Globally, new forms of electromobility are challenging established transport technologies based on internal combustion engines. The authors explore how this transition is simultaneously unfolding in four countries, enabling them to shed some light on the dynamics and determinants of technological path creation. The paper's analysis covers two old industrialized countries (France and Germany) and two newly industrialized countries (China and India) with very different market conditions and policy frameworks. It reveals enormously different choices of technologies and business models and traces them back to four main drivers of divergence: technological capabilities, demand conditions, political priorities and economic governance.
This paper asks what insights the literature provides on divergence versus convergence of innovation paths in Europe and Asia. It contrasts the abundant literature on determinants of innovation paths with the scarcity of studies that are explicitly comparative across countries or continents. Implicit conclusions however emerge from several lines of work including evolutionary perspectives which stress differences in national conditions, and other perspectives which stress latecomer and globalisation effects. This paper distils and draws together the main conclusions on why innovation paths can be expected to diverge or converge. Its contribution lies in spelling out and bringing together implicit and explicit insights from a wide range of literatures. It also provides an analytical backdrop for some of the other papers in this special issue of Science and Public Policy which provide comparative empirical analyses of low carbon innovation paths.
This paper analyses the role of behavioural factors for the energy management of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Sub-Sahara Africa for the first time. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions in Uganda, it finds that behavioural barriers impeding energy efficiency contribute to the limited performance of MSEs in Uganda. Limited self-control and short-term thinking, habits, a status quo bias and a lack of trust impede the uptake of energy efficiency, while first-hand experience with efficient technology, implementation intentions and social learning can be conducive. Behavioural insights on energy efficiency therefore present another piece of the puzzle on MSE performance.
This paper analyses the interdependency of water and energy in India’s wastewater sector. Wastewater treatment plants consume a great deal of energy. Energy-efficient technologies are available, but are only spreading slowly in developing countries. In India, only 10% of all wastewater generated is treated, while energy demand is soaring. The case for investments in energy-efficient solutions thus seems clear. This case study analyses under which conditions and with which instruments integrated approaches to the water, energy and food (land) sectors (WEF-Nexus) are useful in various different wastewater systems across the country. It focuses on the identification of existing drivers of and barriers to the diffusion of energy-efficient technologies in India’s urban wastewater sector, uncovering how investments in resource- and lifecycle-oriented solutions could be enhanced.
Transforming the world economy towards sustainability, while ensuring decent levels of resource use for all global citizens, is the greatest challenge of our time. This book explores how innovation systems need to be adapted to successfully confront these challenges. The first chapter introduces the concept of sustainability-oriented innovation systems which highlights the systematic differences between systems that have developed along current resource-intensive technological trajectories and those that address the impending environmental mega-problems. The subsequent articles present case studies of sustainability-oriented innovations in a number of policy areas, including energy efficiency, electric mobility and generation of renewable energy, in China and India. These case studies confirm the specificities of innovation systems geared towards a green techno-economic paradigm.