
2. The societal drivers for low-carbon energy transitions
15Although there is a broad agreement about the need for a low-carbon energy transition, the most effective way to achieve it remains unclear. The review of past and present approaches to energy transition groups them into three main categories (Caiati, et al., 2016): (i) normatively driven, i.e. approaches focusing on the introduction of new rules, regulations and restrictions that citizens must conform with; (ii) technology driven, i.e. measures aiming at the incremental penetration into society of new greener and more efficient technologies and (iii) ethically or lifestyle driven, i.e. initiatives aiming at a progressive consolidation of new attitudes toward energy consumption (and savings) in civil society. Whereas each of these approaches should certainly play a role in the incremental realization of the desired transition towards a low-carbon society, they are all underpinned by a perspective that relegates the social and the individual dimensions to a function of “acceptance” of top-down inputs defined as norms, incentives or guidelines in which the human factor is a mere receptor, and not as a potential agent of change in itself.
16On the contrary, evidence collected through MILESECURE-2050 activity clearly shows the important role played by those groups and communities that anticipate at the local level some basic features of a future low-carbon society.
17In particular, as many as 90 projects were analysed, located in 19 European countries and selected from a long list of over 1,500 potential experiences. These Anticipatory Experiences (AEs), that range from actions aimed at changing a single aspect of their communities such as better sustainable transport, energy efficient housing, or the generation of property-level renewable energy, to initiatives which aimed to produce forms of holistic sustainable communities that incorporated fully functional and independent low-carbon energy networks, developed in discontinuity with current energy transition approaches, testifying a shift from an ancillary or peripheral role downstream in processes of top-down generated change, to leading roles in the emergence of energy systems realised through bottom-up processes of change.
18The analysed AEs clearly show that changes in energy systems are inevitably accompanied, and at the same time made possible only by a deep social change. Similarly, they pose new risks and threats to energy security. First the discontinuity in the management of energy systems, as observed in the AEs, is characterized by specific recurring traits (Caiati, et al., 2016):
- Anticipatory awareness. Rather than being exclusively motivated by ethical imperatives, AEs’ promoters are compelled by the awareness that emerging challenges at the local or global level can represent future setbacks for their communities.
- Critical attitude to contemporary society. AEs are characterized by a critique of the ways in which both contemporary society and traditional energy systems are managed and organized. They express a general criticism of how power is exercised top-down and see authority as being oriented toward high resource consumption, against nature, and failing those who are community oriented.
- Adoption of innovative approaches. AEs are and see themselves as highly innovative groups who break with the past, developing the capacity to bring together professional backgrounds of different types; a strong tendency to adopt a holistic approach that enables them to act on a wide range of aspects of social, economic, technological and cultural life.
- Construction of new social configurations. Often due to their innovative character, AEs seek to reconfigure social space and to develop shared meanings for the different communities involved. With the emergence of new leaders, the activation of symbols and myths related to energy transition, and a passionate participation of citizens in the process of change, they push for a general synchronization of all actors toward joint objectives.
19The depth of change emerging from the AEs highlight the strong weight of the human factor both at the practical and at the experiential level. It is possible to say, on the basis of what the analysed experiences have “anticipated”, that in the future the human factor will have a significance that goes far beyond an increased environmental sensitivity. In this light, it is useful to cluster the main drivers and barriers of the societal processes that stand behind these energy transitions in three main domains (Quinti, et al., 2016):
- Market, External and Governance Factors (E),
- Social, Political Movement, and Grassroots Factors (S),
- Personal, Cultural and Site-specific Factors (P).
20On the basis of these domains, combining qualitative and quantitative information from literature, focus groups, expert interviews and the study of AEs it was possible to categorise and structure eighteen key factors of energy transitions (Table 1). Although further research is required to substantiate these insights, the findings support a preliminary framing of societal drivers of energy transition as pre-conditions, triggers and impacts. In turn, this framework illuminates their relationship with one another and highlighting the emergence of potential barriers. More in particular, eight out of the eighteen factors taken into analysis are related to the “Social, Political Movement and Grassroots Factors” (S) domain. Similarly, elements from this domain dominate, albeit slightly, each stage of the transition process, i.e. in the “pre-conditions”, the triggers and most visibly the “impacts”. Overall, the analysis led to the following main findings:
- The “Social, Political Movement and Grassroots Factors” (Citizens’ orientation to change, engagement in movements and projects at the local level, willingness to pay in part for initiatives) are the most relevant drivers for energy transition and therefore policy action aimed at a smooth energy transition should focus on these elements.
- External governance and financial instruments help bottom-up initiatives scale to a regional or national level. Therefore, policy across a range of scales needs to create governance environments and financial mechanisms to spread local-scale best practices in energy transformation.
- Behavior change and transformation in the personal dimension are prerequisites for the measurable success of transition. Therefore, policies need to evolve from supporting technology innovation and development to enabling paradigm change to new personal and social values.
Table 1. Framing the societal drivers of a low-carbon energy transition.
| Pre-conditions (leverage points in the system) | Triggers (change of flows in system) | Impacts (behaviour or systemic change) |
| Openness of individuals to social change and change processes (S) | Engagement of individuals in local projects, existence of change agents (S) | New socio-cultural power structures (S) |
| Political leadership (covering various levels of governance) (S) | Legal framework, incentives, regulation (E) | New political power structures (S) |
| Human capital (E) | Effective implementation (project management, technical training, information) (P) | New interaction of individuals with technology, society (P) |
| Positive economic impact of the project/measure (P) | Funding models (S) | Evolution of new business models (S) |
| Market signals (E) | Massive shocks, external disruptions to system (E) | New financial and economic paradigm(S) |
| Attention toward practical issues of everyday life (P) | Increased resort to muscular strength allow energy saving (P) | Spreading of energy literacy and of energy citizenship (P) |
Source: Quinti et al., 2016, adapted.
3. Towards a good governance of energy transitions
21AEs’ results suggest that significant potential exists among European citizens to address the challenges of energy transitions. In this light, triggering this potential is crucial for pursuing an energy transition that does not endanger energy security. Civic society and individuals are indispensable sources of knowledge that need to be mobilized in the management of transitions, offering a source of creativity and agency in the solution of problems. At the same time, they can also mount resistance to change if they are not effectively enrolled and engaged in the initiation and management of those changes. These issues simultaneously affect all levels of governance, from the local to the global scale and it is crucial to understand what models of governance could profitably contribute to an activation of the human factor and, in turn, to accompany successful energy transitions.
22The concept of governance serves here two main goals (Valkenburg & Cotella, 2015). First, governance processes need to be receptive to what people think about energy transition issues, in order to profit from their interests, visions of the future and, more in general, from the ways people frame and define the related problems. Second, governance effects decisions and implement them into regulations, laws, incentives, technological configurations, etc. Both functions, of receiving opinions and implementing decisions, are covered by governance spectrum with varying degrees of inclusion and participation: some processes involve (at least potentially) all citizens, whereas other processes are the domain of formal politics or other specific institutions (Figure 1). Different modes of governance were analysed in relation to their potential to promote energy transitions. In particular, the research underlines the ways in which human beings can generate and mobilize energy, many of which are not included in technological and economic discourses.
Figure 1. A two-dimensional classification of conventional modes of governance.

Source: Valkenburg & Cotella, 2015.
23Although at a European level, it has generally been recognized that citizens, communities and societal organizations are to be mobilized towards behavioural change, the ways in which such change of behaviour is to take place remains a largely disputed issue. The research shows that behaviour can only be changed if the larger context of the behaviour is understood and addressed. This requires people’s empowerment through knowledge, their stimulation to recognize problems as their own, all this within institutional contexts ready to welcome local initiative. To do so, the array of knowledge to be mobilized should be broadened to match the high complexity and heterogeneity of energy transition. First, it needs to incorporate citizens’ knowledge, which is highly complementary to formal knowledge available in institutions. This is indispensable if part of the change is to take place in the households, local organizations and communities in which those citizens live. At the same time, formal knowledge should be used not only to inform policy-making but, most importantly, as thought-provoking material upon which debate can be conducted, behaviours shaped and human potentials activated. The more that perspectives upon a problem are mobilized, the larger the creative pool from which solutions can be tapped.
24Building on the main findings of the MILESECURE-2050 project 10 Diagnoses and respective Remedies (Table 2) were identified, altogether composing a guidance document titled “Secure and low-carbon energy is citizens’ energy. A manifesto for human-based governance of secure and low-carbon energy transitions” (Valkenburg, et al., 2015). The document targets a broad range of actors, offering guidance towards a more thorough inclusion of people as citizens into the processes of governance of energy transitions and argues that, whether at the local or at central government level, people should be cherished for their knowledge and creativity, and recognized as the reason why energy transitions matter in the first place. By arguing this, the manifesto also claims that the role of citizens and communities has so far been inadequately understood, especially by policy-makers. In civil society, governance strategies should be aimed at acquiring insight in how citizens, communities and societal groups define the problems and challenges of energy transitions. At the same time, top-down approaches need to continue to play a crucial role, by building social and technical infrastructures in such a way that small-scale experiments with alternative configurations for low-carbon and secure energy are enabled rather than closed off.
Table 2: Ten Diagnoses and ten remedies from the MILESECURE-2050 Manifesto for human-based governance of secure and low-carbon energy transitions.
| Ten diagnoses | Ten remedies |
| The challenge of energy transitions | What is to be done with energy |
| 1. The 2050 goals of a secure and low-carbon European energy system are no longer negotiable, yet too little progress has so far been made. The goals require at once decision and action at the shortest possible term, and visionary anticipation with respect to long-term transitions. | 1. Secure and low-carbon energy should be central on governance agendas from the municipal to the national, European and global levels. Also, they should be treated in tandem, not as separate projects. And they must be addressed as social, technological, and political issues at the same time. |
| 2. Low-carbon and secure energy transitions are heterogeneous processes, including political, technological and social aspects. Citizens and communities play a crucial part, but so far their role has been developed poorly, and they have even been excluded from governance processes, rather than involved and engaged. | 2. Investments must be made to facilitate enrolment and engagement of citizens in dealing with energy challenges. This includes provision of information as well as enabling citizens to deal critically and creatively with this information. |
| How context matters | What is to be done with society |
| 3. Problems do not exist in isolation, but in an institutional, social and political and technological context. This context to a large extent determines which solutions are feasible and which are not. | 3. Investments should be made such that the context becomes receptive towards a broader range of socio-technical solutions for energy challenges, both regarding low-carbon and security. This includes supporting experiments, addressing hegemonies, and articulating externalized costs. |
| 4. Energy transitions are situated in current high-carbon societies, against the background of vested interests and influential societal structures. Currently, European contexts are insufficiently geared towards empowering individuals and facilitating local initiatives. | 4. Investments should not only be made directly into the energy infrastructure, but also more broadly into the context, such that citizens can play a more prominent role in dealing with energy challenges. This is about empowering citizens by providing them with information and resources, and about transforming civic society such that citizens’ knowledge becomes more appreciated. |
| The need for multiple perspectives | How we should know about energy transitions |
| 5. When treating complex problems such as energy transitions, different perspectives, highlight different aspects of the problem and prioritize different solutions. Perspectives may differ between actors, between scientific disciplines, or between cultures. | 5. A richness of perspectives should be cherished to make sure that the interests and knowledge of as many as possible social groups can be incorporated. Particularly qualitative and human-centred accounts deserve more attention in comparison to quantitative, technological and scientific accounts. |
| 6. Multiple perspectives jointly constitute a creative resource which is needed in order to successfully address energy transitions. Perspectives of citizens are currently underrepresented since citizens are insufficiently enrolled as contributors of knowledge, which leads to poor alignment between energy technologies and social practices. | 6. Getting relevant perspectives heard requires inviting relevant parties to voice those perspectives. Investments should be made to emancipate groups that are currently not sufficiently heard. And in addition to voicing their concerns about pending decisions, they should be enabled to present their very own definitions of problems. |
| Governance of energy transitions | Democracy is to be at the core of energy transitions |
| 7. Governance is the distributed process of controlling the organization of society. Its distribution poses important challenges to processes of decision making, democratic accountability, and the enrolment of stakeholders. Without proper methods, governance will fail to engage important parts of society, the cooperation of which is indispensable for energy transitions. | 7. Processes of governance should engage and include individuals, small groups and local organizations. Existing political structures must be revised to empower those local actors, and become more receptive to the idea that decisions taken outside political institutions can be both legitimate and of high quality. |
