Knowledge claims in European Union energy policies : Unknown knowns and uncomfortable awareness
Giampietro, Mario (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Bukkens, Sandra (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date:	2022
Abstract:	Despite the concerted efforts of the scientific community and politicians to contain greenhouse gas emissions, the CO level in the atmosphere continues to increase monotonically. This raises the question whether the scientific representations and related knowledge claims used to inform energy policy have been incomplete or incorrect. Are there alternative relevant knowledge claims that have been overlooked or ignored in the discussion of energy policies and if so, why? We answer these questions by elaborating three case studies, energy efficiency improvements, liquid biofuels, and decarbonization of electricity, and using a novel procedure for quality checking policy narratives that is based in post-normal science and developed in the EU project Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing NEXUS Security (MAGIC). The focus of our approach is on the coherence of the why (concerns or justifications), what ("solution"), and how ("scientific evidence") of energy policies. We show that for all cases studied alternative knowledge claims, mostly derived from the relatively new field of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, would be available for better informing energy policy, but that they are unknown knowns in the chosen framing of the issues. We conclude that the idea that the various concerns identified in EU energy policy can be solved simultaneously is unrealistic. This idea can only persist by virtue of banishing uncomfortable knowledge and the creation of implausible socio-technical imaginaries. When considering different aspects of the problem and integrating different narratives and knowledge claims, a smooth and painless transition to a zero-carbon economy seems unlikely.
Grants:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-230 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEX2019-000940-M European Commission 689669
Note:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Uncomfortable knowledge ; Unknown knowns ; Knowledge claims ; Energy analysis ; Energy policy ; Post-normal science
Published in:	Energy research & social science, Vol. 91 (September 2022) , art. 102739, ISSN 2214-6296

DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102739

13 p, 1.4 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles