Welcome to the winter issue from the EEIST team!

Dear EEIST Community,

As winter truly bites in the UK the team are in the final stages of writing the next EEIST report, which will complement the first two reports: The New Economics of Innovation and Transition: Evaluating Opportunities and Risks, launched at COP26 last November; the Ten Principles for Policymaking in the Energy Transition, which launched at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum in Pittsburgh, USA in September.  The third report will focus on new economic models of innovation and transition and will incorporate case studies from all of EEIST's territorities in Brazil, China, India, the EU and the UK.  We hope that the third report will be as successful as the first two, and will build on growing our communities and networks even wider.  

EEIST hosted a well-received event at the UK Pavilion at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, helped by a truly international panel comprising some of EEIST's partners, including Professor Wang Zhongying, The Director General of the Energy Research Institute.  India was represented by Vidhu Kapur from TERI (the Energy and Resources Institute) and Subrata Chakrabarty from World Resources Institute.  The UK was represented by Alistair Phillips-Davies, CEO of SSE,  UK Pavilion sponsor, (for more information click here). 

There are numerous events to look forward to in our Communities of Practice in next few months.  For all of this sustained hard work and collaboration between so many talented partners, the leadership team would like to thank you and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The EEIST Project Management Team

EEIST's second report successfully launched

Since the autumn newsletter, The EEIST team's second deliverable: 10 principles for policymaking in the energy transition has been successfully launched on September 22nd at GCEAF in Pittsburgh. 

The report's launch campaign was led by Greenhouse PR and funded by Founders Pledge.  Highlights of this highly successful campaign include securing more than 130 articles, reaching 4 billion people and securing 3.7m coverage views globally. The report was downloaded from the website over 1,460 times.  

This report is a combination of all the work of EEIST partners and outlines ten principles for successful policy-making on low carbon transitions. Based on detailed empirical evidence, these 10 principles overturn conventional wisdom and suggest a new way forward that can help countries accelerate innovation, job-creation, and cost reduction in the shift from fossil fuels to clean technologies.  For more details on this event, and to watch the presentation, please click here.

EEIST's new report is available in full in Chinese and Portuguese.  The executive summary is available in Spanish. 

EEIST's third report to be published in March '23 

EEIST's third report is in the process of being written, and will focus on new economic models of innovation and transition.  This report will incorporate case studies from all of EEIST's territorities in Brazil, China, India and the EU as well as the UK.  The third report will build on growing EEIST communities and networks in each of the territories worked in, and potentially even wider.

Updates from EEIST's International Partners

Brazil

The Brazil team are currently organising a high level workshop for March which will involve the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, University of Campinas and the Federal University of Brasilia. The event will take place at the National Congress in Brasilia around the end of February/beginning of March.  This will be the second in-person workshop, following the successful event run by the team in Rio de Janeiro in August this year.

China

The China team launched EEIST's latest report, 10 principles for policymaking in the energy transtion on 27th of October. This event was held jointly by EEIST and Tsinghua University. Chinese stakeholders from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China Center for Information Industry Development, Energy Research Insititute (ERI), and National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation joined the discussion of the ten principles laid out in the report.

The workshop on China's power market reform waw held by EEIST and Tsinghua University on 19th and 20th of December. Chinese stakeholders from State Grid were invited to join the discussion.

The report of carbon pricing is being written up by Oxford University together with ERI and Beijing Normal University (BNU), which will be an input into new report launching in March.
On the engagement with GIEC, Python code on Wrights law parameters and MC sample path class has been sent to them for helping to develop a local energy system model for Guangdong Province.

India

The India team recently arranged a two-day workshop consisting of interdisciplinary science-policy conversations, panel discussions and presentations followed by open discussions around specific policy questions relevant for India. In attendance were the Ministry of Power, International Solar Alliance, IIT Kanpur, the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, Central Electricity Authority, Power Finance Corporation, Niti Aayog, Observer Research Foundation, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, alongside EEIST members from the University College London, University of Exeter, World Research Institute, TERI, and the UNFCCC.

The sessions explored the following specific issues:

• What technology mix for power generation in India is likely to enable the supply of low-cost electricity over the coming years & decades?
• What market reforms are needed to support the supply of reliable low-cost electricity as renewables provide a greater share of generation?
• What policy interventions could most cost effectively support the increased deployment of energy storage in the power sector?

..continued in events below

UK

The Zero Emission Vehicles workshop has been postponed, and the team will be in touch soon with a new date for this.  More workshops will be planned in the new year.

Europe

The first of three papers from the initial set of interviews with EU policyworkers and modellers has now been accepted in Energy Policy. “Masters of the machinery: The politics of economic modelling within European Union energy policy” (Royston, Foulds, Jones & Pasqualino) illuminates the politics of economic modelling within European Union (EU) energy policymaking, focusing on dynamics of contestation, differentiated influence and power relations within models’ a) framing of questions and problems; b) framing of scenarios and solutions; c) structural assumptions and d) definition of quantitative data inputs. We then consider deeper questions of e) access and exclusion, showing how modelling is used to silence critical voices and reinforce incumbent interests. We argue that understanding this politics of modelling is crucial to the implementation of sustainable energy transitions.

EEIST at UK Pavilion at COP27 in Egypt

Simon Sharpe, Policy Impact lead on the EEIST project presented the latest report 10 principles for policymaking in the energy transition: lessons from experience at the UK pavilion at COP27 on November 11th in Egypt.  This was live-streamed on the UK Government website.
The report identifies ten principles of policymaking in the energy transition, and analyses the lessons learnt in the past, and some suggestions for the future.
Chris Skidmore MP, Head of the Government’s Net Zero Review,  introduced the event.  For more information on this event click here. 

European Commission’s Just Transition Platform conference at the Charlemagne, in Brussels

Prof. Chris Foulds (ARU) was invited to help open the European Commission’s Just Transition Platform conference at the Charlemagne, in Brussels. He spoke alongside Commissioners Simpson (DG Energy) and Ferreira (DG Regions) in raising the profile of justice issues in the energy transition, in particular when seeking policy changes in response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Chris flagged the importance of considering EEIST’s 10 policymaking principles. EC policy actors were especially interested in different definitions and approaches to vulnerability, and how that tallied with the sorts of evidence projects like EEIST could provide.

India Workshop

(Continued from above)    ... The first session focused on modelling-based evidence on Cost effective technology mix for the power sector where three models for the EEIST consortium were compared in terms of outputs around the possible future configuration of the energy mix in India. The models were the Hybrid Econometric (E3ME), System Dynamics (FTT Power, FTT Transport and EPS) and an optimization model (Markal). A number of relevant policies were considered and presented to the audience. Among those the E3ME-FTT model had been used both to model power transition in India, storage energy scenarios linked to renewable transition and Zero Electric Vehicles scenarios of energy transport in India. This informed two panel discussions around the Role of Policy and technology for the Indian Electricity market and the type of policies required to support energy storage in India.

The result was an evident increase in the appetite of the Indian institutions in approaching complex issues with more appropriate models rather than the traditional ones as those proposed in the EEIST consortium and high impact research.

                                                                                                      This picture is from the event

New Paper published with PNAS - Climate change and the nonlinear impact of precipitation anomalies on income inequality

Using global data on inequality and climate indicators, we show that rainfall anomalies increase income inequality within countries that are heavily dependent on agriculture. Projections show that income inequality will particularly worsen in Africa, increasingly harming development. Climate change will increase regional disparities in specific areas, such as Europe, while hurting economic growth in most countries. Our findings underline the urgent need for mitigation and adaptation policies coupled with interventions to tackle inequalities and foster sustainable growth, especially in highly exposed areas.

Authors: Elisa Palagi, Matteo Coronese, Francesco Lamperti and Andrea Roventini

Read more 

Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance

Author: Jean-François Mercure, The World Bank

The book Complexity Economics for Environmental Governance explores how we currently inform climate and environmental policy to better understand why we are making so little progress. The book proposes a major re-design of economic and policy analysis approaches and methods that makes sense to policy-makers and that effectively addresses the real emerging socio-economic and political constraints involved in developing climate and environmental policy.

Find out more

Our newsletter is published quarterly: please send news and events to Sarah Board: s.board@exeter.ac.uk by 12th March at the latest.  The next newsletter will be published at the end of March 2023.