| 1. |
- Bauer, Fredric, et al.
(författare)
-
Miljöforskare: ”Industrins klimatomställning måste gå snabbare”
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Ny teknik. - 0550-8754.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- DEBATT. Svensk industri tar flera lovande initiativ, men omställningen går alldeles för långsamt – och i vissa branscher märks den knappt alls, skriver sju miljöforskare.
|
|
| 2. |
- Maltais, Aaron
(författare)
-
Failing international climate politics and the fairness of going first
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0032-3217 .- 1467-9248. ; 62:3, s. 618-633
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There appear to be few ways available to improve the prospects for international cooperation to address the threat of global warming within the very short time frame for action. I argue that the most effective and plausible way to break the ongoing pattern of delay in the international climate regime is for economically powerful states to take the lead domestically and demonstrate that economic welfare is compatible with rapidly decreasing GHG emissions. However, the costs and risks of acting first can be very large. This raises the question of whether it is fair to expect some states to go far ahead of others in an effort to improve the conditions for cooperation. I argue that a costly obligation to act unilaterally and to accept weak initial reciprocity can be justified and does not violate standards of fair burden sharing. Rather, the costs of creating the underlying conditions within which we can hope to achieve meaningful international cooperation are non-ideal burdens for which we can appropriately assign fair shares.
|
|
| 3. |
- Maltais, Aaron, 1974-
(författare)
-
Global Warming and Our Natural Duties of Justice : A cosmopolitan political conception of justice
- 2008
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Compelling research in international relations and international political economy on global warming suggests that one part of any meaningful effort to radically reverse current trends of increasing green house gas (GHG) emissions is shared policies among states that generate costs for such emissions in many if not most of the world’s regions. Effectively employing such policies involves gaining much more extensive global commitments and developing much stronger compliance mechanism than those currently found in the Kyoto Protocol. In other words, global warming raises the prospect that we need a global form of political authority that could coordinate the actions of states in order to address this environmental threat. This in turn suggests that any serious effort to mitigate climate change will entail new limits on the sovereignty of states. In this book I focus on the normative question of whether or not we have clear moral reasons to bind ourselves together in such a supranational form of political association. I argue that one can employ familiar liberal arguments for the moral legitimacy of political order at the state level to show that we do have a duty to support such a global political project. Even if one adopts the premises employed by the most influential forms of liberal scepticism to the ideas of global political and distributive justice, such as those advanced by John Rawls and Thomas Nagel, it is clear that the threat of global warming has expanded the scope of justice. We now have a global and demanding duty of justice to create the political conditions that would allow us to collectively address our impact on the Earth’s atmosphere.
|
|
| 4. |
- Maltais, Aaron
(författare)
-
Global warming and the cosmopolitan political conception of justice
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Environmental Politics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0964-4016 .- 1743-8934. ; 17:4, s. 592-609
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Within the literature in green political theory on global environmental threats one can often find dissatisfaction with liberal theories of justice. This is true even though liberal cosmopolitans regularly point to global environmental problems as one reason for expanding the scope of justice beyond the territorial limits of the state. One of the causes for scepticism towards liberal approaches is that many of the most notable anti-cosmopolitan theories are also advanced by liberals. In this paper, I first explain why one of the strongest expressions of liberal anti-cosmopolitanism cannot simply be dismissed because it may fail to support desired environmental ends. The political conception of justice represents one of the most important challenges to cosmopolitanism generally and is thus a serious challenge to viewing global environmental problems in terms of cosmopolitan justice. Second, I will show through the case of anthropogenic global warming that the political conception of justice under current conditions does have clear cosmopolitan implications despite its proponents' claims.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Maltais, Aaron, et al.
