Energy Transitions: Low-Carbon Pathways for Growth and Sustainability
About the Project
Energy Transitions: Low-Carbon Pathways for Growth and Sustainability examines how developing countries are balancing their development priorities, particularly an ever-growing demand for energy, with the mounting need for carbon mitigation. Through the case studies of the Indian state of Gujarat, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, the project will explore the complementarities between development and low-carbon transitions within the sectors of electricity generation and access, transport, and industry. Furthermore, it explicitly recognizes the challenges and opportunities of a low-carbon transition inherent in a policy environment that prioritizes economic growth and a structural environment of rapid urbanization.
By understanding successful examples of growth and mitigation, the project will highlight where and how government, industry, and society can create positive feedback loops for stronger climate action and improved development outcomes. Yet each sector in each country is comprised of a unique combination of political, economic, and social actors, necessitating policy innovations specific to that context. The project will draw policy priorities from these specific case studies and challenge the misplaced notion that growth and climate action are incompatible.
The Launch
In September 2019, CSIS held a launch event that featured former Secretary of Energy, the Hon. Ernest Moniz, the Group Chief Executive of BP, Bob Dudley, as well as panelists from the World Bank, Climate Investment Funds and BP, to discuss the challenge of growth-first low-carbon transitions. They discussed how for nearly half a decade, the global community has organized around two goals for the energy sector: (1) eradicate energy poverty and (2) combat the effects of global climate change, and the interlinkages between the two. Whereas these two goals have often been presented in opposition to each other, this event highlighted how this need not be the case.
Current and Future Work
CSIS is currently working with the World Bank, International Energy Agency, Tufts University, and BP, to put together a series of workshops and a final report to be published in late-2020.
This project is made possible by support from BP.