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11.
Climate engineering research attracts Slippery Slope concerns – the idea that initial research will inevitably lead to inappropriate deployment. Some have dismissed it as an unrealistic, unproductive critique. However, extant climate engineering discussions of the Slippery Slope discuss an unorganised set of different causal mechanisms with little detail. These range from technological cost reduction, to the creation of special interest lobby groups, to normalisation across society and policymakers. Dismissing the Slippery Slope may be premature if its causal nature is unclear, especially given the potentially high impacts and controversy of global climate engineering deployment. Disaggregating and clarifying the Slippery Slope can reduce unnecessary ambiguity, promote productive debate, and highlight risks that require further attention. Drawing on previous Slippery Slope literature and mechanisms of change from range of disciplines, this paper creates a typology of Slippery Slopes for application to stratospheric aerosol injection and other emerging technologies. Initial research can lead to deployment by 1) sparking price-performance improvements and sunk cost biases, 2) contributing to normalisation and legitimisation, 3) altering power structures, 4) sparking hype, and 5) incrementally progressing development. These feedback loops may currently seem unlikely, but unforeseen dynamics could still trigger rapid development and implementation of stratospheric aerosol injection. Conversely, there is no guarantee one of these Slippery Slopes will occur. The point is that they could – the future is too uncertain to fully dismiss non-linear change, particularly for high impact and accessible technologies like stratospheric aerosol injection. This can provide direction and clarity for effective technology governance and Slippery Slope discussion. Furthermore, this typology differentiates the Slippery Slope from lock-in and highlights their interaction points. Slippery Slope dynamics are processes that can (but are not guaranteed to) lead to different types of lock-in. Lock-in is when a technology is entrenched in existing sociotechnical systems. Given the risks of unchecked undesired lock-in, lock-in is a state to be encouraged instead of avoided. 相似文献
12.
Fossil fuel subsidies are a key barrier for economic development and climate change mitigation. While the plunge in international fuel prices has increased the political will to introduce fossil fuel subsidy reforms, recently introduced reforms may risk backsliding when fuel prices rebound − particularly if they fail to address the underlying mechanisms that create demand for low fossil fuel prices. Extant literature has mostly focused on the consequences of fossil fuel subsidies, including their economic or environmental impact, and the social contract that make their reform difficult. In this paper, we complement the extant literature with a socio-technical perspective of fossil fuel subsidies to explore the systemic mechanisms that often keep subsidies in place and how these mechanisms can be weakened. Specifically, in case studies of the electricity sectors in South Africa and Tunisia, we trace the socio-technical foundations of their fossil fuel subsidy regimes and the potential of renewable energy policy in disrupting this regime We discuss the relevance of our results for national policymakers wishing to implement and international actors wishing to support fossil fuel subsidy reform. In particular, we highlight that the socio-technical perspective of fossil fuel subsidies offers new intervention points for subsidy reform and that policy designs and assistance should strengthen technologies and actors that are most likely to destabilize the fossil fuel subsidy regime. 相似文献
13.
This interdisciplinary paper presents an empirical analysis of techno-institutional lock-in in a regional fishery, in the Logone floodplain in the Far North Region of Cameroon. In the Logone floodplain, one fishing technique is spreading exponentially even though it is changing the social, hydrological and ecological dynamics of the system in ways that are largely considered problematic by local communities. We use a complex systems framework to analyze large hydrological and socio-economic datasets. Results show how social-ecological feedbacks foster the spread of the technique and contribute to the process of lock-in. The lock-in leads to a resistance to change despite awareness of the technique’s impact, a situation that may also be described as a social-ecological trap. We identify and explain four kinds of positive feedback loops relating to socio-economic, behavioral, demographic and hydrological processes, respectively. We also identify possible solutions that consider the complexity of the feedback loops across multiple dimensions of the floodplain system. 相似文献