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Introduction: Rebound Research in a Warming World

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Rethinking Climate and Energy Policies

Abstract

This introductory chapter to the book “Rethinking Climate and Energy Policies. New Perspectives on the Rebound Phenomenon” serves four functions. First, it contextualizes this volume in current up-to-date climate and energy discourses, notably vis-à-vis the endeavor to limit anthropogenic climate change to below 2 degrees Celsius. Second, it embeds rebound research in the longer-standing debates on sustainable development, including discussions on the limits to growth and the challenges to sufficiently decouple energy and resource demand from economic growth. Third, it provides a brief history of the debate about the rebound phenomenon and distinguishes four genuine phases of past rebound research. Finally, the chapter sets the stage for the research questions addressed in this book and outlines the structures as well as the contents of all chapters to this volume.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This fact appears all the more sobering when consumption-based data—instead of territorial statistics—are considered (see e.g., Bruckner et al. 2012; Peters et al. 2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Santarius

  2. Western Norway Research Institute, Sogndal, Norway

    Hans Jakob Walnum & Carlo Aall

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  1. Tilman Santarius
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  2. Hans Jakob Walnum
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  3. Carlo Aall
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Correspondence to Tilman Santarius .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. for Ecological Economy Research, Free University of Berlin and Inst. for Ecological Economy Research, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Santarius

  2. Western Norway Research Institute , Sogndal, Norway

    Hans Jakob Walnum

  3. Western Norway Research Institute , Sogndal, Norway

    Carlo Aall

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Santarius, T., Walnum, H.J., Aall, C. (2016). Introduction: Rebound Research in a Warming World. In: Santarius, T., Walnum, H., Aall, C. (eds) Rethinking Climate and Energy Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38807-6_1

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