| 8. Governance of energy transitions is a matter of coordination across social groups, industrial sectors, scientific disciplines, and levels of administration. This coordination currently insufficiently enrols the citizen, at all levels of administration. | 8. Processes of governance should be arranged in such a way that they prevent the emergence and reproduction of unfortunate structures, including social and political injustice. This should be a concern from the local level up to the European level. |
| Strategies for secure and low-carbon energy | Democracy is not only about deciding, it is also about doing |
| 9. Visionary leadership is needed to keep track of the overall direction of energy transitions. At the same time, strategies must be open-ended and foster processes of continuous learning, negotiation and adaptation, and leave room for innovation at the local level and offer methods for transfer of innovation across regions and contexts. | 9. In transitions towards a secure and low-carbon energy system, people should be addressed as a resource of governance, as citizens rather than just as consumers. |
| 10. European strategies towards secure and low-carbon energy must maximize synergy between local initiatives and central government, between top-down and bottom-up approaches, and between technological and economic approaches and citizen-centred perspectives. | 10. In transitions towards a secure and low-carbon energy system, people must be empowered as experimenters, as owners of problems and perspectives, and as the very source of legitimacy for political action. |
Source: Valkenburg et al., 2015, adapted.
4. Concluding remarks and recommendations towards an energy-secure, low-carbon transition
25Evidence produced throughout the chapter highlights how the actual role that the human factor can play in energy transitions requires further consideration in the EU policy-making process both as policy inspiration and as policy target. In this light, it is possible to identify a preliminary set of guidelines and recommendations, to be used as a source of inspiration by decision and policy-makers dealing with the development of future energy policies and approaches (Cotella, et al., 2015). The proposed suggestions build on the recent UN-COP21 agreement, that invites the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement at its first session to explore ways of enhancing the implementation of training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information so as to enhance actions under the Agreement (CP. 21 – 12 December 2015, adoption 84).
26A preliminary set of guidelines for European policies addresses EU decision and policy-makers’ actions within the broader world context, arguing that:
- Energy production and provision strategies should address a diversification of sources and suppliers and a greener energy mix. Most importantly, policies aiming at such diversification should take into account the evolution of geopolitical and geo-economic scenarios and the potential risks they may bring along in terms of energy security.
- Working towards a limited dependency from external sources, actors in the energy field should contribute to provide the EU with a sufficiently strong and secure energy production system. Every legislation and regulation that could contribute to harmonize the EU Member State usage of energy sources will decrease or at least mitigate energy dependency.
- It is crucial that EU foreign politics and policies firmly and proactively address the application of CO2 reduction targets and CO2 global prices to the wider extent of foreign countries. Political actions in this direction may have a strong impact not only on the global and European environmental situation, but also imply direct economic benefits for the EU on the global market.
27Moreover, it is possible to formulate general recommendations to be taken into account by when defining future energy policies focusing on the European and national dimension, as follows:
- EU energy policy should reflect climate change policy objectives and, at the same time, take into account energy security comprehensively, i.e. in terms of energy production, provision, distribution, and consumption. Only in this way it will be possible to exploit the existing synergies as well as to acknowledge and limit the negative impact of potential contradiction between these two dimensions.
- The EU should continue to firmly pursue the consolidation of an EU harmonized energy market. This consolidation should also provide the conditions and the mechanisms to integrate local production initiatives as a prerequisite for the development of societal driven low carbon transition.
- Whereas a EU single energy market can provide several benefits in the medium-long term, it needs careful planning and should always take into account the ability to continue to deliver stable and affordable energy services to consumers in each of the Member States.
28A final group of recommendations focuses on the local dimension, and in particular on inspiring effective EU policies that contribute to activating the human factor locally. In particular:
- The presented evidence shows that to ignore the importance of human energy may be as dangerous as denying the existence of climate change. Therefore, a shift is needed from centralized policies acting top-down to actions favoring bottom-up localized governance.
