Could it be that Stock-Stake Holders Rule Transition Arenas?

Abstract

The theme of the book is about turning the energy sector in the direction of sustainable development. A handful academic colleagues have been pushing the ‘energy transition’ to ‘sustainable development’, long before both concepts became icons in the scientific and societal debate. The decade 1973–1983 opened windows of fresh understanding and hopeful opportunities, but the overcapacities in fossil energy supplies and nuclear power plants locked end-users, companies, and politicians in the old business model: growth of material production correlated to similar growth in commercial energy use. We lost a few decades of valuable time to make this world a safer and more sustainable place to live. Forced by planetary scale environmental destructions and threats, in particular (but not exclusively) climate change, many more people see the necessity of a fundamental energy transition. “After more than two decades, a shift of paradigm in energy policy is on the agenda in industrial as well as in developing countries for several reasons” (Mez & Brunnengräber 2011).