(författare)
-
Policy priorities for mobilizing investment in Swedish green industrial transitions
- 2022
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In its latest assessment reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stresses that there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity for global action to prevent and adapt to climate change and that mitigation and adaptation is needed now. The Swedish Climate Policy Council has stated that a transition has been initiated in Sweden, and national emissions have been cut by about 35% since 1990. Still an acceleration of this transition is needed to reach the national target of net-zero emissions by 2045. Industry is responsible for about a third of Sweden’s greenhouse gas emissions, and investments in deep emissions cuts in this sector are key for reaching the national target. This involves investments in innovative technologies that enable increased efficiency in the use of materials and energy, increased circularity, and fuel and feedstock switches. For most industrial sectors several pathways are being implemented, although there remain large uncertainties and risks associated with the options they are pursuing.The implementation of new technologies will often increase both capital needs and operating costs and there might be periods of elevated working capital as investments in new technologies have to overlap old production processes while verifying new solutions. Moreover, industrial sites have long lifetimes and long investment cycles. As a result, investments in technological and production changes that bring deep emissions cuts in heavy industry risk older assets having to be written off prematurely. Details are scarce on the extent to which capital investment entails a challenge for industrial transition and if so how to handle these challenges. The aim of this report is to better understand the key challenges for investments in technological and production changes that bring deep emissions cuts in heavy industry in Sweden. We investigate this matter from the perspective of both industry actors and actors from the financial sector. Our key research questions are: • Is the size of the capital investments needed for green industrial production a significant challenge for bringing about these transitions in Sweden?• What are the most important challenges for actors’ willingness to invest in deep green industrial transitions and investors’ willingness to provide financing for those investments?• What policies do industrial and financial actors think can best support the willingness to invest in and provide financing for deep green industrial transitions in Sweden? The report focuses on Sweden and the heavy industries that account for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions: iron and steel, cement, refining and chemicals. We also include the pulp and paper industry in this study given that it is a large industrial point source of biogenic CO2 emissions (through the combustion of bio-fuels) and has the potential to contribute to meeting the national net-zero target with so-called “negative emissions”.The study focuses on technological alternatives that can lead to radical reductions of direct emissions. This means that incremental energy efficiency measures and reduced demand, although important, are not considered. Our results are based on interviews with representatives from key industrial firms and financial firms and institutions. Our main results and recommendations: 1. Neither the scale of investments nor access to financing are significant obstacles to deep green industrial transformation. Our key finding is that neither the scale of capital investments in deep green industrial transition nor access to financing to make these investments are perceived to be significant obstacles by industry or financial actors. The scale of investments is large and for many industrial actors there are needs for direct support for early-stage development of new technologies and production processes. However, given a viable business case for green industrial products, capital requirements and access to finance do not appear to be critical obstructions once companies are prepared for commercial level deployments. Instead, our interviewees emphasized issues related to creating market demand and infrastructure and permitting processes as most important for enabling investments in deep green industrial transitions.2. Loan guarantees are an appropriate method of risk sharing for commercial-scale investments in deep green industrial transitions. According to our results, industry and financial actors find that existing direct financial support mechanisms and government credit guarantees are appropriate support and risk sharing tools. Our results do not point to any specific and new financing support mechanisms that industry and financial actors would like government to put in place. However, respondents did indicate that the scale of government support, both direct financial support and financial risk sharing, may need to be ramped up as industrial decarbonization pathways move from early stages to demonstration and commercial deployment.3. Policies for improving the terms of financing will not likely play a large role in mobilizing the willingness to invest in deep green industrial transitions. Industrial and financial actors stated that securing financing for green industrial transitions will likely not be a challenge when the business case for making these investments is in place. Improving the terms of financing was not prioritized among our respondents as a key lever for improving business cases. Favourable financing terms certainly contribute, but our respondents pointed to issues of market demand, direct financial support for early development, infrastructure and permitting policies as much more important. As such, decision-makers should focus on these areas for the largest effects. Importantly, our respondents’ comparatively minor concerns regarding financing should be understood in the context of the early stage of development of deep green industrial transition. As many of the major investment decisions have yet to be made, our results may not reflect challenges that could occur at the point of commercial deployment. Moreover, it is very difficult to predict how financial markets will develop over the long timeframes over which investments in deep green industrial transitions are needed. As such it is still too early to make a judgement on the extent to which policy efforts could be needed to mobilize financing towards these transitions.4. If needs for new financing solutions become apparent over time, public authorities will likely need to take a leadership role and set in motion proposals and dialogue with relevant private actors. We did not find developed ideas among industry or financial actor respondents for new financing