Governing Sustainability Transitions: Technology Phase-outs in Germany and Japan is a comparative and interdisciplinary research project on phase-outs as an important aspect of sustainability transitions.

Technology is essential for achieving the sustainability transitions, including a fundamental restructuring of the energy and transport systems in place. Efforts are required to accelerate the abolishment (i.e. phase-out) of old technologies that are problematic from a sustainability perspective such as nuclear power plants, fossil fuel powerplants and internal combustion engines (ICEs)

Initially focused on comparing phase-out governance in Germany and Japan, travel restrictions during the pandemic did not allow for fieldwork trips abroad. As a result, the project focus shifted to more conceptual work. Phase-out as a governance approach is receiving increasing attention, but has thus far remained conceptually weak. Hence, the aim of this project is twofold:

1)      To provide an overview of the scholarly debate on phase-outs
2)      To identify drivers and hurdles for real-life phase outs across cases.

Duration: January 2022 – March 2024
Funding Source: DAAD and JSP

Project Team

International Partners

Greg Trencher, Prof Dr. Hiroshi Ohta 

Both are currently Guest Researchers at the Chair of Environmental and Climate Policy

Publications

Trencher, Gregory; Rinscheid, Adrian; Rosenbloom, Daniel; Koppenborg, Florentine; Truong, Nhi; Temocin, Pinar: The evolution of “phase-out” as a bridging concept for sustainability: From pollution to climate change. One Earth 6 (7), 2023, 854-871 more… Full text ( DOI

Another publication in progress is a Special Issue on Phase-Out Policies by Florentine Koppenborg, Adrian Rinscheid, Greg Trencher and Miranda Schreurs.