Pathways to Decarbonization Workshop – Climate Change
The goal for the workshop is to develop concrete ideas about pathways to move societies and economies toward decarbonization. Our starting point is that there is much knowledge about what decarbonization requires and about the technology to achieve it. Many also argue that this technology is already available. However, research and prescriptions on what decarbonization technically requires (end points) have not been matched by an understanding of the pathways of social and economic change required to get there, or on the process of changing policies to support such change. Such an understanding is fundamental to decarbonization since our carbon-centred energy systems and economies, as well as the policies that have supported their development, are strongly path dependent with many reinforcing features and appear resistant to change. Thus, the goal of our workshop is not to determine what is required – on which the climate change research community largely agrees – but on what is needed to get there. To that end, we very consciously wish to move beyond the incremental versus radical change debate that has side-tracked the pragmatic question of how to overcome the stubborn resistance of our political, economic and social systems to the change we fundamentally agree is required.
CUSA Participants:
- Beth Karlin-Director, CUSA TML
- Mark Halle-CUSA Advisory Board Member