solutions for green industrial transitions. This reflects both the perspective that financing is not a major obstacle and the early stage of development and deployment in some sectors. Because our results did not find forward-looking strategies in this area, decision-makers can contribute to green industrial transitions by tasking public authorities with investigating potential needs, gaps and innovative financing solutions for green industry transitions for future stages of deployment when capital requirements can become very high.5. Policymakers should focus on market formation efforts. Particularly important are efforts at the European Union level to ensure that carbon price signals are high enough to create business cases for green industrial products and that efforts to prevent carbon leakage maintain fair competition. Our results show that the key policy space for mobilizing investments into green industry is in supporting market formation and demand for green industrial products. As confidence in technological solutions advances, more attention is focused on how the increased costs of green production can be transferred to end consumers. The most desired market generation policies from both industry and finance are general policies like carbon taxes combined with measures to protect the competitiveness of industries, for example a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM).6. The methods for and extent of demand-generating policies should be considered sector by sector as there may be divergence on the degree to which general policies and bottom-up approaches achieve the desired pace of change in different sectors. In addition to general market formation efforts, some actors emphasized demand generation policies directed at specific sectors, motivated by the different prerequisites for transition in those sectors. For example, public procurement policies for green industrial products were put forward as important for the cement sector especially. Another example, particularly important for the refining sector, are the policies requiring the blending of biofuels into petrol and diesel, which are already being implemented.7. Both investors and policymakers should continue to push for companies to deliver transparency and target setting with respect to their scope 3 emissions. Working with value chains to create demand for green industrial products can accelerate the pace of transitions as has been proven in the case of green steel production in Sweden. Repeating this dynamic in other emissions-intensive industrial sectors is crucial. Our respondents emphasize that setting targets for emissions reduction and transparent reporting about progress towards these targets are important to stimulate transition not only of individual firms but also of whole value chains.8. Government should continue with its existing financial support mechanism, reviewing financing needs periodically, and work to ensure that Swedish industry is able to access support measures at the EU level. Although our respondents indicated that access to financing for commercial deployment (assuming good market demand indications) is good, publ
|
|
| 7. |
- Maltais, Aaron
(författare)
-
Radically non-ideal climate politics and the obligation to at least vote green
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Environmental Values. - 0963-2719 .- 1752-7015. ; 22:5, s. 589-608
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Obligations to reduce one's green house gas emissions appear to be difficult to justify prior to large-scale collective action because an individual's emissions have virtually no impact on the environmental problem. However, I show that individuals' emissions choices raise the question of whether or not they can be justified as fair use of what remains of a safe global emissions budget. This is true both before and after major mitigation efforts are in place. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to establish an obligation to reduce personal emissions because it appears unlikely that governments will in fact maintain safe emissions budgets. The result, I claim, is that under current conditions we lack outcome, fairness, promotional, virtue or duty based grounds for seeing personal emissions reductions as morally obligatory.
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Maltais, Aaron, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
-
The Demos and Its Critics
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Review of Politics. - 0034-6705 .- 1748-6858. ; 81:3, s. 435-457
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The “demos paradox” is the idea that the composition of a demos could never secure democratic legitimacy because the composition of a demos cannot itself be democratically decided. Those who view this problem as unsolvable argue that this insight allows them to adopt a critical perspective towards common ideas about who has legitimate standing to participate in democratic decision-making. We argue that the opposite is true and that endorsing the demos paradox actually undermines our ability to critically engage with common ideas about legitimate standing. We challenge the conception of legitimacy that lurks behind the demos paradox and argue that the real impossibility is to endorse democracy without also being committed to significant procedure-independent standards for the legitimate composition of the demos. We show that trying to solve the problem of the demos by appeal to some normative conception of democratic legitimacy is a worthwhile project that is not undermined by paradox.
|
|
| 10. |
- Maltais, Aaron, et al.
(författare)
-
The Demos and Its Critics
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Review of Politics. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 0034-6705 .- 1748-6858. ; 81:3, s. 435-457
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The “demos paradox” is the idea that the composition of a demos could never secure democratic legitimacy because the composition of a demos cannot itself be democratically decided. Those who view this problem as unsolvable argue that this insight allows them to adopt a critical perspective towards common ideas about who has legitimate standing to participate in democratic decision-making. We argue that the opposite is true and that endorsing the demos paradox actually undermines our ability to critically engage with common ideas about legitimate standing. We challenge the conception of legitimacy that lurks behind the demos paradox and argue that the real impossibility is to endorse democracy without also being committed to significant procedure-independent standards for the legitimate composition of the demos. We show that trying to solve the problem of the demos by appeal to some normative conception of democratic legitimacy is a worthwhile project that is not undermined by paradox.
|
|
