Sustainable Energy Transitions II: Frameworks, Drivers and Barriers.

This will be the second of two sessions focused on Sustainable Energy Transitions. It has been eight years since governments around the world committed to the ambitious Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 to keep global average temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius. This required countries around the world, particularly the biggest emitters, to drastically cut their carbon emissions. Government and public support for renewable energy, electric vehicles and greener modes of production have been on the rise. Public awareness about climate change has also increased and attitudes towards environmental sustainability have changed. Green finance has expanded rapidly and Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks are increasing being used to assess business sustainability. Yet, global carbon emissions continue on an upward trajectory. This session invites papers that address the levers and barriers to sustainable transitions in the energy sector from diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives. These include papers on social movements, social networks, governance, and/or green/sustainable finance as social forces that provoke or constrain energy transitions. We encourage both empirical papers based on case studies or global data, as well as more theoretical papers that address the epistemologies of transition.