- The AEs analysis showed that energy transition can be tackled only with a widespread anticipatory praxis in anticipating today the solutions that can address future problems. In order to promote anticipatory behaviour, policy-makers should consider ways to invest in the interconnections between the full range of local stakeholders, from decision-makers and businesses to the capacity of citizens to govern themselves and their energy needs.
- These processes should not forget the importance of the private sector as well as of scientific and technological research in the field, in order to benefit from the contribution of the relevant knowledge and potential for action hold in the hands of each of those groups.
- Low-carbon energy transition can be accelerated to meet new European climate and energy targets by identifying and successfully transferring local anticipatory experiences to surrounding communities and beyond, as well as to upper scales.
29In sum, it is crucial that policy-makers understand the key role of social, political and grassroots factors both as pre-conditions, as triggers and as impact catalysers for the low-carbon energy transformation. This implies significantly less emphasis on technology and on top-down planning and more emphasis on the enabling of both individuals and social groups to articulate themselves and participate in the energy transformation. In this light, policy makers may play a significant role through the creation of a favourable governance and legal framework for advanced and successful local AEs to be reproduced on a broader scale and become eventually mainstream.
30Whereas it is widely accepted that energy transitions cannot proceed without involving the public, this usually translates into policy measures aiming at education, and at the diffusion and discussion of existing information. In order to strengthen the knowledge capital that is actually available at the fullest, a more explicit public involvement is recommended, aiming at perspectives’ exchange and problems’ joint definition.
31Even if many of the proposed policy implications largely transcend formal institutions of politics and policy making, the latter still bear crucially important responsibilities to support such mechanisms. It is vital to keep politics inclusive and receptive not only to stakes and interests but also to problem-framing. While the quality of governance can be thought to be independent from particular political visions or programmes, it is likely that such inclusive views lead to more pro-social arrangements and a greater attentiveness to distributive justice, at the level of citizens as well as between Member States. Visionary leadership at all levels of governance is needed to keep track of the overall direction of energy transitions. Strategies must be open-ended and foster processes of continuous learning, negotiation and adaptation, and leave room for innovation at the local level and offer methods for transfer of innovation across regions and contexts. Therefore, people should be addressed as a resource of governance, as citizens rather than just as consumers.
32Whereas the proposed suggestions are far from exhaustive and may present several limits, especially in relation to potential future geopolitical events and regulations that can modify the current configuration of the European and world energy market (Cotella, et al., 2016b), they aim at framing the development of future policies and regulation that may eventually contribute to the path towards a secure, low-carbon society.
Bibliographie
Des DOI sont automatiquement ajoutés aux références bibliographiques par Bilbo, l’outil d’annotation bibliographique d’OpenEdition. Ces références bibliographiques peuvent être téléchargées dans les formats APA, Chicago et MLA.
Format
COTELLA, G., LOMBARDI, P., TONIOLO, J., 2015. MILESECURE-2050 Deliverable 5.2 Guidelines and Recommendations for European Policies. [Available at: https://www.google.it/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwidhc-J0LjUAhXEXRQKHZ21DooQFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milesecure2050.eu%2Fdocuments%2Fpublic-deliverables%2Fen%2Fdeliverable-5-2-guidelines-and-recommendations-for-european-policies&usg=AFQjCNF_r8DZ7uEw-kNFt7DC_j9zFp0Qyg&sig2=qUuGMaxXylvGNMlIOHoddA&cad=rja].
COTELLA, G., CRIVELLO, S., 2016b. “The Macroregional Geopolitics of Energy Security: Towards a New Energy World Order?” in: Gruenig M., Lombardi P. (eds) Low carbon energy security in a European perspective, London: Elsevier.
COTELLA, G., CRIVELLO, S., KARATAYEV, M., 2016a. “European Union Energy Policy Evolutionary Patterns” in: Gruenig M., Lombardi P. (eds) Low carbon energy security in a European perspective, London: Elsevier.
