SUS-POL: Supply-Side Policies for Fossil Fuels

Lead Research Organisation: University of Sussex
Department Name: Sch of Global Studies

Abstract

To achieve the goals of the Paris agreement on climate change, a radically new approach to climate governance is needed. The
regulation of end-use emissions is no longer an adequate approach since a large proportion of remaining fossil fuels need to remain
in the ground through supply-side policies (SUS-POL). This research considers how policies have been adopted to date by 'first mover'
countries to limit the supply of fossil fuels and what pathways and mechanisms might support their wider adoption. Resistance to
such policies is widespread and establishing the conditions for their wider uptake is an ambitious endeavor, but a vital one if we are
to address the climate crisis.

This research will provide the first attempt to identify the political-economic and socio-cultural conditions and processes that give rise
to innovative policies focused on reducing fossil fuel supply. The aim is to understand what motivates early adopters of policies to
curtail fossil fuel extraction; to explore how these new policies might spread to other countries, including via international
governance regimes, and to understand the nature of resistance to them. This project thus has two objectives: (1) to develop a global
political economy account based on an integrative and inter-disciplinary understanding of the dynamics driving new national policies
by identifying key interacting political-economic and socio-cultural factors and the regional and international geopolitical contexts
which shape policies aimed at limiting fossil fuel extraction (2) To explore political pathways for expanding these early successful
efforts to other fossil fuel producing nations, including via international regimes. To achieve this, it will develop a quantitative analysis
of supply-side policies supported by the production of a novel dataset and combine this with both primary qualitative research in a
number of first mover countries and forward-looking scoping of future pathways.

Publications

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Newell P (2024) Understanding supply-side climate policies: towards an interdisciplinary framework in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics