The COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine have impacted the global economy, including the energy sector. The pandemic caused drastic fluctuations in energy demand, oil price shocks, disruptions in energy supply chains, and hampered energy investments, while the war left the world with energy price hikes and energy security challenges. The long-term impacts of these crises on low-carbon energy transitions and mitigation of climate change are still uncertain but are slowly emerging. This paper analyzes the impacts throughout the energy system, including upstream fuel supply, renewable energy investments, demand for energy services, and implications for energy equity, by reviewing recent studies and consulting experts in the field. We find that both crises initially appeared as opportunities for low-carbon energy transitions: the pandemic by showing the extent of lifestyle and behavioral change in a short period and the role of science-based policy advice, and the war by highlighting the need for greater energy diversification and reliance on local, renewable energy sources. However, the early evidence suggests that policymaking worldwide is focused on short-term, seemingly quicker solutions, such as supporting the incumbent energy industry in the post-pandemic era to save the economy and looking for new fossil fuel supply routes for enhancing energy security following the war. As such, the fossil fuel industry may emerge even stronger after these energy crises creating new lock-ins. This implies that the public sentiment against dependency on fossil fuels may end as a lost opportunity to translate into actions toward climate-friendly energy transitions, without ambitious plans for phasing out such fuels altogether. We propose policy recommendations to overcome these challenges toward achieving resilient and sustainable energy systems, mostly driven by energy services
The central role of science and robust data sets as a means for advancing sustainable development has gained traction across science and policy communities globally. Furthermore, strengthening the science-policy interface in ways that link scientific knowledge production and societal problem solving requires both inter-disciplinary collaborations, as well as collaboration between researchers and extra-scientific actors. The paucity of data and understanding of the distinctive dynamics shaping Africa's urban transition provide an increasing impetus for engaging alternate and inclusive knowledge partnerships. Whilst the number of knowledge collaborations across African cities is increasing steadily, critical engagement with the practice of transdisciplinary approaches and the potential these alternate knowledge configurations might have for steering Africa's urban future(s) is limited. Drawing on the application of transdisciplinary approaches across 11 projects from the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA 2030 Africa) programme on Advancing the implementation of SDG 11 in cities in Africa, this paper provides insights into the role of transdisciplinary approaches in bridging between local projects and global agendas. Evidence from the LIRA programme illustrates a positive relationship between carefully and purposefully constituted project teams who engage deeply with local contexts and the relevance of the resulting interventions. The common but differentiated experiences across the LIRA projects make it clear that the future of African urbanism is not singular but differentiated according to different local contexts. These projects simultaneously address the conceptual and service delivery deficits in local areas, whilst highlighting blind spots in global policy agendas that are misaligned to the complexity of African cities. The significance of transdisciplinary approaches that link the “what” to the “how” of urban change, is found to be critical in data poor post-colonial contexts, which are urgently in need of evidence-based policy reform shaping the reconfiguration of service delivery mechanisms. Finally, the significance of transdisciplinary research by early career scholars in and of Africa serves to shift the political economy of research on Africa, contributing to the transformative potential of urban experimentation in bridging between the global and the local.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.