10.1016/B978-0-12-802970-1.00002-4 :EUROPEAN COMMISSION. EC, 2010. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – Energy 2020 A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy. COM(2010) 639 final. [Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0639:FIN:En:PDF].
EUROPEAN COMMISSION. EC, 2013. A 2030 framework for climate and energy policies. COM(2013) 169 final. [Availbale at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52013DC0169].
EUROPEAN COUNCIL – EUCO 169/14, 2014. Conclusions of the European Council (23 and 24 October 2014) [Available at: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/145397.pdf].
EUROPEAN DIRECTIVE 2012/27/EU of 25 October 2012 on energy efficiency [Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:315:0001:0056:en:PDF].
GRACCEVA, F. and ZENIEWSKI, P., 2012. “Quantitative assessment of energy security. A framework and an overview of selected studies”, Scientific and Policy Report, JRCIET, Petten.
GRUENIG, M., LOMBARDI, P. (eds), 2016. Low carbon energy security in a European perspective, London: Elsevier.
MILESECURE-2050, Description of Work (DoW), 2012 [more information available at: http://www.milesecure2050.eu/].
QUINTI, G., CAIATI, G., GRUENIG, M., O’DONNELL, B., AMERIGHI, O., BALDISSARA, B. FELICI, B., 2016. “European Distributed Renewable Energy Case Studies”, in: Gruenig M., Lombardi P. (eds) Low carbon energy security in a European perspective, London: Elsevier.
10.1016/B978-0-12-802970-1.00006-1 :VALKENBURG, G., COTELLA, G., 2015. “Governance of energy transitions: about inclusion and closure in complex sociotechnical problems”, Energy, Sustainability and Society, p. 1-11 [Available at: https://energsustainsoc.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13705-016-0086-8].
10.1186/s13705-016-0086-8 :VALKENBURG, G., BIJKER, W.E. and SWIERSTRA, T.E. (eds), 2015. “Secure and Low-Carbon Energy is Citizens” Energy. A manifesto for human-based governance of secure and low-carbon energy transitions’. Deliverable 5.1 of the MILESECURE-2050 project, December 2015, Maastricht University/Politecnico di Torino [Available at: http://www.milesecure2050.eu/documents/public-deliverables/en/deliverable-5-1-manifesto-for-a-governance-of-energy-transition].
Notes de bas de page
1 The EU FP7 Project MILESECURE-2050: Multidimensional Impact of the Low-carbon European Strategy on Energy Security, and Socio-Economic Dimension up to 2050 perspective (www.milesecure2050.eu) (2012-2015) was performed by a consortium led by Politecnico di Torino (Italy), and composed by Instytut Energetyki (Poland) EnergSys (Poland); ENEA (Italy); Laboratorio di Scienze della Cittadinanza (Italy); Maastricht University (The Netherlands); The University of Salford (United Kingdom); Paris-Lodron Universitat Salzburg (Austria); EU Joint Research Centre; Ecologic Institute (Germany); Société de Mathématiques Appliqués et de Sciences Humaines (France).
Auteur
-
Giancarlo Cotella
Politecnico di Torino
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Dire la ville c’est faire la ville
La performativité des discours sur l’espace urbain
Yankel Fijalkow (dir.)
2017
Lille, métropole créative ?
Nouveaux liens, nouveaux lieux, nouveaux territoires
Christine Liefooghe, Dominique Mons et Didier Paris (dir.)
2016
Biocarburants, les temps changent !
Effet d'annonce ou réelle avancée ?
Helga-Jane Scarwell (dir.)
2007
Le changement climatique
Quand le climat nous pousse à changer d'ère
Isabelle Roussel et Helga-Jane Scarwell (dir.)
2010
Enseigner les sciences sociales de l'environnement
Un manuel multidisciplinaire
Stéphane La Branche et Nicolas Milot (dir.)
2010
Éco-fiscalité et transport durable : entre prime et taxe ?
Séverine Frère et Helga-Jane Scarwell (dir.)
2011
Écologie industrielle et territoriale
Stratégies locales pour un développement durable
Nicolas Buclet
2011
Universités et enjeux territoriaux
Une comparaison internationale de l'économie de la connaissance
Patrizia Ingallina (dir.)
2012
